is just now nearest my heart.  Fenwick is a ruined man.  He is hiding himself from his creditors, and has sent his wife and children into the country.  Fell, my other drunken companion (that has been:  nam hic caestus artemque repono), is turned editor of a Naval Chronicle.  Godwin continues a steady friend, though the same facility does not remain of visiting him often.  X. has detached Marshall from his house; Marshall, the man who went to sleep when the Ancient Mariner was reading; the old, steady, unalterable friend of the Professor.  Holcraft is not yet come to town.  I expect to see him, and will deliver your message.  Things come crowding in to say, and no room for ’em.  Some things are too little to be told, i.e. to have a preference; some are too big and circumstantial.  Thanks for yours, which was most delicious.  Would I had been with you, benighted, &c.!  I fear my head is turned with wandering.  I shall never be the same acquiescent being.  Farewell.  Write again quickly, for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates have carried you.  Farewell, my dear fellow.

TO THE SAME

Dissuasion from Tartary

19 Feb. 1803.

MY DEAR MANNING,

The general scope of your letter afforded no indications of insanity, but some particular points raised a scruple.  For God’s sake don’t think any more of ‘Independent Tartary’.  What are you to do among such Ethiopians?  Is there no lineal descendant of Prester John?  Is the chair empty?  Is the sword unswayed?—­depend upon it they’ll never make you their king, as long as any branch of that great stock is remaining.  I tremble for your Christianity....  Read Sir John Mandeville’s Travels to cure you, or come over to England.  There is a Tartar-man now exhibiting at Exeter Change.  Come and talk with him, and hear what he says first.  Indeed, he is no very favourable specimen of his countrymen!  But perhaps the best thing you can do, is to try to get the idea out of your head.  For this purpose repeat to yourself every night, after you have said your prayers, the words, Independent Tartary, Independent Tartary, two or three times, and associate with them the idea of oblivion (’tis Hartley’s method with obstinate memories), or say, Independent, Independent, have I not already got an independence?  That was a clever way of the old Puritans, pun-divinity.  My dear friend, think what a sad pity it would be to bury such parts in heathen countries, among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar-people!  Some say they are Cannibals; and then, conceive a Tartar-fellow eating my friend, and adding the cool malignity of mustard and vinegar!  I am afraid ’tis the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about Cambuscan, and the ring, and the horse of brass.  Believe me, there are no such things, ’tis all the poet’s