‘Yours ever, ‘CHARLES BURNEY.’ From Miss Burney, afterwards Mdme. d’Arblay, writing on some traits of my character, &c.:— ‘Chelsea College: July 17, 1792. ‘Nay, if you talk of your difficulties in fabricating an epistle to me, please to consider how much greater are mine in attempting to answer it. You! a country farmer, the acknowledged head of “the _only art worth cultivating_,” as you tell us,—the contemner of every other pursuit, the scorner of all old customs, the defier of all musty authorities, the derider of all fogrum superiors,—in one word a Jacobin. You afraid? and of whom? a Chelsea pensioner? One who, maimed in the royal service, ignobly forbears, spurning royal reparation? One who, though flying a court, degenerately refrains from hating or even reviling kings, queens, and princesses? One who presumes to wish as well to manufactures for her outside, as to agriculture for her inside? One who has the ignorance to reverence commerce, and who cannot think of a single objection to the Wool Bill? One, in short, and to say all that is abominable at once, one who in theory is an aristocrat, and in practice a _ci-devant_ courtier? ‘And shall a creature of this description, the willing advocate of every opinion, every feeling you excommunicate from “your business and bosom,” _dare_ to write to _you_? Impossible! ‘Whether I shall come and see you all or not is another matter. If I can I will. ‘P.S. Will Honeycomb says if you would know anything of a lady’s meaning (always providing she has any) when she writes to you, look at her postscript. Now pray, dear sir, how came you ever to imagine what you are pleased to blazon to the world with all the confidence of self-belief, that you think farming the only thing worth manly attention? You, who, if taste rather than circumstance had been your guide, might have found wreaths and flowers almost any way you had turned, as fragrant as those of Ceres.’ My reply:— ‘You, “the willing advocate of every feeling I excommunicate from my bosom,” knew you had thrown so bitter a potion into your letter that you could not (kind creature!) help a little sweetening in the postscript; but must there in your sweets be some alloy? Could you not conclude without falling foul of poor Ceres?