You neither must nor shall deny us the pleasure of sending to you such small matters as we do.  As to the partridges, you may recollect possibly, when I remind you of it, that I never eat them; they refuse to pass my stomach; and Mrs. Unwin rejoiced in receiving them only because she could pack them away to you—­therefore never lay us under any embargoes of this kind, for I tell you beforehand, that we are both incorrigible.  My beloved Cousin, the first thing that I open my eyes upon in a morning, is it not the bed in which you have laid me?  Did you not, in our old dismal parlour at Olney, give me the tea on which I breakfast?—­the chocolate that I drank at noon, and the table at which I dine?—­the everything, in short, that I possess in the shape of convenience, is it not all from you? and is it possible, think you, that we should either of us overlook an opportunity of making such a tiny acknowledgement of your kindness?  Assure yourself that never, while my name is Giles Gingerbread, will I dishonour my glorious ancestry, and my illustrious appellation, by so unworthy a conduct.  I love you at my heart, and so does Mrs. U., and we must say thank you, and send you a peppercorn when we can.  So thank you, my dear, for the brawn and the chine, and for all the good things that you announce, and at present I will, for your sake, say no more of thanksgiving.

TO MRS. BODHAM

His mother’s portrait

Weston, 27 Feb. 1790.

MY DEAREST ROSE,

Whom I thought withered, and fallen from the stalk, but whom I still find alive:  nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it, and to hear it from yourself.  I loved you dearly when you were a child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so.  Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her:  I love you, therefore, and love you much, both for her sake, and for your own.  The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me, as the picture which you have so kindly sent me.  I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the dear original presented herself to my embraces.  I kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course, the first on which I open my eyes in the morning.  She died when I completed my sixth year; yet I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the great fidelity of the copy.  I remember, too, a multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression.  There is in me, I believe, more of the Donne than of the Cowper; and though I love all of both names, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently