re is not come to town. You may be sure I am glad that Caesar is
baffled; I neither honour nor esteem him. If he is preferring his nephew
to his brother, it is using the latter as ill as the rest of the world.

Mrs. Damer is again set out for the Continent to-day, to avoid the
winter, which is already begun severely; we have had snow twice. Till
last year, I never knew snow in October since I can remember; which is
no short time. Mrs. Damer has taken with her her cousin Miss Campbell,
daughter of poor Lady William, whom you knew, and who died last year.
Miss Campbell has always lived with Lady Aylesbury, and is a very great
favourite and a very sensible girl. I believe they will proceed to
Italy, but it is not certain. If they come to Florence, the Grand Duke
should beg Mrs. Damer to give him something of her statuary; and it
would be a greater curiosity than anything in his Chamber of Painters.
She has executed several marvels since you saw her; and has lately
carved two colossal heads for the bridge at Henley, which is the most
beautiful one in the world, next to the Ponte di Trinita, and was
principally designed by her father, General Conway. Lady Spencer
draws--incorrectly indeed, but has great expression. Italy probably will
stimulate her, and improve her attention. You see we blossom in ruin!
Poetry, painting, statuary, architecture, music, linger here,

on this sea-encircled coast (GRAY),

as if they knew not whither to retreat farther for shelter, and would
not trust to the despotic patronage of the Attilas, Alarics, Amalasuntas
of the North! They leave such heroic scourges to be decorated by the
Voltaires and D'Alemberts of the Gauls, or wait till by the improvement
of balloons they may be transported to some of those millions of worlds
that Herschel[1] is discovering every day; for this new Columbus has
thrown open the great gates of astronomy, and neither Spanish
inquisitors nor English Nabobs will be able to torture and ransack the
new regions and their inhabitants. Adieu!

[Footnote 1: Herschel, having constructed the largest telescope that at
that time had ever been seen, in 1781 had given proof of its value by
the discovery of the _Georgium sidus_.]

_MRS. YEARSLEY--MADAME PIOZZI--GIBBON--"LE MARIAGE DE FIGARO."_

TO MISS HANNAH MORE.[1]

[Footnote 1: Miss H. More was a remarkable woman. She was the daughter
of the village schoolmaster of Stapleton, near Bristol. But though she
had no higher