“P.S.  I never heard the ‘report’ you mention, nor, I dare say, many others.  But, in course, you, as well as others, have ’damned good-natured friends,’ who do their duty in the usual way.  One thing will make you laugh. * * * ”

[Footnote 20:  In asserting that he devoted but four days to the composition of The Bride, he must be understood to refer only to the first sketch of that poem,—­the successive additions by which it was increased to its present length having occupied, as we have seen, a much longer period.  The Corsair, on the contrary, was, from beginning to end, struck off at a heat—­there being but little alteration or addition afterwards,—­and the rapidity with which it was produced (being at the rate of nearly two hundred lines a day) would be altogether incredible, had we not his own, as well as his publisher’s, testimony to the fact.  Such an achievement,—­taking into account the surpassing beauty of the work,—­is, perhaps, wholly without a parallel in the history of Genius, and shows that ‘ecrire _par passion_,’ as Rousseau expresses it, may be sometimes a shorter road to perfection than any that Art has ever struck out.]

* * * * *

LETTER 171.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “March 12. 1814.

“Guess darkly, and you will seldom err.  At present, I shall say no more, and, perhaps—­but no matter.  I hope we shall some day meet, and whatever years may precede or succeed it, I shall mark it with the ‘white stone’ in my calendar.  I am not sure that I shall not soon be in your neighbourhood again.  If so, and I am alone (as will probably be the case), I shall invade and carry you off, and endeavour to atone for sorry fare by a sincere welcome.  I don’t know the person absent (barring ‘the sect’) I should be so glad to see again.

“I have nothing of the sort you mention but the lines (the Weepers), if you like to have them in the Bag.  I wish to give them all possible circulation.  The Vault reflection is downright actionable, and to print it would be peril to the publisher; but I think the Tears have a natural right to be bagged, and the editor (whoever he may be) might supply a facetious note or not, as he pleased.

“I cannot conceive how the Vault[21] has got about,—­but so it is.  It is too farouche; but, truth to say, my satires are not very playful.  I have the plan of an epistle in my head, at him and to him; and, if they are not a little quieter, I shall embody it.  I should say little or nothing of myself.  As to mirth and ridicule, that is out of my way; but I have a tolerable fund of sternness and contempt, and, with Juvenal before me, I shall perhaps read him a lecture he has not lately heard in the C——­t.  From particular circumstances, which came to my knowledge almost by accident, I could ‘tell him what he is—­I know him well.’

     “I meant, my dear M., to write to you a long letter, but I am
     hurried, and time clips my inclination down to yours, &c.