Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 97

To MISS RUXTON.

EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 26, 1814.

"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year" to you, my dear Sophy, and to my aunt, and uncle, and Margaret. I have just risen from my bed, where I had been a day and a half with a violent headache and pains, or as John Langan calls them, pins in my bones. We have been much entertained with Mansfield Park. Pray read Eugène et Guillaume, a modern Gil Blas; too much of opera intrigues, but on the whole it is a work of admirable ability. Guillaume's character beautiful, and the gradual deterioration of Eugène's character finely drawn; but the following it out becomes at last as disgusting and horrible as it would be to see the corruption of the body after the spirit had fled.

January 1815.

I send you some beautiful lines to Lord Byron, by Miss Macpherson, daughter of Sir James Macpherson. As soon as my father hears from the Dublin Society we shall go to Dublin.