water being admitted therein.  There was a night for you! without once quitting the table, except to ambulate home, which I did alone, and in utter contempt of a hackney-coach and my own vis, both of which were deemed necessary for our conveyance.  And so,—­I am very well, and they say it will hurt my constitution.

“I have also, more or less, been breaking a few of the favourite commandments; but I mean to pull up and marry, if any one will have me.  In the mean time, the other day I nearly killed myself with a collar of brawn, which I swallowed for supper, and indigested for I don’t know how long:  but that is by the by.  All this gourmandise was in honour of Lent; for I am forbidden meat all the rest of the year, but it is strictly enjoined me during your solemn fast.  I have been, and am, in very tolerable love; but of that hereafter as it may be.

“My dear Moore, say what you will in your preface; and quiz any thing or any body,—­me if you like it.  Oons! dost thou think me of the old, or rather elderly, school?  If one can’t jest with one’s friends, with whom can we be facetious?  You have nothing to fear from * *, whom I have not seen, being out of town when he called.  He will be very correct, smooth, and all that, but I doubt whether there will be any ’grace beyond the reach of art;’—­and, whether there is or not, how long will you be so d——­d modest?  As for Jeffrey, it is a very handsome thing of him to speak well of an old antagonist,—­and what a mean mind dared not do.  Any one will revoke praise; but—­were it not partly my own case—­I should say that very few have strength of mind to unsay their censure, or follow it up with praise of other things.

“What think you of the review of Levis?  It beats the Bag and my hand-grenade hollow, as an invective, and hath thrown the Court into hysterics, as I hear from very good authority.  Have you heard from * * *?

“No more rhyme for—­or rather, from—­me.  I have taken my leave of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer.  I have had my day, and there’s an end.  The utmost I expect, or even wish, is to have it said in the Biographia Britannica, that I might perhaps have been a poet, had I gone on and amended.  My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices.  I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.  They can’t say I have truckled to the times, nor to popular topics, (as Johnson, or somebody, said of Cleveland,) and whatever I have gained has been at the expenditure of as much personal favour as possible; for I do believe never was a bard more unpopular, quoad homo, than myself.  And now I have done;—­’ludite nunc alios.’  Every body may be d——­d, as they seem fond of it, and resolve to stickle