"13. Terrace, Piccadilly, September 25. 1815.
"Dear Sir,
"I am sorry you should feel uneasy at what has by no means troubled me.[85] If your editor, his correspondents, and readers, are amused, I have no objection to be the theme of all the ballads he can find room for,—provided his lucubrations are confined to me only.
"It is a long time since things of this kind have ceased to 'fright me from my propriety;' nor do I know any similar attack which would induce me to turn again,—unless it involved those connected with me, whose qualities, I hope, are such as to exempt them in the eyes of those who bear no good-will to myself. In such a case, supposing it to occur—to reverse the saying of Dr. Johnson,—'what the law could not do for me, I would do for myself,' be the consequences what they might.
"I return you, with many thanks, Colman and the letters. The poems, I hope, you intended me to keep;—at least, I shall do so, till I hear the contrary. Very truly yours."
TO MR. MURRAY.
"Sept. 25. 1815.
"Will you publish the Drury Lane 'Magpie?' or, what is more, will you give fifty, or even forty, pounds for the copyright of the said? I have undertaken to ask you this question on behalf of the translator, and wish you would. We can't get so much for him by ten pounds from any body else, and I, knowing your magnificence, would be glad of an answer. Ever," &c.