“I am yours most truly,

     “BN.”

* * * * *

LETTER 166.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “February 16. 1814.

“You may be assured that the only prickles that sting from the Royal hedgehog are those which possess a torpedo property, and may benumb some of my friends. I am quite silent, and ’hush’d in grim repose.’  The frequency of the assaults has weakened their effects,—­if ever they had any;—­and, if they had had much, I should hardly have held my tongue, or withheld my fingers.  It is something quite new to attack a man for abandoning his resentments.  I have heard that previous praise and subsequent vituperation were rather ungrateful, but I did not know that it was wrong to endeavour to do justice to those who did not wait till I had made some amends for former and boyish prejudices, but received me into their friendship, when I might still have been their enemy.

“You perceive justly that I must intentionally have made my fortune like Sir Francis Wronghead.  It were better if there were more merit in my independence, but it really is something nowadays to be independent at all, and the less temptation to be otherwise, the more uncommon the case, in these times of paradoxical servility.  I believe that most of our hates and likings have been hitherto nearly the same; but from henceforth they must, of necessity, be one and indivisible,—­and now for it!  I am for any weapon,—­the pen, till one can find something sharper, will do for a beginning.

“You can have no conception of the ludicrous solemnity with which these two stanzas have been treated.  The Morning Post gave notice of an intended motion in the House of my brethren on the subject, and God he knows what proceedings besides;—­and all this, as Bedreddin in the ‘Nights’ says, ’for making a cream tart without pepper.’  This last piece of intelligence is, I presume, too laughable to be true; and the destruction of the Custom-house appears to have, in some degree, interfered with mine; added to which, the last battle of Buonaparte has usurped the column hitherto devoted to my bulletin.

“I send you from this day’s Morning Post the best which have hitherto appeared on this ‘impudent doggerel,’ as the Courier calls it.  There was another about my diet, when a boy—­not at all bad—­some time ago; but the rest are but indifferent.

“I shall think about your oratorical hint[17];—­but I have never set much upon ‘that cast,’ and am grown as tired as Solomon of every thing, and of myself more than any thing.  This is being what the learned call philosophical, and the vulgar lack-a-daisical.  I am, however, always glad of a blessing[18]; pray, repeat yours soon,—­at least your letter, and I shall think the benediction included.

     “Ever,” &c.