* * “I have so much to say, that I hardly know where to begin. * * *
“At the close of this last summer, I took it into my head that the air, water, rocks, woods, fine prospects, and delightful rides on the Downs, at Bristol Hotwells, and in their vicinity, would do my cough good, and enable me to bear the ensuing winter more heroically than I have done what have preceded it; for since the Influenza of 1804, I have dreaded cold, and night air, as much as they are dreaded by a trembling Italian greyhound. Do you remember Frisk, the pretty little slim dog we had, as successor to Mr. Garrick’s favourite pet, Phill? who always pestered Garrick to let him lick his hands and his fingers,—till Garrick, though provoked, could not, in the comic playfulness of his character, help caressing him again, even while exclaiming, when the animal fawned upon him: ‘What dost follow me for, eh,—Slobber-chaps?—Tenderness without ideas!’ Well, as chill am I now as that poor puppy, Frisk,—though not quite as tender, nor yet, I trust, as void of ideas.
“Well, to the Hotwells at Bristol I went; and took with me Fanny Phillips. And we both took Evelina, as many of its best scenes are at the Wells and at Bath. However we devoured it so eagerly on the journey, that we had only half a volume left when we arrived at No. 7, on Vincent’s Parade; where we were sumptuously lodged; and Fanny Phillip’s maid went to market; and our landlady dressed our dinners; and, as I had my carriage, and horses, and servant, we did very well: except that we were too late in the season, for we had not above three balmy days in our whole month’s residence.
“I liked little Evelina full as well as ever; and I have always thought it the best—that is, the most near to perfection of your excellent penmanships. There are none of those heart-rending scenes which tear one to pieces in the last volumes of Cecilia and Camilla. They always make me melancholy for a week. But, for all that, Fanny Phillips and I proposed going through the whole while at Bristol, for our social reading. However, it was not possible; for we could never procure the first volume of Cecilia from any of the Libraries. It was always, as the Italians say of the English when they vainly try for admission, ‘_Sempre_ not at home!’