I am told the new plays this year are got up (as the phrafe is) very penuriously: our Italian friends tell a comical ftory, applicable enough, of what happened in their own country: I dare fay you have heard it from Saftres. How to ridicule the manager's parfimony, fome one faid, Non fapete forfe fare una comedia fenza fpefe verune? No Signor, facciamo pur quella d'Adamo e d'Eva, cofi faranno rifparmiati gli abiti. Ma lo fcandalo! fays the other. Oibo! la faremo all'ofcuro, e cofi rif parmierete anche i lumi. Is this nonsense enough for one morning? I cannot bear the thoughts of turning the page to write more fuch. Accept the best compliments of all belonging to Your most faithful fervant, H. L. THRALE. LETTER CCLXXX. To Mrs. THRAL E. DEAR MADAM, Feb. 17, 1782. URE fuch letters would make any man SURE well. I will let them have their full operation upon me; but while 1 write I am not without a cough. I can however keep it quiet by diacodium, and am in hope that with all other difturbances it will go away, and permit me to enjoy the happiness of being, Madam, Your, &c. I LETTER CCLXXXI. To Mrs. THRAL E. DEAREST MADAM, Bolt-court, Feb. 21, 1782. CERTAINLY grow better. I lay this morning with fuch fuccefs, that I called before I rofe for dry linen. I believe I have had a crifis. Laft Last night called Sir Richard Jebb; and many people call or fend: I am not neglected nor forgotten. But let me be always fure of your kindness. I hope to try again this week whether your house is yet fo cold, for to be away from you, if I did not think our feparation likely to be fhort, how could I endure? You are a dear dear lady, and your kind attention is a great part of what life affords to, Madam, Your, &c. LETTER CCLXXXII. To Mrs. THRALE. DEAREST OF ALL DEAR LADIES, March 14, 1782. TH HAT Povilleri fhould write these verses is Seven ounces! Why I fent a letter to Dr. Lawrence, who, is ten times more timorfome than is your Jebb, and he came and flood by while one vein was opened with too small an orifice, and bled eight ounces and stopped. Then another vein was opened, which ran And here am I fixteen ounces eight more. lighter, for I have had no dinner. I think the lofs of blood has done no harm; whether it has done good, time will tell. I am glad that I do not fink without refift HAVE been very I much out of order fince you fent me away; but why fhould I tell you, who do not care, nor defire to know? I dined with Mr. Paradise on Monday, with the Bishop of St. Asaph yesterday, with the Bishop of Chester I dine to-day, and with the Academy on Saturday, with Mr. Hoole on Monday, and with Mrs. Garrick on Thurf day day the 2d of May, and then-what care you? what then? The news run, that we have taken seventeen French transports-that Langton's lady is lying down with her eighth child, all alive and Mrs. Carter's Mifs Sharpe is going to marry a schoolmafter fixty-two years old. Do not let Mr. Piozzi nor any body else put me quite out of your head, and do not think that any body will love you like Your, &c. LETTER CCLXXXIV. Το Mrs. THRA L E. I DEAREST MADAM, April 30, 1782. HAVE had a fresh cold and been very poorly. But I was yesterday at Mr. Hoole's, where were Mifs Reynolds and many others. I am going to the club. Since Mrs. Garrick's invitation I have a letter from Mifs Moore, to engage me for the evening. |