by several literary men) that the work as a literary production (I repeat what they say, mind) has merit enough to make it desirable that the public should judge of it as a poetical composition before it is submitted to the mangling necessary for the stage.

Of course, my task being finished, I have nothing more to do with it; nor do I care whether it is published first or after, provided only it may be acted:  though I dare say that process may not prove entirely satisfactory to me either; for though Mr. Young and my father would thoroughly embody my conception of the parts intended for them, yet there is a woman’s part which, considering the materials history has furnished, ought to be a very fine one—­Louisa of Savoy; and it must be cut down to the capacity of a second-rate actress.  The character would have been the sort of one for Mrs. Siddons; how I wish she was yet in a situation to afford it the high preferment of her acceptance!

My father has obtained a most unequivocal success in Paris, the more flattering as it was rather doubtful, and the excellent Parisians not only received him very well, but forthwith threw themselves into a headlong furor for Shakespeare and Charles Kemble, which, although they might not improbably do the same to-morrow for two dancing dogs, we are quite willing to attribute to the merits of the poet and his interpreter.  The French papers have been profuse in their praises of both, and some of our own have quoted their commendations.  My mother is, I think, recovering, though slowly, from her long illness.  She is less deaf, and rather less blind; but for the general state of her health, time, and time alone, will, I am sure, restore it entirely.  I have just seen the dress that my father had made abroad for his part in my play:  a bright amber-colored velours epingle, with a border of rich silver embroidery; this, together with a cloak of violet velvet trimmed with imitation sable.  The fashion is what you see in all the pictures and prints of Francis I. My father is very anxious, I think, to act the play; my mother, to have it published before it is acted; and I sit and hear it discussed and praised and criticised, only longing (like a “silly wench,” as my mother calls me when I confess as much to her) to see my father in his lovely dress and hear the alarums of my fifth act.

I am a little mad, I suppose, and my letter a little tipsy, I dare
say, but I am ever your most affectionate

FANNY.

16 ST. JAMES STREET, BUCKINGHAM GATE, WESTMINSTER,
October 21, 1827. 
MY DEAR H——­,