Chapter 292

Berkeley Square, Feb. 9, 1786. (page 380)

It is very cruel, my dear Madam, when you send me such charming lines, and say such kind and flattering things to me and of me, that I cannot even thank you with my own poor hand; and yet my hand is as much obliged to you as my eye, and ear, and understanding. My hand was in great pain when your present arrived. I opened it directly, and set to reading, till your music and my own vanity composed a quieting draught that glided to the ends of my fingers, and lulled the throbs into the deliquium that attends opium when it does not put one absolutely to sleep. I don't believe that the deity who formerly practised both poetry and physic, when gods got their livelihood by more than one profession, ever gave a recipe in rhyme; and therefore, since Dr. Johnson has prohibited application to pagan divinities, and Mr. Burke has not struck medicine and poetry out of the list of sinecures, I wish you may get a patent for life for exercising both faculties. It would be a comfortable event for me for, since I cannot wait on you to thank you, nor dare ask you

----to call your doves yourself,

and visit me in your Parnassian quality, I might send for you as my physicianess. Yet why should I not ask you to come and see me? You are not such a prude as to

----blush to show compassion,

though it should

not chance this year to be the fashion,(567)

And I can tell you, that powerful as your poetry is, and old as I am, I believe a visit from you would do me as much good almost as your verses.(568) In the meantime, I beg you to accept of an addition to your Strawberry editions; and believe me to be, with the greatest gratitude, your too much honoured, and most obliged humble servant.

See "Florio," a poetical tale, which Miss Hannah More had recently published with the "Bas Bleu."-E.

(568) on the 11th, Hannah More paid him a visit. "I made poor Vesey," she says, "go with me on Saturday to see Mr. Walpole, who has had a long illness. Notwithstanding his sufferings, I never found him so pleasant, so witty, and so entertaining. He said a thousand diverting things about 'Florio;' but accused me of having imposed on the world by a dedication full of falsehood; meaning the compliment to himself: I never knew a man suffer pain with such entire patience. This submission is certainly a most valuable part of religion; and yet, alas! he is not religious. I must however, do him the justice to say, that, except the delight he has in teasing me for what he calls over-strictness, I never heard a sentence from him which savoured of infidelity." Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 11.-E.