48 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, in 



unfortunately slow in everything, I am afraid if I dissipate 

 myself with going often to town I shall never accomplish 

 my task. 



It is almost a week since I have seen Baugh. He left my 

 precious gown here yesterday but we were out when he 

 called. Nothing can be more brisk than the correspond- 

 ence between him and Mrs W. 1 He has sometimes letters 

 from her twice a week; such mad rhapsody about Mme de 

 Stae'l I never read, but it is design not feeling that pro- 

 duces it. She puts engines to work to get intimate with 

 Madame, and I have no doubt she will succeed. I believe 

 Baugh' s gossip to her has been the cause of bringing 

 Mackintosh and Longman into a scrape with Mme D'Arblay. 

 She wrote a hurt and angry letter to her bookseller for 

 having shewn the proof-sheets of her book to Mackintosh 

 and Mme de Stae'l. That he had done so she had had 

 from undoubted authority. That authority I suspect was 

 Mrs Waddington's, derived from Baugh, but I hope Mack 

 will not know what a gossip he is. ... 



Fanny Allen to her sister Mrs Josiah Wedgwood. 



DULWICH, March 11 [1814]. 



... I am afraid Anne [Caldwell] has now no chance or a 

 very little one of receiving a note from the Baroness. . . . 

 Mackintosh is so good-natured, that I have no doubt if we 

 were to suggest it to him again, he would get Mme de Stae'l 

 to write a note again, or more properly compleat her inten- 

 tion, but I doubt if it is wise for Anne's sake; I have never 

 known any good from thus laying trains for praise or 

 compliments ; it turns somehow or other to mortification in 

 the end. Mme de StaeTs compliment will be in return for 

 Anne's praise, and she will think no more about her, as she 

 has heard nothing of Anne to interest her except that she 

 is her adorer, and Mack told her she was a clever girl in 



1 Mrs Waddington, Madame d'Arblay's " beautiful Miss Port," 

 grand-niece of Mrs Delaney and mother of Frances, Baroness de 

 Buusen. 



