I have just been reading, for the fourth time, I believe, _The Simple Story_, which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I was totally incapable of thinking of Mrs. Inchbald or anything but Miss Milner and Doriforth, who appeared to me real persons whom I saw and heard, and who had such power to interest me, that I cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end of the story: I think it the most pathetic and the most powerfully interesting tale I ever read. I was obliged to go from it to correct _Belinda_ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone Belinda, that I could have torn the pages to pieces: and really, I have not the heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman said, "Mend _you!_ better make a new one." _To_ MRS. RUXTON. EDGEWORTHSTOWN, _Jan. 1810._ I have had a very flattering and grateful letter from Lydia White; she has sent me a comedy of Kelly's--_A Word to the Wise._ She says the _Heiress_ is taken from it. Just about the same time I had a letter from Mrs. Apreece: [Footnote: Afterwards Lady Davy.] she is at Edinburgh, and seems charmed with all the wits there; and, as I hear from Mr. Holland, [Footnote: Afterwards Sir Henry Holland.] the young physician who was here last summer, she is much admired by them. Mrs. Hamilton and she like one another particularly; they can never cross, for no two human beings are, body and mind, form and substance, more unlike. We thought Mr. Holland, when he was here, a young man of abilities--his letter has fully justified this opinion: it has excited my father's enthusiastic admiration. He says Walter Scott is going to publish a new poem; I do not augur well of the title, _The Lady of the Lake._ I hope this lady will not disgrace him. Mr. Stewart has not recovered, nor ever will recover, the loss of his son: Mr. Holland says the conclusion of his lectures this season was most pathetic and impressive--"placing before the view of his auditors a series of eight-and-thirty years, in which he had zealously devoted himself to the duties of his office; and giving the impression that this year would be the period of his public life."