Lettersof Anna Seward. 
etigm, snited to the ominous complexion. 
of the umes. 
‘ DEON, THE IMPOSTOR. 
© This is the period of inconceivable 
characters, as well as of unexpected and 
prodigious events. The modern Tha- 
destris is now in this city, Mademoiselle 
le-Chevalier D’Eon, exhibiting, for two 
shillings admittance, her skillin the art 
of attack and defence with the single 
Tapier, 
Melancholy reverse of hu:nan destiny ! 
whatan humiliation for thie aide-de-camp 
of Marshal Broglio!. for the ambassador, 
ene five years, lop the court of France- 
at 
that of Russi For the envoy to 
eur’s, and the principal planner and ne- 
epeeter of the peace of 1782! In the 
zerman war, she lived five years in 
camps and tented fields, amidst the pride, 
the pomp, and circumstance, of high trust 
and glorious contest. In the Ainérican 
war, she was in five battles, fought 
ayvainst Gerera! Elliot, and received six 
wounds; and all this befure her sex was 
discovered. : 
_ A learned from herself, that a destiny 
astonishing was not originally the re- 
sult of voluntary. choice. Her parents 
bred her up asa boy, to avoid losing an 
estate entailed on the heir-male. 
She seems to have a noble, indepen- 
dent, as wellas intrepid, mind; and the 
“guuscular, strength and activity of her 
levee frame at sixty-nine, are wonderful, 
e fences in the French uniform, and 
then appears an athletie, venerable, 
graceful, man. In the female garb, as 
might be expected, she is awkwardly, 
though not vulgarly, masculine. 
In three days she was to have sailed 
. for France, by the order of the late un- 
fortunate monarch, to have resumed her 
mate dress, and to have taken military 
command as General, when the massacre 
atthe Thuilleries, and imprisonment of 
the king, Jamentably frustrated that de- 
sign, and probably dropt an eternal cur-- 
tain over her career of glory.* Adieu! 
adieu! 
LANGOLLEN VALE. 
I resume my pen, to speak to you of, 
that enchanting un.que, in conduct and 
situation, of which,you have heard so 
tauch, though, as yet, without distinct 
description. You will guess that Lmean 
‘the celebrated ladies of Langollen Vale, 
their mansion, and their bowers. 
_» By their own invitatiun, 1 drank tea 
* Alter death, this /ady was foynd to be 
' ef the masculine gender ! 
619. 
with them thrice during the nine days of 
my visit to Dinbren; and,. by their kind 
introduction, partook of a rural dinner, 
given by their friend, Mrs. Ormsby, 
amid the ruins of Valle-Crucis, an an- 
cient abbey, distan gp mile and a half 
from their villa. “Go. party was large 
enough to fill three chaises and two pha- 
etons, 
After dinner, our whole party returned 
to drink tea and coffee in that retreat, 
which breathes all the witchery of genius, 
taste, and sentiment, You remember 
Mr. Hayley’s poetic compliment to ghe | 
sweet miniature painter, Miers: 
¢¢ His magic pencil, in its narrow space, 
Pours the full portion of uninjur’d grace.” 
So may it be said of the talents and ex! 
ertion which converted a cottage, ‘in twa 
acres and a half of turnip ground, ‘to 
fairy-palace, amid the bowers of ‘Ca-' 
lypso. wi 
It consists of four small apartments 3? 
the exquisite cleanliness of the kitchen,’ 
its utensils, and its auxiliary offices, vies! 
ing with the finished elegance of the ga¥, 
the lightsome little dining-room, as that’ 
contrasts the gloomy, yet superior; grace 
of the library, into which it opens. 
This room is fitted up in the Gothie’ 
style, the door and large sashswindows 
of that form, and the latter of painted 
vlass, “ shedding the dim religious light.”! 
Candles are seldom admitted into this 
department, The ingenious friends have 
invented a kind of prismatic lantern, 
which occupies the whole elliptic arch of 
the Gothic door. This lantern is of cut 
glass, variously coloured, enclosing’ twe 
lamps with their reflectors, The light it 
imparts resembles that of a volcano, sane 
guine and solemn. It is assisted by two 
glow-worm lamps, that, in little marble 
reservoirs, stand on the opposite chim- 
ney-piece, and these supply the place of 
the here always chastized day-light, 
when the dusk of evening sables, or \ 
when night wholly involves the thrice- 
lovely solitude. 
A large Eolian harp is fixed in one of 
the windows, and, when the weather 
permits them to be opened, it ‘reathes- 
its deep tones to the gale, swelling and 
softening as that rises and falls. 
«© Ah me! what hand can touch the strings 
so fine, 
Who up the lofty diapason roll 
Such sweet, such sad, such solemn, airs divine, 
And let them down again into the soul !" 
This saloon of the M s\\ vas contains the 
finest editions, superbly bound, of the 
best 
