[143 — To Francis Hodgson]
Constantinople, July 4, 1810.
My Dear Hodgson, — Twice have I written — once in answer to your last, and a former letter when I arrived here in May. That I may have nothing to reproach myself with, I will write once more — a very superfluous task, seeing that Hobhouse is bound for your parts full of talk and wonderment. My first letter went by an ambassadorial express; my second by the
Black John
lugger; my third will be conveyed by Cam, the miscellanist.
I shall begin by telling you, having only told it you twice before, that I swam from Sestos to Abydos. I do this that you may be impressed with proper respect for me, the performer; for I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical. Having told you this, I will tell you nothing more, because it would be cruel to curtail Cam's narrative, which, by-the-by, you must not believe till confirmed by me, the eye-witness. I promise myself much pleasure from contradicting the greatest part of it. He has been plaguily pleased by the intelligence contained in your last to me respecting the reviews of his hymns. I refreshed him with that paragraph immediately, together with the tidings of my own third edition, which added to his recreation. But then he has had a letter from a Lincoln's Inn Bencher, full of praise of his harpings, and vituperation of the other contributions to his
Missellingany
, which that sagacious person is pleased to say must have been put in as
Foils
(