_11th March._--Lord Morpeth is to be married in a few days to Lady Georgina Cavendish, a suitable match in every respect. Without possessing great beauty she has many charms, and is so well disposed that _il a beau jeu_ before him, if he will renounce _le gros jeu_, but it unfortunately happens that love only suspends that passion when it has taken deep root. However, he has so good an understanding and such right feelings, that what a man can do to conquer a vicious habit he will do. [Sidenote: A MOTHER’S SORROWS] The loss of my child sits heavily upon me, my heart is oftentimes overflowing, and my health very much impaired. The system that Sr. Walter Farquhar[168] has put me upon is calculated to rouse my constitution, but grief and a certain natural morbid tendency may baffle all his endeavours. My Charles is delicate, and has frequent and severe attacks: anxiety for him and regrets for my poor Ste. make the hours of reflection and solitude pass sorrowfully over. There is a sensation in a mother’s breast at the loss of an infant that partakes of the feeling of instinct. It is a species of savage despair. Alas! to lose my pretty infant, just beginning to prattle his little innocent wishes, and imagination so busily aids my grief by tracing what he might have been. In those dreary nights whilst I sat watching his disturbed sleep, I knelt down and poured out to God a fervent prayer for his recovery, and swore that if he were spared me the remainder of my life should be devoted to the exercise of religious duties; that I should believe in the mercy of a God who could listen to and alleviate my woe. Had he lived I should have been a pious enthusiast. I have no superstition in my nature, but from what I then felt it is obvious how the mind may be worked upon when weakened and perplexed by contending passions of fear, hope, and terror. Ah! my child, perhaps if I had not left you in the summer, but stayed and watched with maternal care all your little ailments, I might have had you still; but the disease was inveterate. He was opened, and his fatal malady ascertained--two tubercles upon his lung, and a pint of water upon his chest. The surgeon and medical men who attended thought the disease was inherent, and that nothing could have saved him, but even in the most inveterate hereditary diseases life is prolonged to a very advanced period by care. But it is over, and regret is now superfluous.