Nobody reads Lady Morgan’s ‘France’ now any more than he reads ‘O’Donnel.’ It is full of the most ridiculous blunders, and abounds in misstatements which could have hardly been accidental at the time. Yet it sold well. The ‘Quarterly’ fell upon it mercilessly, doubtless promoting the sale by the virulence of its criticisms. This attack Lady Morgan ingeniously met by assuring her friends that Croker was one of her rejected lovers, and that he had taken this opportunity of avenging himself for the sufferings he had undergone! On the other hand, all who delighted in scandal were charmed with the book, and Mme. Paterson Buonaparte wrote from Paris to assure the authoress that her manner of detailing it was quite as agreeable to French people as to English. “Public expectation is as high as possible,” she says, “and if you had kept it a little longer, they would have purchased it” (the book) “at your own price. How happy you must be at filling the world with your name as you do! Madame de Staël and Madame de Genlis are forgotten; and if the love of fame be of any weight with you, your excursion to Paris was attended with brilliant success. I assure you—and you know I am sincere—that you are more spoken of than any other person at the present day. Mr Moore seldom sees me; I did not take with him at all. He called to show me the article of your letter which mentions the report of the Duke of Wellington’s loves. I am not the Mrs —— the great man gives as a successor to Grassini. You would be surprised if you knew how great a fool she is, at the power she exercises over the Duke; but I believe that he has no taste _pour les femmes d’esprit_, which is, however, no reason for going into extremes, as in this case.”