Chapter 43

"Venice, April 11. 1818.

"Will you send me by letter, packet, or parcel, half a dozen of the coloured prints from Holmes's miniature (the latter done shortly before I left your country, and the prints about a year ago); I shall be obliged to you, as some people here have asked me for the like. It is a picture of my upright self done for Scrope B. Davies, Esq.[18]

"Why have you not sent me an answer, and list of subscribers to the translation of the Armenian _Eusebius_? of which I sent you printed copies of the prospectus (in French) two moons ago. Have you had the letter?--I shall send you another:--you must not neglect my Armenians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh, tooth-brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal demands.

"Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times, Patron and publisher of rhymes, For thee the bard up Pindus climbs, My Murray.

"To thee, with hope and terror dumb, The unfledged MS. authors come; Thou printest all--and sellest some-- My Murray.

"Upon thy table's baize so green The last new Quarterly is seen, But where is thy new Magazine, My Murray?

"Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine The works thou deemest most divine-- The 'Art of Cookery,' and mine, My Murray.

"Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons to thy mill bring grist! And then thou hast the 'Navy List,' My Murray.

"And Heaven forbid I should conclude Without 'the Board of Longitude,' Although this narrow paper would, My Murray!"

[Footnote 18: There follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gaiety and humour, that it is with some reluctance I suppress them. They might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not have deliberately inflicted it;--from a pen like his, touches may be wounds, and without being actually intended as such.]

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