"Now for thine affairs. I have redde thee upon the Fathers, and it is excellent well. Positively, you must not leave off reviewing. You shine in it—you kill in it; and this article has been taken for Sydney Smith's (as I heard in town), which proves not only your proficiency in parsonology, but that you have all the airs of a veteran critic at your first onset. So, prithee, go on and prosper.
"Scott's 'Lord of the Isles' is out—'the mail-coach copy' I have, by special licence, of Murray.
"Now is your time;—you will come upon them newly and freshly. It is impossible to read what you have lately done (verse or prose) without seeing that you have trained on tenfold. * * has floundered; * * has foundered. I have tried the rascals (i.e. the public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but S * * * *y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's pudding; and he has not luck enough to be found out in doing a good thing. Now, Tom, is thy time—'Oh joyful day!—I would not take a knighthood for thy fortune. Let me hear from you soon, and believe me ever, &c.
"P.S. Lady Byron is vastly well. How are Mrs. Moore and Joe Atkinson's 'Graces?' We must present our women to one another."
LETTER 210. TO MR. MOORE.
"January 19. 1815.
"Egad! I don't think he is 'down;' and my prophecy—like most auguries, sacred and profane—is not annulled, but inverted.
"To your question about the 'dog'[64]—Umph!—my 'mother,' I won't say any thing against—that is, about her: but how long a 'mistress' or friend may recollect paramours or competitors (lust and thirst being the two great and only bonds between the amatory or the amicable) I can't say,—or, rather, you know, as well as I could tell you. But as for canine recollections, as far as I could judge by a cur of mine own, (always bating Boatswain, the dearest and, alas! the maddest of dogs,) I had one (half a wolf by the she side) that doted on me at ten years old, and very nearly ate me at twenty. When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him. So, let Southey blush and Homer too, as far as I can decide upon quadruped memories.
"I humbly take it, the mother knows the son that pays her jointure—a mistress her mate, till he * * and refuses salary—a friend his fellow, till he loses cash and character—and a dog his master, till he changes him.