You have told me what makes me both sorry and glad.(1029) Long have I expected the appearance of Ely, and thought it at the eve of coming forth.  Now you tell me it is not half written; but then I am rejoiced you are to write it.  Pray do; the author is very much in the right to make you author for him.  I cannot say you have addressed yourself quite so judiciously as he has.  I never heard of Cardinal Lewis de Luxembourg in my days, nor have a scrap of the history of Normandy, but Ducarel’s tour to the Conqueror’s kitchen.  But the best way will be to come and rummage my library yourself:  not to set me to writing the lives of prelates:  I shall strip them stark, and you will have them to reconsecrate.  Cardinal Morton is at your service:  pray say for him, and of me, what you please.  I have very slender opinion of his integrity; but as I am not spiteful, It would be hard to exact from you a less favourable account of him than I conclude your piety will bestow on all his predecessors and successors.  Seriously, you know how little I take contradiction to heart, and beg you will have no scruples about defending Morton.  When I bestow but a momentary smile on the abuse of any answerers, I am not likely to stint a friend in a fair and obliging remark.

The man that you mention, who calls himself “Impartialis,” is, I suppose some hackney historian, I shall never inquire, whom, angry at being censured in the jump, and not named.  I foretold he would drop his criticisms before he entered on Perkin Warbeck, which I knew he could not answer; and so it happened.  Good night to him!

Unfortunately, I am no culinary antiquary — the Bishop of Carlisle, who is, I have oft heard talk of a sotelle, as an ancient dish.  He is rambling between London, flagley, and Carlisle, that I do not know where to consult him:  but, if the book is not printed before winter, I am sure he could translate your bill of fare into modern phrase.  As I trust I shall see you some time this summer, you might bring your papers with you, and we will try what we can make of them.  Tell me, do, when it will be most convenient for you to come, from now to the end of October.  At the same time, I will beg to see the letters of the university to King Richard; and shall be still more obliged to you for the print of Jane Shore.(1030) I have a very bad mezzotinto of her, either from the picture at Cambridge or Eton.  I wish I could return these favours by contributing to the decoration of your new old house:  but, as you know, I erected an old house, not demolished one.  I had no windows, or frames for windows, but what I bespoke on purpose for the places where they are.  My painted glass was so exhausted, before I got through my design, that I was forced to have the windows in the Battery painted on purpose by Pecket.  What scraps I have remaining are so bad I cannot make you pay for the carriage of them, as I think there is not one whole piece; but you shall see them when you come hither, and I will search if I can find any thing for your purpose.  I am sure I owe it you.  Adieu!  Yours ever.