“It does not require three weeks’ consideration, Mr. Trollope”--thus begins the first letter, undated, but docketed by my father, “F. M. undated, received 2nd Nov., 1808”--“to enable me to tell you that the letter you left with me last night was most flattering and gratifying to me. I value your good opinion too highly not to feel that the generous proof you have given me of it must for ever, and in any event, be remembered by me with pride and gratitude. But I fear you are not sufficiently aware that your choice, so flattering to me, is for yourself a very imprudent one.” And then follows a business-like statement of possessions and prospects, which the writer fears fall much short of what her suitor might reasonably expect. But none of my father’s faults tended in the slightest degree to lead him to marry a millionnaire, whom he cared less for, in preference to a girl without a sixpence, whom he loved better. “In an affair of this kind,” the letter I have cited goes on to say, “I do not think it any disadvantage to either party that some time should elapse between the first contemplation and final decision of it. It gives each an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the other’s opinion on many important points, which could not be canvassed before it was thought of, and which it would be useless to discuss after it was settled.” Could Mrs. Chapone have expressed herself better? I find in another letter, dated (by my father) 6th December, 1808, the following George-the-Thirdian passage: “The most disagreeable of created beings, Col. ---- by name, by profession Sir ----’s led captain, is, while I am writing, talking in an animated strain of eloquence to Mrs. Milton” (my grandfather the vicar’s second wife and the writer’s stepmother), “frequently seasoning his discourse with the polished phrase, ‘Blood and thunder, ma’am!’ so if I happen to swear a little before I conclude, be so good as to believe that I am accidentally writing down what he is saying.... Poor dear innocent Dr. Nott! His simplicity is quite pathetic! I am really afraid that he will be taking twopence instead of two pounds from his parishioners, merely because he does not know the difference between them. I cannot help feeling a tender interest for such lamb-like innocence of the ways of this wicked world. I dare say the night I saw him at the opera, he thought he was _only_” (note the distinction) “at the play, nay, perhaps believed they were performing an oratorio.” In one letter of the 9th of April, 1809, I find a mention of “a frank” sent by Mr. Mathias with a translation by him into Italian of the “Echo Song” in _Comus_, of which the writer says that it is “elegantly done, but is not Milton.”