1827-1830] Madame de Bunsen on John Allen 209 



the elder girls 1 are excellent, and the second is charming. 

 The rest of the Family are more good than agreeable. I 

 except Hensleigh, who is, I fear, doomed to ill-health. 



John Allen and his sister Fanny were at Geneva in the 

 autumn of 1827 en route for Rome. In Madame de 

 Bunsen's Journal to her mother she wrote : 



3 



Kome, 29 Nov. 1827. 2 



The company of Mr Allen is a real pleasure to me. I 

 am more than ever aware of all that is good and excellent 

 and respectable about him, but his foibles have grown old 

 with him as well as his good qualities, and he is as fond 

 as ever of repeating anecdotes of Brooks's: he has how- 

 ever changed the chit-chat of Holland House for that of 

 Woburn, and the names of Scarlett, Brougham, etc., for 

 those of the Russells and the Seymours. 



Mrs Josiah Wedgwood to her sister Emma Allen at 



Cresselly. 



MAEB, Oct. 3lst, 1827. 



Having just put your letter in the fire, unread by any 

 save Elizabeth and myself, I proceed to answer it, my ever 

 dear Emma. . . . 



It is not like my dear gentle John [Allen] to speak as 

 he does of the Prevost family. We are all accused of a 

 clannish feeling with respect to each other that has a 

 tendency to make us inconsiderate to other people, and 

 I think John's feelings for Caroline [Drewe] blind him, and 

 make him unjust. I was very much amused by a bon mot 

 of Mr. Alderson's, apropos to this subject, which Harriet 

 Gifford told me. Speaking (I believe a little too roughly) 

 on the sort of exclusive feeling that all Caroline's sisters 

 have for her, " I declare," said he, " if / were to break both 

 my legs Mrs Drewe's sisters would only say ' Poor Caroline.' 



1 Elizabeth and Charlotte are the two elder girls. Jos, Frank, 

 Fanny, and Emma would be those who are " more good than agree- 

 able.'' 



2 Life and Letters of Frances, Baroness Bunsen, vol. i., p. 294. 



