Letter on Affairs in general. [A?RiL. 



morning, unperceived, with a dishclout; and, just as the pleadings, I bo- 

 lieve, were settled, wiped away the cause of action. 



SYMPATHIES OF Sn KIT. It is curious to observe the species of " free- 

 masonry" the intuitive appreciation and understanding, as it were, of each 

 other which exists among persons who are attached to the same amuse- 

 ments, or who follow the same professions. Your fox-hunter your fisher 

 your smuggler and your pick-pocket, are ail " hail fellow, well met!" 

 when they encounter a brother of the art ; and intimacies are formed, like 

 the loves and friendships in German plays, with a celerity quite incom- 

 prehensible to the uninitiated. There was a charge at the police-office at 

 the Mansion-house, a few weeks since, against a young lady of the name 

 of " Harwood ;" who, finding the attentions of a Mr. Randall, a coal- 

 merchant in Friday-street, less constant than she had encouraged herself 

 to hope, bought a pistol, and resolved to shoot her deserter. Not being 

 much used to field sports although it appears that she practised a little 

 previously, in a wash-house Miss Harwood's pistol only flashed in the 

 pan, when she fired it in Friday-street, and her person was taken into cus- 

 tody. Some question about a " breach of promise of marriage" arising, 

 and an " action," Mr. Randall, I believe, eventually agreed to forego 

 prosecution, and give a sum of money to be clear of the affair. But a 

 morning paper, describing the lady's being brought up from prison to bo 

 discharged, &c. under this arrangement, sums up with the following para- 

 graph : " Miss Harwood seemed in high spirits ; and, it is said, intends 

 to go into the country with * Miss Stafford/ a young female who at- 

 tempted a few nights since to hang herself to some area railings in 

 Bartletfs-buildings, Holborn, Miss H. being much pleased with her 

 society." " Miss Stafford," it appears, was herself then liberated (the ac- 

 quaintance between the parties having commenced in the Poultry-Compter) 

 upon a friend's promising to be security to the magistrate, that, when she 

 hanged herself next, it should not be in the city ! 



Sir Walter Scott has acknowledged, the authorship of the Waverley 

 novels, since my last, which is made a clearing-up of great importance, 

 by those who are cunning in such questions of identity. 1 confess I don't 

 see the great marvel ; for there could hardly be ten sane men in Eng- 

 land who had any doubt about the fact. If any body else had acknow- 

 ledged writing the books, it might have been something. 



New publications have not been striking in the last month. Mr. Col- 

 burn is, as usual, the greatest artist as to quantity ; but his 4 * Vivian 

 Greys," and " Truckleborough Halls," are mere hashes of the gossip 

 of the day, and are hardly remembered from season to season. Mrs. 

 Johnson's Elizabeth de Bruce will outlive twelve generations of these : 

 I like that novel much ; and it will sell better five years hence than it 

 does now. " Marriage" was not read by the million until Sir Walter 

 Scott noticed it. 



* Voila de vos arrets, 



Messieurs les gens de gout, 

 I/ouvrage est peu de chose, 



Et le nomfait tout!" 



Lord Byron's voyage to the Sandwich Islands, to carry home the bodies 

 of the late king and queen of those realms, is out. It is a dull book ; feebly 

 written ; and conveying very little new or interesting information ; and printed 

 most extra extravagantly it has a margin broad enough to be a windingsheet. 



