gain and
again. Lord St. Helens and many of the nobility,
who have been staying here, paid you the just
tribute of their praise.

The Prince Regent has just left us for London; and
having been pleased to appoint me Chaplain and
Private English Secretary to the Prince of
Cobourg, I remain here with His Serene Highness
and a select party until the marriage. Perhaps
when you again appear in print you may chuse to
dedicate your volumes to Prince Leopold: any
historical romance, illustrative of the history of
the august House of Cobourg, would just now be
very interesting.

Believe me at all times,
Dear Miss Austen,
Your obliged friend,
J. S. CLARKE.

Jane's sensible reply put an end to any further suggestions:--

MY DEAR SIR,--I am honoured by the Prince's thanks
and very much obliged to yourself for the kind
manner in which you mention the work. I have also
to acknowledge a former letter forwarded to me
from Hans Place. I assure you I felt very grateful
for the friendly tenor of it, and hope my silence
will have been considered, as it was truly meant,
to proceed only from an unwillingness to tax your
time with idle thanks. Under every interesting
circumstance which your own talent and literary
labours have placed you in, or the favour of the
Regent bestowed, you have my best wishes. Your
recent appointments I hope are a step to something
still better. In my opinion, the service of a
court can hardly be too well paid, for immense
must be the sacrifice of time and feeling required
by it.

You are very, very kind in your hints as to the
sort of composition which might recommend me at
present, and I am fully sensible that an
historical romance, founded on the House of Saxe
Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of
profit or popularity than such pictures of
domestic life in country villages as I deal in.
But I could no more write a romance than an epic
poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a