de me wretched.' I am decidedly
of opinion that he is responsible. He has wished to be thought partially
deranged, or on the brink of it, to perplex observers, and prevent them
from tracing effects to their real causes through all the intricacies of
his conduct. I was, as I told you, at one time the dupe of his acted
insanity, and clung to the former delusions in regard to the motives that
concerned me personally, till the whole system was laid bare. He is the
absolute monarch of words, and uses them, as Bonaparte did lives, for
conquest, without more regard to their intrinsic value; considering them
only as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the situation in
which he places them, and the ends to which he adapts them with such
consummate skill. Why, then, you will say, does he not employ them to
give a better colour to his own character? Because he is too good an
actor to over-act, or to assume a moral garb which it would be easy to
strip off. In regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle of
his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject
with which his own character and interests are not identified: but by the
introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, he has
enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a
very few; and his constant desire of creating a sensation makes him not
averse to be the object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied
by some dark and vague suspicions. Nothing has contributed more to the
misunderstanding of his real character than the lonely grandeur in which
he shrouds it, and his affectation of being above mankind, when he exists
almost in their voice. The romance of his sentiments is another feature
of this mask of state. I know no one more habitually destitute of that
enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to which he can work up his
fancy chiefly by contagion. I had heard he was the best of brothers, the
most generous of friends; and I thought such feelings only required to be
warmed and cherished into more diffusive benevolence. Though these
opinions are eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of my
memory, you will not wonder if there are still moments when the
association of feelings which arose from them soften and sadden my
thoughts. But I have not thanked you, dearest Lady Anne, for your
kindness in regard to a principal object,--that of rectifying false