"You don't like the dedication—very well; there is another: but you will send the other to Mr. Moore, that he may know I had written it. I send also mottoes for the cantos. I think you will allow that an elephant may be more sagacious, but cannot be more docile.
"Yours, BN.
"The name is again altered to Medora"[7]
LETTER 156. TO MR. MOORE.
"January 8. 1814.
"As it would not be fair to press you into a dedication, without previous notice, I send you two, and I will tell you why two. The first, Mr. M., who sometimes takes upon him the critic (and I bear it from astonishment), says, may do you harm—God forbid!—this alone makes me listen to him. The fact is, he is a damned Tory, and has, I dare swear, something of self, which I cannot divine, at the bottom of his objection, as it is the allusion to Ireland to which he objects. But he be d——d—though a good fellow enough (your sinner would not be worth a d——n).
"Take your choice;—no one, save he and Mr. Dallas, has seen either, and D. is quite on my side, and for the first.[8] If I can but testify to you and the world how truly I admire and esteem you, I shall be quite satisfied. As to prose, I don't know Addison's from Johnson's; but I will try to mend my cacology. Pray perpend, pronounce, and don't be offended with either.
"My last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who ought to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the right place.
"Is it not odd?—the very fate I said she had escaped from * *, she has now undergone from the worthy * *. Like Mr. Fitzgerald, shall I not lay claim to the character of 'Vates?'—as he did in the Morning Herald for prophesying the fall of Buonaparte,—who, by the by, I don't think is yet fallen. I wish he would rally and route your legitimate sovereigns, having a mortal hate to all royal entails.—But I am scrawling a treatise. Good night. Ever," &c.