“Your letter of the 8th is before me.  The remedy for your plethora is simple—­abstinence.  I was obliged to have recourse to the like some years ago, I mean in point of diet, and, with the exception of some convivial weeks and days, (it might be months, now and then,) have kept to Pythagoras ever since.  For all this, let me hear that you are better.  You must not indulge in ’filthy beer,’ nor in porter, nor eat suppers—­the last are the devil to those who swallow dinner.

“I am truly sorry to hear of your father’s misfortune—­cruel at any time, but doubly cruel in advanced life.  However, you will, at least, have the satisfaction of doing your part by him, and depend upon it, it will not be in vain.  Fortune, to be sure, is a female, but not such a b * * as the rest (always excepting your wife and my sister from such sweeping terms); for she generally has some justice in the long run.  I have no spite against her, though between her and Nemesis I have had some sore gauntlets to run—­but then I have done my best to deserve no better.  But to you, she is a good deal in arrear, and she will come round—­mind if she don’t:  you have the vigour of life, of independence, of talent, spirit, and character all with you.  What you can do for yourself, you have done and will do; and surely there are some others in the world who would not be sorry to be of use, if you would allow them to be useful, or at least attempt it.

“I think of being in England in the spring.  If there is a row, by the sceptre of King Ludd, but I’ll be one; and if there is none, and only a continuance of ‘this meek, piping time of peace,’ I will take a cottage a hundred yards to the south of your abode, and become your neighbour; and we will compose such canticles, and hold such dialogues, as shall be the terror of the Times (including the newspaper of that name), and the wonder, and honour, and praise of the Morning Chronicle and posterity.

“I rejoice to hear of your forthcoming in February—­though I tremble for the ‘magnificence’ which you attribute to the new Childe Harold.  I am glad you like it; it is a fine indistinct piece of poetical desolation, and my favourite.  I was half mad during the time of its composition, between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the night-mare of my own delinquencies.  I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her—­but I won’t dwell upon these trifling family matters.

“Venice is in the estro of her carnival, and I have been up these last two nights at the ridotto and the opera, and all that kind of thing.  Now for an adventure.  A few days ago a gondolier brought me a billet without a subscription, intimating a wish on the part