“Had you not bewildered my head with the ‘stocks,’ your letter would have been answered directly. Hadn’t I to go to the city? and hadn’t I to remember what to ask when I got there? and hadn’t I forgotten it?
“I should be undoubtedly delighted to see you; but I don’t like to urge against your reasons my own inclinations. Come you must soon, for stay you won’t. I know you of old;—you have been too much leavened with London to keep long out of it.
“Lewis is going to Jamaica to suck his sugar canes. He sails in two days; I enclose you his farewell note. I saw him last night at D.L.T. for the last time previous to his voyage. Poor fellow! he is really a good man—an excellent man—he left me his walking-stick and a pot of preserved ginger. I shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so hot. We have had a devil of a row among our ballerinas. Miss Smith has been wronged about a hornpipe. The Committee have interfered; but Byrne, the d——d ballet master, won’t budge a step, I am furious, so is George Lamb. Kinnaird is very glad, because—he don’t know why; and I am very sorry, for the same reason. To-day I dine with Kd.—we are to have Sheridan and Colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at Sir Gilbert Heathcote’s.
“Leigh Hunt has written a real good and very original Poem, which I think will be a great hit. You can have no notion how very well it is written, nor should I, had I not redde it. As to us, Tom—eh, when art thou out? If you think the verses worth it, I would rather they were embalmed in the Irish Melodies, than scattered abroad in a separate song—much rather. But when are thy great things out? I mean the Po of Pos—thy Shah Nameh. It is very kind in Jeffrey to like the Hebrew Melodies. Some of the fellows here preferred Sternhold and Hopkins, and said so;—’the fiend receive their souls therefor!’
“I must go and dress for dinner. Poor, dear Murat, what an end! You know, I suppose, that his white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry IV.’s. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged. You shall have more to-morrow or next day.
“Ever,” &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 230. TO MR. MURRAY.
“November 4. 1815.
“When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge’s MS.[88] you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no authority to let it out of my hands. I think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, I do not despair of finding those who will.
“I have written to Mr. Leigh Hunt, stating your willingness to treat with him, which, when I saw you, I understood you to be.