as I think you call Nonnus, nor ever, like Leigh Hunt’s ‘Johnny, ever blythe and bonny, went singing Nonny, nonny’ and see to-morrow, what a vengeance I will take for your ’mere suspicion in that kind’!  But to the serious matter ... nay, I said yesterday, I believe—­keep off that Burgess—­he is stark staring mad—­mad, do you know?  The last time I met him he told me he had recovered I forget how many of the lost books of Thucydides—­found them imbedded in Suidas (I think), and had disengaged them from his Greek, without loss of a letter, ’by an instinct he, Burgess, had’—­(I spell his name wrongly to help the proper hiss at the end).  Then, once on a time, he found in the ‘Christus Patiens,’ an odd dozen of lines, clearly dropped out of the ‘Prometheus,’ and proving that AEschylus was aware of the invention of gunpowder.  He wanted to help Dr. Leonhard Schmitz in his ’Museum’—­and scared him, as Schmitz told me.  What business has he, Burges, with English verse—­and what on earth, or under it, has Miss Thomson to do with him.  If she must displease one of two, why is Mr. B. not to be thanked and ‘sent to feed,’ as the French say prettily?  At all events, do pray see what he has presumed to alter ... you can alter at sufficient warrant, profit by suggestion, I should think!  But it is all Miss Thomson’s shame and fault:  because she is quite in her propriety, saying to such intermeddlers, gently for the sake of their poor weak heads, ’very good, I dare say, very desirable emendations, only the work is not mine, you know, but my friend’s, and you must no more alter it without her leave, than alter this sketch, this illustration, because you think you could mend Ariadne’s face or figure,—­Fecit Tizianus, scripsit E.B.B.’  Dear friend, you will tell Miss Thomson to stop further proceedings, will you not?  There! only, do mind what I say?

And now—­till to-morrow!  It seems an age since I saw you.  I want to catch our first post ... (this phrase I ought to get stereotyped—­I need it so constantly).  The day is fine ... you will profit by it, I trust.  ’Flush, wag your tail and grow restless and scratch at the door!’

God bless you,—­my one friend, without an ’other’—­bless you ever—­

R.B.

E.B.B. to R.B.

Wednesday.
[Post-mark, August 25, 1845.]

But what have I done that you should ask what have you done?  I have not brought any accusation, have I ... no, nor thought any, I am sure—­and it was only the ’kindness and considerateness’—­argument that was irresistible as a thing to be retorted, when your thanks came so naturally and just at the corner of an application.  And then, you know, it is gravely true, seriously true, sadly true, that I am always expecting to hear or to see how tired you are at last of me!—­sooner or later, you know!—­But I did not mean any seriousness in that letter.  No, nor did I mean ... (to pass to another question ...) to provoke you to the