LETTER 514.  TO THE EARL OF B——.

“April 14. 1823.

“I am truly sorry that I cannot accompany you in your ride this morning, owing to a violent pain in my face, arising from a wart to which I by medical advice applied a caustic.  Whether I put too much, I do not know, but the consequence is, that not only I have been put to some pain, but the peccant part and its immediate environ are as black as if the printer’s devil had marked me for an author.  As I do not wish to frighten your horses, or their riders, I shall postpone waiting upon you until six o’clock, when I hope to have subsided into a more christian-like resemblance to my fellow-creatures.  My infliction has partially extended even to my fingers; for on trying to get the black from off my upper lip at least, I have only transfused a portion thereof to my right hand, and neither lemon-juice nor eau de Cologne, nor any other eau, have been able as yet to redeem it also from a more inky appearance than is either proper or pleasant.  But ’out, damn’d spot’—­you may have perceived something of the kind yesterday, for on my return, I saw that during my visit it had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished; and I could not help laughing at the figure I must have cut before you.  At any rate, I shall be with you at six, with the advantage of twilight.

Ever most truly, &c.

“Eleven o’clock.

“P.S.  I wrote the above at three this morning.  I regret to say that the whole of the skin of about an inch square above my upper lip has come off, so that I cannot even shave or masticate, and I am equally unfit to appear at your table, and to partake of its hospitality.  Will you therefore pardon me, and not mistake this rueful excuse for a ‘make-believe,’ as you will soon recognise whenever I have the pleasure of meeting you again, and I will call the moment I am, in the nursery phrase, ‘fit to be seen.’  Tell Lady B. with my compliments, that I am rummaging my papers for a MS. worthy of her acceptation.  I have just seen the younger Count Gamba, and as I cannot prevail on his infinite modesty to take the field without me, I must take this piece of diffidence on myself also, and beg your indulgence for both.”

LETTER 515.  TO THE COUNT ——.

“April 22. 1823.

“My dear Count ——­ (if you will permit me to address you so familiarly), you should be content with writing in your own language, like Grammont, and succeeding in London as nobody has succeeded since the days of Charles the Second and the records of Antonio Hamilton, without deviating into our barbarous language,—­which you understand and write, however, much better than it deserves.

“My ‘approbation,’ as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere, but perhaps not very impartial; for, though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen—­at least, such as they now are.  And, besides the seduction of talent and wit in your work, I fear that to me there was the attraction of vengeance.  I have seen and felt much of what you have described so well.  I have known the persons, and the re-unions so described,—­(many of them, that is to say,) and the portraits are so like that I cannot but admire the painter no less than his performance.