“I need not repeat that I shall be happy to see you.  I shall be in town about the 8th, at Dorant’s Hotel, in Albemarle Street, and proceed in a few days to Notts., and thence to Rochdale on business.

“I am, here and there, yours,” &c.

LETTER 52.

TO MRS. BYRON.

“Volage frigate, at sea, June 25. 1811.

“Dear Mother,

“This letter, which will be forwarded on our arrival at Portsmouth, probably about the 4th of July, is begun about twenty-three days after our departure from Malta.  I have just been two years (to a day, on the 2d of July) absent from England, and I return to it with much the same feelings which prevailed on my departure, viz. indifference; but within that apathy I certainly do not comprise yourself, as I will prove by every means in my power.  You will be good enough to get my apartments ready at Newstead; but don’t disturb yourself, on any account, particularly mine, nor consider me in any other light than as a visiter.  I must only inform you that for a long time I have been restricted to an entire vegetable diet, neither fish nor flesh coming within my regimen; so I expect a powerful stock of potatoes, greens, and biscuit:  I drink no wine.  I have two servants, middle-aged men, and both Greeks.  It is my intention to proceed first to town, to see Mr. H——­, and thence to Newstead, on my way to Rochdale.  I have only to beg you will not forget my diet, which it is very necessary for me to observe.  I am well in health, as I have generally been, with the exception of two agues, both of which I quickly got over.

“My plans will so much depend on circumstances, that I shall not venture to lay down an opinion on the subject.  My prospects are not very promising, but I suppose we shall wrestle through life like our neighbours; indeed, by H.’s last advices, I have some apprehension of finding Newstead dismantled by Messrs. Brothers, &c., and he seems determined to force me into selling it, but he will be baffled.  I don’t suppose I shall be much pestered with visiters; but if I am, you must receive them, for I am determined to have nobody breaking in upon my retirement:  you know that I never was fond of society, and I am less so than before.  I have brought you a shawl, and a quantity of attar of roses, but these I must smuggle, if possible.  I trust to find my library in tolerable order.

“Fletcher is no doubt arrived.  I shall separate the mill from Mr. B——­’s farm, for his son is too gay a deceiver to inherit both, and place Fletcher in it, who has served me faithfully, and whose wife is a good woman; besides, it is necessary to sober young Mr. B——­, or he will people the parish with bastards.  In a word, if he had seduced a dairy-maid, he might have found something like an apology; but the girl is his equal, and in high life or low life reparation is made in such circumstances.  But I shall not interfere further than (like Buonaparte) by dismembering Mr. B.’s kingdom, and erecting part of it into a principality for field-marshal Fletcher!  I hope you govern my little empire and its sad load of national debt with a wary hand.  To drop my metaphor, I beg leave to subscribe myself yours, &c.