"The Chancellor has behaved nobly. You have also conducted yourself in the most satisfactory manner; and I have no fault to find with any body but the stage-players and their proprietor. I was always so civil to Elliston personally, that he ought to have been the last to attempt to injure me. "There is a most rattling thunder-storm pelting away at this present writing; so that I write neither by day, nor by candle, nor torchlight, but by _lightning_ light: the flashes are as brilliant as the most gaseous glow of the gas-light company. My chimney-board has just been thrown down by a gust of wind: I thought that it was the 'Bold Thunder' and 'Brisk Lightning' in person.--_Three_ of us would be too many. There it goes--_flash_ again! but "I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness; I never gave ye _franks_, nor _call'd_ upon you; as I have done by and upon Mr. Elliston. "Why do you not write? You should at least send me a line of particulars: I know nothing yet but by Galignani and the Honourable Douglas. "Well, and how does our Pope controversy go on? and the pamphlet? It is impossible to write any news: the Austrian scoundrels rummage all letters. "P.S. I could have sent you a good deal of gossip and some _real_ information, were it not that all letters pass through the Barbarians' inspection, and I have no wish to inform _them_ of any thing but my utter abhorrence of them and theirs. They have only conquered by treachery, however."