LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 337 



one made by Professor Wilson at a public meeting which had been 

 projected by a number of individuals, to give vent to their senti- 

 ments upon the effect of the reform measures in the contemplation 

 of Government : 



"December 3, 1831. 



" My dear Professor : — I suppose it is to yourself I owe the 

 Edinburgh papers containing your own eloquent and elegant speech. 

 Many thanks ; I admire it much. If you were not born a prince 

 you deserve to be one. Mr. Bolton was here when I was reading 

 it, and he said, ' I do assure you, Miss Watson, that Mr. Canning 

 never made a finer speech, and I shall drink the Professor's health in 

 a bumper to-day.' I really am not capable of understanding what 

 Englishmen mean by all this nonsense. We are like the Bourbons, 

 of whom it may be said, 'that they had learnt nothing by the 

 French Revolution.' Is it possible that the system of equality (at 

 which a child of five years old might laugh) can still delude the 

 minds of men now ? I have no news worth sending ; all is quiet. 

 The cholera frightens no one. We laugh at it as a good joke. God 

 help our merry hearts ! there is something ludicrous in it, I suppose, 

 which I can't find out. Blackwood sent me Robert of Paris, etc., 

 which I am very much pleased to have. I have not begun it yet ; 

 indeed, I am not well, nor would have sent you so dull a letter, but 

 that I could not delay saying how much I was gratified by the papers. 

 Ever believe me yours affectionately, D. Watsox. 



" Kind remembrances to Mrs. Wilson and Margaret. It is bitter, 

 bitter cold in this pretty house. As for you and the Shepherd (to 

 whom I would send my thanks for the most gratifying letter I ever 

 received, but that it is rather too late in the day), I advise you both 

 to shut yourselves up in Ambrose's for a month to come, and keep 

 clear of all the nonsense that will be going on in the shape of Re- 

 form ; and every night put down your conversation, and let me see 

 it in Blackwood. You shall be two philosophers enchanted like 

 Durandarte, and not to be disenchanted till all is over. Truly I do 

 think you eat too many oysters! How much I do like those 

 ' Noctes.' Write one, and let it be a good one. Wordsworth says 

 ' that the booksellers are all aghast ! and that another dark age is 

 coming on.' I think he is not for wrong. He is a wonderful crea- 

 ture when he will deign to be what nature made him, not artificial 

 society. He read one of his poems to me. The subject was some 

 14* 



