Upon my honour you had never before told me the story of Mr. Marriott--I would not have lost for "all the worlds one ever has to give" A quotation from chapter 28 of Austen's --It is admirable. Is not somebody with such supernatural pretentions mentioned in one of the periodical papers? I think . In Mr. Marriott's case I apprehend the addresses first sent deterred him from exerting his powers--he might very willingly have accomodated some ready believer--some cullible A now-obsolete words that describes someone who is easily deceived, similar to "gullible" Source: OED.Squire or Squiress--but when he found he had to do with an acute & sceptical man of wit (I hope you let me tell this truth) then he drew in his horns--There is in the new & delightful volume of an anecdote of a Baron who professed Animal Magnetism which quite confirms my idea--he was pressed to show off by Dr. Clarke & Signor Acerbi (the other great Northern Traveller) & performed very sucessfully upon the led Italian & the led Englishman Messieurs Lucetti & Cripps, but utterly failed when he attempted their shrewd & wary leaders. Depend upon it if you had sent letters addressed to some Mr. Smith or Miss Brown, or even to J. Webb Esqre he would have given you the amusement you required. Do tell me if you ever hearof any more of this curious affair. Is he the Mr. Marriott, Walter Scott's friend to whom one of the letters between the Cantos of are addressed? He was a clergyman and went to live in Devonshire--You will see that I have recovered my appetite for reading--I have been quite delighted with Dr. Clarke as I told you--very much amused with the Battle is capital--better than --better than --in short Moore's best--all the rest is "Caviare"--Then I have admired Mr. Rogers's --with a certain quiet & calm sort of admiration such as one bestows on those works which are very short & seem very long--I have been very much pleased --a curious little book in which amongst many other choice stories he insinuates that a certain Poet called Mr. Pope died of Dram drinking--& gives an account of the Pretender which if there were such things as Jacobites now a days nowadays would cure them though it did not cure the author--moreover I have been perfectly disgusted with Mr. Maturin's --a vile hotch potch of & --such a book as any clergyman, not Irish, would have blushed to write--very much amused with Holcroft's , begun by himself & finished by Hazlitt--quite delighted with the prettiest German story of a Watersprite that ever was written--all poetry from end to end--& charmed--enchanted with another new Volume of Horace Walpole's lettersIt is unclear to which volume of Walpole's many volumes of letters Mitford refers here, since several volumes to different recipients appeared in the 1810's. The most likely candidate is , published by Rodwell and Martin in 1818 and published in a second edition in 1819.--That Horace Walpole was beyond a doubt the best letter writer of his day better than Hume--better than Gray--better than Cowper--you and I thought so always--the world seems now to be pretty much of the same opinion--& I mean to reward the world by cheating it into pleasure in the same way that a very whimsical friend of mine chuses chooses to reverse the common practice by giving Champaign Champagne under the name of Gooseberry wine. I intend to treat the public with a 3rd Volume of Walpolian letters--a little later in point of time--& dated not from Strawberry Hill but from Devonshire--I shall leave out names & changes places & I have no doubt of taking in the whole "Reading Public"-- & Reviewers not excepted. How do you like my plan? Shall you apply for an Injunction to the Chancellor to stop the publication? Seriously, my dear Sir William, the resemblance in style, in playfulness, in humour, in Tact, is so perfect that if ever your letters should be printed anonymously I am sure they would be attributed to Horace Walpole. People would miss a little of our honourable Friends small talk to be sure, & a great deal his selfishness & coldness, but in every other respect they are as much alike as Sebastian was to Viola.