as furiously
angry with all things in heaven above and on the earth below because
she was at the moment inconvenienced.

Here is the beginning of a letter from her of a date some months
anterior to the Boboli adventure:

"Illustrissimo Signor Tommaso" (that was the usual style of her
address to me), "as your book is just out you must feel quite _en
train_ for puffs of any description. Therefore I send you the best I
have seen for a long while, _La Physiologie du Fumeur_. But even if
you don't like it, _don't_ put it in your pipe and smoke it. _Vide_
Joseph Fume."

A little subsequently she writes: "Signor Tommaso, the only revenge
I shall take for your lecture" (probably on the matter of some
outrageous extravagance) "is not to call you _illustrissimo_ and not
to send you an illuminated postillion" (a previous letter having been
ornamented with such a decoration at the top of the sheet), "but let
you find your way to Venice in the dark as you can, and then and
there, 'On the Rialto I will rate you,' and, being a man, you know
there is no chance of my _over-rating_ you."

The following passage from the same letter refers to some negotiations
with which she had entrusted me relative to some illustrations she was
bent on having in a forthcoming book she was about to publish:--"As
for the immortal Cruikshank, tell him that I am sure the mighty genius
which conceived Lord Bateman could not refuse to give any lady
the _werry best_, and if he does I shall pass the rest of my
life registering a similar _wow_ to that of the fair Sophia, and
exclaiming, 'I vish, George Cruikshank, as you vas mine.'"

The rest of the long, closely-written four-paged letter is an
indiscriminate and bitter, though joking attack, upon the race of
publishers. She calls Mr. Colburn an "embodied shiver," which will
bring a smile to the lips of those--few, I fear--who remember the
little man.

Here are some extracts from a still longer letter written to my mother
much about the same time: "I hear Lady S---- has committed another
novel, called _The Three Peers_, no doubt _l'un pire que l'autre_!...
I have a great many kind messages to you from that very charming
person Madame Recamier, who fully intends meeting you at Venice with
Chateaubriand in October, for so she told me on Sunday. I met her at
Miss Clarke's some time ago, and as I am a bad _pusher_ I am happy to
say she asked to be introduced to me, and was, thanks to you, my kind
friend! She