blunder; but I certainly think you said to me, (after W * * th, whom I first pondered upon, was given up,) that * * and I might attempt * * * *.  His length alone prevented me from trying my part, though I should have been less severe upon the Reviewee.

“Your seal is the best and prettiest of my set, and I thank you very much therefor.  I have just been—­or rather, ought to be—­very much shocked by the death of the Duke of Dorset.  We were at school together, and there I was passionately attached to him.  Since, we have never met—­but once, I think, since 1805—­and it would be a paltry affectation to pretend that I had any feeling for him worth the name.  But there was a time in my life when this event would have broken my heart; and all I can say for it now is that—­it is not worth breaking.

     “Adieu—­it is all a farce.”

[Footnote 70:  A seal, with the head of Anacreon, which I had given him.]

[Footnote 71:  I had taken the liberty of laughing a little at the manner in which some of his Hebrew Melodies had been set to music.]

* * * * *

LETTER 216.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “March 2. 1815.

     “My dear Thom,

“Jeffrey has sent me the most friendly of all possible letters, and has accepted * ’s article.  He says he has long liked not only, &c. &c. but my ‘character.’  This must be _your_ doing, you dog—­ar’nt you ashamed of yourself, knowing me so well?  This is what one gets for having you for a father confessor.

“I feel merry enough to send you a sad song.[72] You once asked me for some words which you would set.  Now you may set or not, as you like,—­but there they are, in a legible hand[73], and not in mine, but of my own scribbling; so you may say of them what you please.  Why don’t you write to me?  I shall make you ’a speech’[74] if you don’t respond quickly.

“I am in such a state of sameness and stagnation, and so totally occupied in consuming the fruits—­and sauntering—­and playing dull games at cards—­and yawning—­and trying to read old Annual Registers and the daily papers—­and gathering shells on the shore—­and watching the growth of stunted gooseberry bushes in the garden—­that I have neither time nor sense to say more than yours ever, B.

“P.S.  I open my letter again to put a question to you.  What would Lady C——­k, or any other fashionable Pidcock, give to collect you and Jeffrey and me to _one_ party?  I have been answering his letter, which suggested this dainty query.  I can’t help laughing at the thoughts of your face and mine; and our anxiety to keep the Aristarch in good humour during the _early_ part of a compotation, till we got drunk enough to make him ‘a speech.’  I think the critic would have much the best of us—­of one, at least—­for I don’t think diffidence (I mean social) is a disease of yours.”

[Footnote 72:  The verses enclosed were those melancholy ones, now printed in his works, “There’s not a joy the world can give like those it takes away.”]