recommendation to the book.  I am sure Sanders would not have survived the engraving.  By the by, the picture may remain with you or him (which you please), till my return.  The one of two remaining copies is at your service till I can give you a better; the other must be burned peremptorily.  Again, do not forget that I have an account with you, and that this is included.  I give you too much trouble to allow you to incur expense also.

“You best know how far this ‘Address Riot’ will affect the future sale of Childe Harold.  I like the volume of ‘Rejected Addresses’ better and better.  The other parody which Perry has received is mine also (I believe).  It is Dr. Busby’s speech versified.  You are removing to Albemarle Street, I find, and I rejoice that we shall be nearer neighbours.  I am going to Lord Oxford’s, but letters here will be forwarded.  When at leisure, all communications from you will be willingly received by the humblest of your scribes.  Did Mr. Ward write the review of Horne Tooke’s Life in the Quarterly? it is excellent.”

* * * * *

LETTER 116.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Cheltenham, November 22. 1812.

“On my return here from Lord Oxford’s, I found your obliging note, and will thank you to retain the letters, and any other subsequent ones to the same address, till I arrive in town to claim them, which will probably be in a few days.  I have in charge a curious and very long MS. poem, written by Lord Brooke (the friend of Sir Philip Sidney), which I wish to submit to the inspection of Mr. Gifford, with the following queries:—­first, whether it has ever been published, and, secondly (if not), whether it is worth publication?  It is from Lord Oxford’s library, and must have escaped or been overlooked amongst the MSS. of the Harleian Miscellany.  The writing is Lord Brooke’s, except a different hand towards the close.  It is very long, and in the six-line stanza.  It is not for me to hazard an opinion upon its merits; but I would take the liberty, if not too troublesome, to submit it to Mr. Gifford’s judgment, which, from his excellent edition of Massinger, I should conceive to be as decisive on the writings of that age as on those of our own.

“Now for a less agreeable and important topic.—­How came Mr. Mac-Somebody, without consulting you or me, to prefix the Address to his volume[59] of ‘Dejected Addresses?’ Is not this somewhat larcenous?  I think the ceremony of leave might have been asked, though I have no objection to the thing itself; and leave the ‘hundred and eleven’ to tire themselves with ‘base comparisons.’  I should think the ingenuous public tolerably sick of the subject, and, except the Parodies, I have not interfered, nor shall; indeed I did not know that Dr. Busby had published his Apologetical