Chapter 84

"March 6. 1816.

"I sent to you to-day for this reason--the books you purchased are again seized, and, as matters stand, had much better be sold at once by public auction.[99] I wish to see you to return your bill for them, which, thank God, is neither due nor paid. _That_ part, as far as _you_ are concerned, being settled, (which it can be, and shall be, when I see you to-morrow,) I have no further delicacy about the matter. This is about the tenth execution in as many months; so I am pretty well hardened; but it is fit I should pay the forfeit of my forefathers' extravagance and my own; and whatever my faults may be, I suppose they will be pretty well expiated in time--or eternity. Ever, &c.

"P.S. I need hardly say that I knew nothing till this _day_ of the new _seizure_. I had released them from former ones, and thought, when you took them, that they were yours.

"You shall have your bill again to-morrow."

[Footnote 99: The sale of these books took place the following month, and they were described in the catalogue as the property of "a Nobleman about to leave England on a tour."

From a note to Mr. Murray, it would appear that he had been first announced as going to the Morea.

"I hope that the catalogue of the books, &c., has not been published without my seeing it. I must reserve several, and many ought not to be printed. The advertisement is a very bad one. I am not going to the Morea; and if I was, you might as well advertise a man in Russia _as going to Yorkshire_.--Ever," &c.

Together with the books was sold an article of furniture, which is now in the possession of Mr. Murray, namely, "a large screen covered with portraits of actors, pugilists, representations of boxing-matches," &c.]

* * * * *

During the month of January and part of February, his poems of The Siege of Corinth and Parisina were in the hands of the printers, and about the end of the latter month made their appearance. The following letters are the only ones I find connected with their publication.