gathered together in
one mighty globe, which will roll in solitary grandeur through the
vast wilderness of space, inhabited only by the four high princes of
the Genii, till time shall be succeeded by Eternity; and the impudence
of this is only to be paralleled by another of their assertions,
namely, that by their magic might they can reduce the world to a
desert, the purest waters to streams of livid poison, and the clearest
lakes to stagnant waters, the pestilential vapours of which shall slay
all living creatures, except the blood-thirsty beast of the forest,
and the ravenous bird of the rock. But that in the midst of this
desolation the palace of the Chief Genii shall rise sparkling in the
wilderness, and the horrible howl of their war-cry shall spread over
the land at morning, at noontide and night; but that they shall have
their annual feast over the bones of the dead, and shall yearly
rejoice with the joy of victors. I think, sir, that the horrible
wickedness of this needs no remark, and therefore I haste to subscribe
myself, &c.

"July 14, 1829."

It is not unlikely that the foregoing letter may have had some
allegorical or political reference, invisible to our eyes, but very clear
to the bright little minds for whom it was intended. Politics were
evidently their grand interest; the Duke of Wellington their demi-god.
All that related to him belonged to the heroic age. Did Charlotte want a
knight-errant, or a devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles
Wellesley, came ready to her hand. There is hardly one of her
prose-writings at this time in which they are not the principal
personages, and in which their "august father" does not appear as a sort
of Jupiter Tonans, or Deus ex Machina.

As one evidence how Wellesley haunted her imagination, I copy out a few
of the titles to her papers in the various magazines.

"Liffey Castle," a Tale by Lord C. Wellesley.

"Lines to the River Aragua," by the Marquis of Douro.

"An Extraordinary Dream," by Lord C. Wellesley.

"The Green Dwarf, a Tale of the Perfect Tense," by the Lord Charles
Albert Florian Wellesley.

"Strange Events," by Lord C. A. F. Wellesley.

Life in an isolated village, or a lonely country-house, presents many
little occurrences which sink into the mind of childhood, there to be
brooded over. No other event may have happened, or be likely to happen,
for days, to push one of these a