Chapter 74

"November 4. 1815.

"Had you not bewildered my head with the 'stocks,' your letter would have been answered directly. Hadn't I to go to the city? and hadn't I to remember what to ask when I got there? and hadn't I forgotten it?

"I should be undoubtedly delighted to see you; but I don't like to urge against your reasons my own inclinations. Come you must soon, for stay you _won't_. I know you of old;--you have been too much leavened with London to keep long out of it.

"Lewis is going to Jamaica to suck his sugar canes. He sails in two days; I enclose you his farewell note. I saw him last night at D.L.T. for the last time previous to his voyage. Poor fellow! he is really a good man--an excellent man--he left me his walking-stick and a pot of preserved ginger. I shall never eat the last without tears in my eyes, it is so _hot_. We have had a devil of a row among our ballerinas. Miss Smith has been wronged about a hornpipe. The Committee have interfered; but Byrne, the d----d ballet master, won't budge a step, _I_ am furious, so is George Lamb. Kinnaird is very glad, because--he don't know why; and I am very sorry, for the same reason. To-day I dine with Kd.--we are to have Sheridan and Colman again; and to-morrow, once more, at Sir Gilbert Heathcote's.

"Leigh Hunt has written a _real good_ and _very original Poem_, which I think will be a great hit. You can have no notion how very well it is written, nor should I, had I not redde it. As to us, Tom--eh, when art thou out? If you think the verses worth it, I would rather they were embalmed in the Irish Melodies, than scattered abroad in a separate song--much rather. But when are thy great things out? I mean the Po of Pos--thy Shah Nameh. It is very kind in Jeffrey to like the Hebrew Melodies. Some of the fellows here preferred Sternhold and Hopkins, and said so;--'the fiend receive their souls therefor!'

"I must go and dress for dinner. Poor, dear Murat, what an end! You know, I suppose, that his white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry IV.'s. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged. You shall have more to-morrow or next day.

"Ever," &c.

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