CHAPTER XIII.

Publishes her novel-A second edition ordered-Fortune indeed smiles-All her Lottery-tickets Prizes-Increases her weekly income-Dr. Warren and his windows-The late Judge Hardinge —Mrs. Dobson—Sir Charles Bunbury admires her work-Nextdoor Neighbours' at Colman's-Thought of in her second novel -George Robinson buys her play-Mrs. Wells's irregularitiesPleasant excursions-" Dieu et les Dames"-Goes to reside with a Mr. Shakespear-Fellow-lodger, General Martin-Kitty Fisher- The Wedding Day '-' Young Men and Old Women' The Massacre,' a prose tragedy; some account of it-Declines an offered engagement at Drury-Lane-Her family-The year 1792 passed cheerfully, at times happily.

DURING the year 1791 Mrs. Inchbald continued in her Frith Street lodgings, and was busily engaged in correcting the press of her romance; a business which we apprehend to be much less burthensome at present, than it formerly was, to the author, as the following will prove :-She frequently sat up at this work till three in the morning, through the bitter nights of January. On the 10th of February, Robinson published her work; and on the 1st of March a second edition

was ordered. While it was printing, for the first fortnight she passed nearly the whole of her time at Mr. Cooper's, the printer, to forward the reimpression; and then to the close, Miss Cooper was nearly as constantly with her, till the 6th of April, when it was ready for delivery. Fortune appears to be just now in the gayest humour with all her interests," and gives her more than she dares ask;" for all her lottery-tickets prove to be prizes. She receives their value, and ventures to add four shillings in consequence to her weekly income. In this month she paid the printer, Cooper; but Mr. Robinson insisted upon repaying her. She lent thirty pounds to Mr. Marlow, who did not bring his newly-married wife to call upon her; and upon receiving a bank-note from Mr. Whitfield, she gratefully carried it to Dr. Warren, and pressed upon his acceptance. She was rendered melancholy by her visit. Lest the reader should conceive for a moment that she was sad to part with her money on this occasion, we, as faithful historians, are compelled to state that her self-love had been so happy in his skill, that she had transferred no slight portion of it to her able physician. If she hears but his name in company, she is delighted with the word; and she records her practice of continually walking up and down Sackville Street, where he lived, watching whether there were lights in his apartmentsfollowing his carriage about town, for the chance

of seeing him--and other extravagancies; which, as they promote health by brisk circulation, and cost nothing but the time of the pursuit, we shall not much censure, even at thirty-eight, whatever the prudes may do: though her stage friend Rosalind would certainly have "bestowed some good counsel," as she seems to have had "the very quotidian of love upon her."

Her Simple Story' gained for her the admiration and friendship of the late barrister, judge, and Shakspearian, George Hardinge, who corresponded with her in a mingled strain of gallantry and criticism, of which the progress of our narrative will exhibit the most amusing specimens. Mrs. Dobson, the translator of the Mémoires pour servir à la Vie de Petrarch,' sent her recent work, 'A View of Human Life, translated from Petrarch, 1791,' with a letter, to Mrs. Inchbald; which she answered immediately, and in a few days called upon that lady, who presented her with an Æolian harp, and commenced an intimacy with her, which produced the most steady friendship of her whole existence-an introduction to Mr. Phillips of Pall-mall, surgeon to the King, his excellent lady, and their beautiful and interesting family. By her letters to this lady, we are able to trace her feelings and opinions through every variation of her subsequent life to its very close, as she seems to have sought upon every occasion the approbation of these her best

friends, to whom she yields every thing but her independence.

But our present subject is Mrs. Dobson, whose husband being a physician of eminence, she had a carriage at her disposal, and it was frequently at Mrs. Inchbald's service; but the elegant Troubadour was somewhat capricious, and perhaps expected for her civilities greater homage than her new friend ever paid to any body. They disputed sometimes over a table of delicacies, and the adorer of Petrarch became cross, and then cool; but the occasional clouds passed away, and the intercourse between the ladies was not interrupted by their rival pretensions to either beauty or wit.

Sir Charles Bunbury, pretty constantly turned from her door, at length was to be received on a certain day in February. He did not keep his appointment, and for several days the fair expectant was very low-spirited: at last, on the 24th of the month, he came, and some very serious explanation took place, which made her extremely melancholy. We may imagine it to have closed every notion of a union between them, to which she would no doubt have joyfully consented. We, after this, hear no more of Sir Charles till the month of September, when she met him by accident in Covent-Garden, and they walked together. In December she saw him at the Phillips's in Pall-mall; after which he called and left her a ticket for the Westminster play,

thinking the Westminsters no bad supporters of a dramatic author.

We are thus led by the association of ideas to notice her productions for the stage. We find nothing brought upon the boards but Next-door Neighbours,' which was acted at Colman's, in the summer season, with great applause. It is a petite comédie, rather slight, in three acts, and taken from two French plays, Le Dissipateur' and 'L'Indigent,' who are the next-door neighbours to each other. The interest seems to have struck the author as capable of far greater expansion, and she accordingly remembered the filial piety and honour of Henry Wilford, ready to accept a prison to release his father, when, in Nature and Art,' she sends the Henry of her novel to the coast of Africa, to perish, or redeem his father. The heartless profligacy of Splendorville is remembered also in the Bishop's son, who, as a judge, passes sentence of death on the victim of his early lust; and Eleanor, however slightly, lends some few points of interest to her Rebecca and Agnes. The turns of opposition in the dialogue, appear reflected, too, in the conversations which so abound in the romance; and we could easily show their almost immediate proximity to each other.

Sir George Splendorville appears to have little merited the favour which the author has lavished upon him he has neither honour nor feeling in his