* * * * *

LETTER 112.  TO LORD HOLLAND.

     “Cheltenham, Oct. 14. 1812.

     “My dear Lord,

“I perceive that the papers, yea, even Perry’s, are somewhat ruffled at the injudicious preference of the Committee.  My friend Perry has, indeed, ’et tu Brute’-d me rather scurvily, for which I will send him, for the M.C., the next epigram I scribble, as a token of my full forgiveness.

“Do the Committee mean to enter into no explanation of their proceedings?  You must see there is a leaning towards a charge of partiality.  You will, at least, acquit me of any great anxiety to push myself before so many elder and better anonymous, to whom the twenty guineas (which I take to be about two thousand pounds Bank currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome.  ‘Honour,’ I see, ‘hath no skill in paragraph-writing.’

“I wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation.  I have seen no paper but Perry’s and two Sunday ones.  Perry is severe, and the others silent.  If, however, you and your Committee are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, I shall not much embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals.  My own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that of the public.

     “Believe me, my dear Lord, &c. &c.

     “P.S.—­My best respects to Lady H., whose smiles will be very
     consolatory, even at this distance.”

* * * * *

LETTER 113.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Cheltenham, Oct. 18. 1812.

“Will you have the goodness to get this Parody of a peculiar kind[58] (for all the first lines are Busby’s entire) inserted in several of the papers (correctly—­and copied correctly; my hand is difficult)—­particularly the Morning Chronicle?  Tell Mr. Perry I forgive him all he has said, and may say against my address, but he will allow me to deal with the Doctor—­(audi alteram partem)—­and not betray me.  I cannot think what has befallen Mr. Perry, for of yore we were very good friends;—­but no matter, only get this inserted.

     “I have a poem on Waltzing for you, of which I make you a
     present; but it must be anonymous.  It is in the old style of
     English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

     “P.S.—­With the next edition of Childe Harold you may print the
     first fifty or a hundred opening lines of the ‘Curse of Minerva’
     down to the couplet beginning

        “Mortal (’twas thus she spake), &c.

     Of course, the moment the Satire begins, there you will stop, and
     the opening is the best part.”