to print it yourself.  Tell me sincerely which you like.  But as to not printing it at all, charming and unexceptionable as it is, you cannot be so preposterous.(638) I by no means have a thought of detracting from your own share in your own poem; but, as I do suspect that it caught some inspiration from your perusal of “The Botanic Garden,” so I hope you will discover that my style is much improved by having lately studied Bruce’s travels.  There I dipped, and not in St. Giles’s pound, where one would think this author had been educated.  Adieu!  Your friend, or mortal foe, as you behave on the present occasion.

(637) “Bishop Bonner’s Ghost;” to which was prefixed the following argument:—­“In the garden of the palace at Fulham is a dark recess; at the end of this stands a chair which once belonged to Bishop Bonner.  A certain Bishop of London more than two hundred years after the death of the aforesaid -Bonner just as the clock of the Gothic chapel had struck six undertook to cut with his own hand a narrow walk through this thicket, which is since called ‘The Monk’s Walk.’  He had no sooner begun to clear the way, than lo! suddenly up started from the chair the Ghost of Bonner; who, in a tone of just and bitter indignation, uttered the following verses."-E.

(638) Miss More, in her reply, says—­“I send this under cover to the Bishop of London, to whom I write your emendations, and desire they may be considered as the true reading.  What is odd enough, I did write both the lines so at first but must go a-tinkering them afterwards.  I do not pretend that I am ’lot flattered by your obliging proposal of printing these slight verses at the Strawberry press.  You must do as you please, I believe.  What business have I to think meanly of verses You have commended?” Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 159.-E.

Letter 331 To Miss Berry.  Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1789. (PAGE 419)

Were there any such thing as sympathy at the distance of two hundred miles, you would have been in a mightier panic than I was; for, on Saturday se’nnight, going to open the glass case in the Tribune, my foot caught in the carpet, and I fell with my whole (si weight y a) weight against the corner of the marble altar, on my side, and bruised the muscles so badly, that for two days I could not move without screaming.(639) I am convinced I should have broken a rib, but that I fell on the cavity whence two of my ribs were removed, that are gone to Yorkshire.  I am much better both of my bruise and of my lameness, and shall be ready to dance at my own wedding when my wives return.  And now to answer your letter.  If you grow tired of the Arabian Nights, you have no more taste than Bishop Atterbury,(640) who huffed Pope for sending him them or the Persian Tales, and fancied he liked Virgil better, who had no more imagination than Dr. Akenside.  Read Sinbad the Sailor’s Voyages, and you will be sick of AEneas’s.  What