"I want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in a ship of war. They had better let me go; if I cannot, patriotism is the word—'nay, an' they'll mouth, I'll rant as well as they.' Now, what are you doing?—writing, we all hope, for our own sakes. Remember you must edite my posthumous works, with a Life of the Author, for which I will send you Confessions, dated, 'Lazaretto,' Smyrna, Malta, or Palermo—one can die any where.
"There is to be a thing on Tuesday ycleped a national fête. The Regent and * * * are to be there, and every body else, who has shillings enough for what was once a guinea. Vauxhall is the scene—there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is supposed there will be three to spare. The passports for the lax are beyond my arithmetic.
"P.S.—The Staël last night attacked me most furiously—said that I had 'no right to make love—that I had used * * barbarously—that I had no feeling, and was totally insensible to la belle passion, and had been all my life.' I am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before. Let me hear from you anon."
LETTER 126. TO MR. MOORE.
"July 25. 1813.
"I am not well versed enough in the ways of single woman to make much matrimonial progress.
"I have been dining like the dragon of Wantley for this last week. My head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their dregs. I met your friends the D * * s:—she sung one of your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance of affectation, I could have cried; he reminds me of Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perhaps. I wish to God he may conquer his horrible anomalous complaint. The upper part of her face is beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion,—and the second, very probably, every thing else.
"I must tell you a story. M * * (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the P——e's coldness to his old wassailers. D * * (a learned Jew) bored him with questions—why this? and why that? 'Why did the P——e act thus?'—'Why, sir, on account of Lord * *, who ought to be ashamed of himself.'—'And why ought Lord * * to be ashamed of himself?'—'Because the P——e, sir, * * * * * * * *.'—'And why, sir, did the P——e cut you?'—' Because, G——d d——mme, sir, I stuck to my principles.'—'And why did you stick to your principles?'