As I kept no journal, the letters written on the spot are the best. But of this anon, when we have definitively arranged.

"Has Murray shown the work to any one? He maybut I will have no traps for applause. Of course there are little things I would wish to alter, and perhaps the two stanzas of a buffooning cast on London's Sunday are as well left out. I much wish to avoid identifying Childe Harold's character with mine, and that, in sooth, is my second objection to my name appearing in the title-page. When you have made arrangements as to time, size, type, etc., favour me with a reply. I am giving you an universe of trouble, which thanks cannot atone for. I made a kind of prose apology for my scepticism at the head of the MS., which, on recollection, is so much more like an attack than a defence, that, haply, it might better be omitted :-perpend, pronounce. After all, I fear Murray will be in a scrape with the orthodox; but I cannot help it, though I wish him well through it. As for me, 'I have supped full of criticism,' and I don't think that the 'most dismal treatise' will stir and rouse my 'fell of hair' till 'Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane.'

"I shall continue to write at intervals, and hope you will pay me in kind. How does Pratt get on, or rather get off, Joe Blackett's posthumous stock? You killed that poor man amongst you, in spite of your Ionian friend* and myself, who would have saved him from Pratt, poetry, present poverty, and posthumous oblivion. Cruel patronage! to ruin a man at his calling; but then he is a divine subject for subscription and biography; and Pratt, who makes the most of his dedications, has inscribed the volume to no less than five families of distinction.

* Walter Rodwell Wright, author of "Horæ Ionicæ," a poem, descriptive of the Ionian Islands, and the neighbouring coast of Greece:

"Wright! 'twas thy happy lot at once to view
Those shores of glory, and to sing them too;
And sure no common muse inspired thy pen
To hail the land of gods and godlike men."

English Bards, etc. Works, p. 434.

"I am sorry you don't like Harry White; with a great deal of cant, which in him was sincere (indeed it killed him as you killed Joe Blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. I don't say this on account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was beyond all the Bloomfields and Blacketts, and their collateral cobblers, whom Lofft and Pratt have or may kidnap from their calling into the service of the trade. You must excuse my flippancy, for I am writing I know not what, to escape from myself. Hobhouse is gone to Ireland. Mr. Davies has been here on his way to Harrowgate.

"You did not know Matthews: he was a man of the most astonishing powers, as he sufficiently proved at Cambridge, by carrying off more prizes and fellowships, against the ablest candidates, than any other graduate on record; but a most decided atheist, indeed noxiously so, for he proclaimed his principles in all societies. I knew him well, and feel a loss not easily to be supplied to myself-to Hobhouse never. Let me hear from you, and believe me," etc.

The progress towards publication of his two forthcoming works will be traced in his letters to Mr. Murray and Mr. Dallas.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Newstead Abbey, Notts., Sept. 5, 1811.

"Sir,-The time seems to be past when (as Dr. Johnson said) a man was certain to 'hear the truth from his bookseller,' for you have paid me so many compliments, that, if I was not the veriest scribbler on earth, I should feel affronted. As I accept your compliments, it is but fair I should give equal or greater credit to your objections, the more so, as I believe them to be well founded. With regard to the political and metaphysical parts, I am afraid I can alter nothing; but I have high authority for my errors in that point, for even the Eneid was a political poem, and written for a political purpose; and as to my unlucky opinions on subjects of more importance, I am too sincere in them for recantation. On Spanish affairs I have said what I saw, and every day confirms me in that notion of the result formed on the spot; and I rather think honest John Bull is beginning to come round again to that sobriety which Massena's retreat had begun to reel from its centre -the usual consequence of unusual success. So you perceive I cannot alter the sentiments; but if there are any alterations in the structure of the versification you would wish to be made, I will tag rhymes and turn stanzas as much as you please. As for the 'orthodox,' let us hope they will buy, on purpose to abuse-you will forgive the one, if they will do the other. You are aware that anything from my pen must expect no quarter, on many accounts; and as the present publication is of a nature very different from the former, we must not be sanguine.

