Shorter Notices
THE letters written by Fanny Boscawen during her husband's life- time were published in 1940, under the title Admiral's Wife. Admiral's Widow continues the series, mainly from the year 1770 to Mrs. Boscawen's death in 1805. Fanny Boscawen was a perfect letter-writer ; intelligent, sympathetic and delightful. She enjoyed all the civilised things in the lives of a class much favoured by fortune, and wrote easily and gracefully about great houses, fine gardens, and leisured visits. She could also write sentence after sentence about every-day matters which take a certain " sweet sadness" after the lapse of years, e.g., "Here is the pattern of my gown, and I have no sort of objection to your getting the fellow of it. 'Tis slight, to be sure, but will wear well. The price I gave was eight shillings and sixpence a yard." There is perhaps a more prosaic, and not less familiar, ring about the words (written in 1799), " I have just been obliged to pay £93 ros. 4d. for what is called a seventh instalment to meet the income-tax. I don't understand it but have paid it murmuring." And the " other
side " to the grand manners of the eighteenth century may be seen in a sentence which assumes that Mrs. Boscawen's drawing-room carpet will be full of fleas. General Aspinall-Oglander's account of Mrs. Boscawen's life has too many obvious reflections ; too many modern instances (it is absurd to talk about Walpole in 1738 arrang- ing a " Munich " of the eighteenth century), and too much text-book material about the military history of the period.
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