“P.S.  I perceive I have written a flippant and rather cold-hearted letter! let it go, however.  I have said nothing, either, of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, I am at this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape than any of the last twelve months,—­and that is saying a good deal.  It is unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women.

“I am now thinking of regretting that, just as I have left Newstead, you reside near it.  Did you ever see it? do—­but don’t tell me that you like it.  If I had known of such intellectual neighbourhood, I don’t think I should have quitted it.  You could have come over so often, as a bachelor,—­for it was a thorough bachelor’s mansion—­plenty of wine and such sordid sensualities—­with books enough, room enough, and an air of antiquity about all (except the lasses) that would have suited you, when pensive, and served you to laugh at when in glee.  I had built myself a bath and a vault—­and now I sha’n’t even be buried in it.  It is odd that we can’t even be certain of a grave, at least a particular one.  I remember, when about fifteen, reading your poems there, which I can repeat almost now,—­and asking all kinds of questions about the author, when I heard that he was not dead according to the preface; wondering if I should ever see him—­and though, at that time, without the smallest poetical propensity myself, very much taken, as you may imagine, with that volume.  Adieu—­I commit you to the care of the gods—­Hindoo, Scandinavian, and Hellenic!

“P.S. 2d.  There is an excellent review of Grimm’s Correspondence and Made. de Stael in this No. of the E.R.  Jeffrey, himself, was my critic last year; but this is, I believe, by another hand.  I hope you are going on with your grand coup—­pray do—­or that damned Lucien Buonaparte will beat us all.  I have seen much of his poem in MS., and he really surpasses every thing beneath Tasso.  Hodgson is translating him against another bard.  You and (I believe, Rogers,) Scott, Gifford, and myself, are to be referred to as judges between the twain,—­that is, if you accept the office.  Conceive our different opinions!  I think we, most of us (I am talking very impudently, you will think—­us, indeed!) have a way of our own,—­at least, you and Scott certainly have.”

[Footnote 77:  One of his travelling projects appears to have been a visit to Abyssinia:—­at least, I have found, among his papers, a letter founded on that supposition, in which the writer entreats of him to procure information concerning “a kingdom of Jews mentioned by Bruce as residing on the mountain of Samen in that country.  I have had the honour,” he adds, “of some correspondence with the Rev. Dr. Buchanan and the reverend and learned G.S.  Faber, on the subject of the existence of this kingdom of Jews, which, if it prove to be a fact, will more clearly elucidate many of the Scripture prophecies; ... and, if Providence favours your Lordship’s mission to Abyssinia, an intercourse might be established between England and that country, and the English ships, according to the Rev. Mr. Faber, might be the principal means of transporting the kingdom of Jews, now in Abyssinia, to Egypt, in the way to their own country, Palestine.”]