There is little to be gleaned out of such reminiscences as these, which hardly reach the dignity of “dead nettles”: neither do we gather much from a surviving letter to Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx about a debt of frs. 1250, owed to Marryat by R----, a hopeless debt. “I consider that if I have no better chance of heaven than of R----’s 1250 francs, I am in a bad way. Both he and Z---- are evidently a couple of rogues. The only chance of obtaining the money from R---- is by telling him that I am coming to Paris as soon as I can, and that I shall expose him by publishing the whole affair, his letters, &c.; and, moreover that you _strongly suspect_ that it is my intention, independent of exposure, to _break every bone in his body_ on my arrival. He holds himself as a gentleman, being the son of some post-captain, and will not like that message, and may perhaps pay the money rather than incur the risk.” Here obviously was a very pretty quarrel; but who was R----, and had he a case, and who was Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx, and did any assault follow? Who knows? and indeed who cares? The rest of the letter is full of scandal about capital letters and dashes. The sight of it only make one remember how much entirely unimportant trash contrives to survive in this world. All the scraps of knowledge about Marryat which have escaped destruction are not so unpleasant, though they are nearly as obscure, as that letter to Mr. Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx. It is recorded that he gave parties and Christmas trees, that he looked after children well, and was a neat hand at packing a portmanteau,--qualities which must have made him the most tolerable of husbands and fathers on his travels. He was at all times tender-hearted with children, as befitted an author who ended by writing almost wholly for them; and would quiet his own by telling them stories, when the rattling of carriages and diligences had made them fractious. A letter to his mother survives from these years which is worth quoting--not because it gives much information about his own life, but because it is kindly, and gives a very different picture of Marryat to that afforded by the threats against R----, and the vapid scandal written to the gentleman with the handsome French name. “SPA, _June 9, 1835_.