“Such is our horticultural history. But I must not omit that we have had for one week cabbages from our own cultivation every day! Oh, you have no idea how sweet they tasted! We agreed they had a freshness and a _goût_ we had never met with before. We had them for too short a time to grow tired of them, because, as I have already hinted, they were beginning to run to seed before we knew they were eatable.” While the General was gardening, Madame plied her pen, using it once more, after the lapse of a dozen years, with a definite purpose of publication. Her first composition was for a charitable object. It was an address to the ladies of England on behalf of the emigrant French clergy, who, to the number of 6,000, were suffering terrible distress all over the country. This short paper is an early example of the stilted rhetoric which gradually ruined its author’s style. Some months later we hear of a more important work being in progress. This tale, eventually published under the title of ‘Camilla,’ was commenced in the summer of 1794, though it did not see the light till July, 1796. A son, their only child, was born on December 18, 1794, and was baptized Alexander Charles Louis Piochard, receiving the name of his father, with those of his two god-fathers, Dr. Charles Burney the younger, and the Count de Narbonne. An illness, which retarded the mother’s recovery, interrupted the progress of her novel, and perhaps counted for something in the failure of the tragedy with which, as we mentioned before, she tempted fortune on the stage. ‘Edwy and Elgiva’—so this drama was called—was produced at Drury Lane on March 21, 1795. It says much for the author’s repute that John Kemble warmly recommended her work to Sheridan, who seems to have accepted it without hesitation or criticism. The principal characters were undertaken by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. At the close of the performance, it was announced that the piece was withdrawn for alterations. There was a little complaint that several of the actors were careless and unprepared; but, on the whole, Madame d’Arblay bore her defeat with excellent temper. She consoled herself with the thought that her play had not been written for the theatre, nor even revised for the press; that the manuscript had been obtained from her during her confinement; and that she had been prevented by ill-health from attending rehearsals, and making the changes which, on the night of representation, even her unprofessional judgment perceived to be essential. Yet it is difficult to imagine that a tragedy by the author of ‘Evelina’ could, under any circumstances, have been successful; and we are more surprised that Sheridan was so complaisant than that Dr. Burney had always shrugged his shoulders when the Saxon drama was mentioned in his hearing.