"I hope nothing will induce you to abate from the proper price of your poem, as long as there is a prospect of getting it. For my own part, I have seriously and not whiningly, (for that is not my way—at least, it used not to be,) neither hopes, nor prospects, and scarcely even wishes. I am, in some respects, happy, but not in a manner that can or ought to last,—but enough of that. The worst of it is, I feel quite enervated and indifferent. I really do not know, if Jupiter were to offer me my choice of the contents of his benevolent cask, what I would pick out of it. If I was born, as the nurses say, with a 'silver spoon in my mouth,' it has stuck in my throat, and spoiled my palate, so that nothing put into it is swallowed with much relish,—unless it be cayenne. However, I have grievances enough to occupy me that way too;—but for fear of adding to yours by this pestilent long diatribe, I postpone the reading of them, sine die.
"Ever, dear M., yours, &c.
"P.S. Don't forget my godson. You could not have fixed on a fitter porter for his sins than me, being used to carry double without inconvenience."
LETTER 193. TO MR. MURRAY.
"August 4. 1814.
"Not having received the slightest answer to my last three letters, nor the book (the last number of the Edinburgh Review) which they requested, I presume that you were the unfortunate person who perished in the pagoda on Monday last, and address this rather to your executors than yourself, regretting that you should have had the ill luck to be the sole victim on that joyous occasion.
"I beg leave, then, to inform these gentlemen (whoever they may be) that I am a little surprised at the previous neglect of the deceased, and also at observing an advertisement of an approaching publication on Saturday next, against the which I protested, and do protest for the present.
"Yours (or theirs), &c.
"B."