“Had you not bewildered my head with the ‘stocks,’ your letter would have been answered directly.  Hadn’t I to go to the city? and hadn’t I to remember what to ask when I got there? and hadn’t I forgotten it?

“I should be undoubtedly delighted to see you; but I don’t like to urge against your reasons my own inclinations.  Come you must soon, for stay you won’t.  I know you of old;—­you have been too much leavened with London to keep long out of it.

“Lewis is going to Jamaica to suck his sugar canes.  He sails in two days; I enclose you his farewell note.  I saw him last night at D.L.T. for the last time previous to his voyage.  Poor fellow! he is really a good man—­an excellent man—­he left me his walking-stick and a pot of preserved ginger.  I shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so hot.  We have had a devil of a row among our ballerinas.  Miss Smith has been wronged about a hornpipe.  The Committee have interfered; but Byrne, the d——­d ballet master, won’t budge a step, I am furious, so is George Lamb.  Kinnaird is very glad, because—­he don’t know why; and I am very sorry, for the same reason.  To-day I dine with Kd.—­we are to have Sheridan and Colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at Sir Gilbert Heathcote’s.

“Leigh Hunt has written a real good and very original Poem, which I think will be a great hit.  You can have no notion how very well it is written, nor should I, had I not redde it.  As to us, Tom—­eh, when art thou out?  If you think the verses worth it, I would rather they were embalmed in the Irish Melodies, than scattered abroad in a separate song—­much rather.  But when are thy great things out?  I mean the Po of Pos—­thy Shah Nameh.  It is very kind in Jeffrey to like the Hebrew Melodies.  Some of the fellows here preferred Sternhold and Hopkins, and said so;—­’the fiend receive their souls therefor!’

“I must go and dress for dinner.  Poor, dear Murat, what an end!  You know, I suppose, that his white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry IV.’s.  He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged.  You shall have more to-morrow or next day.

     “Ever,” &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 230.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “November 4. 1815.

“When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge’s MS.[88] you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no authority to let it out of my hands.  I think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, I do not despair of finding those who will.

“I have written to Mr. Leigh Hunt, stating your willingness to treat with him, which, when I saw you, I understood you to be.