98 POLITICS. [1813. 



TO EARL OBEY. 



"TEMPLE, December 16, 1813. 



"My DEAR LORD GREY, I rejoice to find by your 

 letter that the attack is quite gone ; and though I 

 have little or nothing to say, I write only as a kind of 

 gossiping visit, which a convalescent is supposed to be 

 the better for. As to Lauderdale's new book, I take 

 it for granted your medical men would prohibit it as 

 they would the eating of leather, cod-sounds, or any 

 other equally digestible performance."" By the way, 

 you may hint to him that as Jeffrey on his return 

 from America will find the 'Edinburgh Review ; become 

 quite a series of eloges, he will naturally collect all his 

 venom for the next number, in order to regain his 

 character ; the natural consequence of which will be a 

 massacre of his new book. But, of course, he won't 

 care for that when he reflects that he suffers because 

 such an overpraise has been bestowed on a plain 

 gentlewoman, of some size, rather advanced in life. 

 I am sure his known gallantry towards such characters 

 will reconcile him to this vicarious punishment. This 

 brings me to the said gentlewoman, Madame dc Stael, 

 whom I really think you all overrate. Her book seems 

 terribly vague and general and inaccurate. She 

 certainly follows old Lord Lansdowne's advice in 

 avoiding details f as the more dignified line/ Besides, 

 her presumption is intolerable, and on all subjects, on 

 many of which she can know nothing as, for instance, 

 the German metaphysics, except so far as she may 

 have rubbed some of them off Schlegel. 



" I never have seen her, and shun her as I would an 



* Lauderdale's new book ' The Depreciation of the Paper Currency 

 of Great Britain Proved.' 