"You have given me no answer to my question-tell me fairly, did you show the MS. to some of your corps?-I sent an introductory stanza to Mr. Dallas, to be forwarded to you; the poem else will open too abruptly. The stanzas had better be numbered in Roman characters. There is a disquisition on the literature of the modern Greeks, and some smaller poems to come in at the close. These are now at Newstead, but will be sent in time. If Mr. D. has lost the stanza and note annexed to it, write, and I will send it myself. You tell me to add two cantos, but I am about to visit my collieries in Lancashire on the 15th instant, which is so unpoetical an employment that I need say no more. I am, sir, your most obedient," etc.

TO MR. DALLAS.

"Newstead Abbey, Sept. 17, 1811.

"I can easily excuse your not writing, as you have, I hope, something better to do, and you must pardon my frequent invasions on your attention, because I have at this moment nothing to interpose between you and my epistles.

"I cannot settle to anything, and my days pass, with the exception of bodily exercise to some extent, with uniform indolence, and idle insipidity. I have been expecting, and still expect, my agent, when I shall have enough to occupy my reflections in business of no very pleasant aspect. Before my journey to Rochdale, you shall have due notice where to address me I believe at the post-office of that township. From Murray I received a second proof of the same pages, which I requested him to show you, that anything which may have escaped my observation may be detected before the printer lays the corner-stone of an errata column.

"I am now not quite alone, having an old acquaintance and school-fellow with me, so old, indeed, that we have nothing new to say on any subject, and yawn at each other in a sort of quiet inquietude. I hear nothing from Cawthorn, or Captain Hobhouse; and their quarto-Lord have mercy on mankind! We come on like Cerberus with our triple publications. As for myself, by myself, I must be satisfied with a comparison to Janus.

"I am not at all pleased with Murray for showing the MS.; and I am certain Gifford must see it in the same light that I do. His praise is nothing to the purpose : what could he say? He could not spit in the face of one who had praised him in every possible way. I must own that I wish to have the impression removed from his mind, that I had any concern in such a paltry transaction. The more I think, the more it disquiets me; so I will say no more about it. It is bad enough to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to extort praise, or deprecate censure. It is anticipating, it is begging, kneeling, adulating, the devil! the devil! the devil! and all without my wish, and contrary to my express desire. I wish Murray had been tied to Payne's neck when he jumped into the Paddington Canal, * and so tell him, that is the proper

* In a note on his "Hints from Horace," he thus humorously applies this incident :"A literary friend of mine walking out one lovely evening last summer on the eleventh bridge of the Paddington canal, was alarmed receptacle for publishers. You have thoughts of settling in the country, why not try Notts. ? I think there are places which would suit you in all points, and then you are nearer the metropolis. But of this anon.

"I sent you a sad Tale of Three Friars the other day, and now take a dose in another style. I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days.

""Away, away, ye notes of woe,' etc., etc.

"I have gotten a book by Sir W. Drummond (printed, but not published), entitled Edipus Judaicus, in which he attempts to prove the greater part of the Old Testament an allegory, particularly Genesis and Joshua. He professes himself a theist in the preface, and handles the literal interpretation very roughly. I wish you could see it. Mr. WWatsons.

has lent it me, and I confess to me it is worth fifty

by the cry of 'One in jeopardy!' He rushed along, collected a body of Irish haymakers (supping on buttermilk in an adjoining paddock), procured three rakes, one eel spear, and a landing-net, and at last (horresco referens) pulled out his own publisher. The unfortunate man was gone for ever, and so was a large quarto wherewith he had taken the leap, which proved, on inquiry, to have been Mr. Southey's last work. Its 'alacrity of sinking' was so great, that it has never since been heard of, though some maintain that it is at this moment concealed at Alderman Birch's pastry-premises, Cornhill. Be this as it may, the coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of 'Felo de Bibliopola' against a 'quarto unknown,' and circumstantial evidence being since strong against the 'Curse of Kehama' (of which the above words are an exact description), it will be tried by its peers next session in Grub Street. Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Cœur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, and the bellman of St. Sepulchre's."