Autograph letter signed : Bath, to James Burney, 1816 May 22-24.

Telling him that they have received the fourth volume of his Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea and they are reading it avidly: "We think it so spirited, so impartial, & so interesting, that we go on with it by every opportunity; it succeeds to every Meal, & follows every other avocation; in so much that we are already at page 284, without missing one word, or hurrying past, or through, a single paragraph"; writing that she is very pleased to hear that he has become a Fellow of the Royal Society; recalling a joke by the anecdotist William Seward about the initials "F.R.S." standing for "Fellow Remarkably Stupid"; writing of the Chronological History that it "must necessarily be a Work of slow sale, from its bulk & its Price: but I have not the smallest doubt of its becoming, & remaining a Library Book in All the Great Libraries, foreign & domestic"; adding that she will list some of her and her husband's favorite passages from the book; picking up the letter again on May 24th and mentioning that she had been interrupted; concluding by saying that she will send the letter off now and "reserv[e] further chattery to a future occasion."