complement of plates--mind, not coffin-plates--to appear as
heretofore, in November, will give the lie, I trust, not merely to my
departure, but even to anything like a _serious_ illness: and a novel,
about the same time, will help to prove that I am not in a state of
de-composition.

"I should have relieved your joint anxieties some days earlier, but
till I met Mr. Livingstone, at Bury, I was really not alive to my
death."

* * * * *

_Cartoons at Hampton Court_.[14]--I mentioned in my last, that I had
formed an acquaintance with Holloway, who has been sometime occupied
in copying in black chalks the Cartoons of Raphael in this palace. It
will be a magnificent work, and admirably executed, for he finishes
them as highly as a miniature; his chalk-pencils are of a superior
quality, and he cuts them to the finest point: but he says they will
only serve to work with on vellum, or on fine skin. He is an eccentric
genius, deeply read in Scripture history, which he expounds in the
most methodistical tone; but it is very delightful and instructive to
listen to his observations on the beauties and merits of these
masterpieces of Raphael. A Madame Bouiller, an interesting French
emigrant is also occupied on the same subjects. She is patronized by
West, who has given her permission to study here; and says that he
never saw such masterly artist touches of the crayon as hers. Her
style is large heads, after the size and manner of the French;
therefore the figures in the Cartoons are particularly adapted for her
pencil.

[14] From the Private Correspondence of a Woman of Fashion.

I found poor Holloway this morning foaming with rage in the Cartoon
Gallery. Some person has written against the Cartoons, denominating
them "washed daubs." No doubt it is either the pen of envy and
malignity, or of ignorance: _n'importe_, it has wounded the feelings
of a superior artist and a good man, who worships with religious
enthusiasm those works of Raphael, and who has spent so many years in
perfecting his engravings of them. It was a grotesque scene to behold
Madame Bouiller pacing after Holloway up and down the gallery, with
all the grimaces and vivacity of a Frenchwoman, and re-echoing his
furious lamentations.

* * * * *

_Edinburgh_ (by Mr. Cobbett).--I thought that Bristol, taking in its
heights and Clifton, and its rocks and its river, was the finest city
in the wo