y elder and better anonymous, to whom the
twenty guineas (which I take to be about two thousand pounds _Bank_
currency) and the honour would have been equally welcome. 'Honour,'
I see, 'hath no skill in paragraph-writing.'

"I wish to know how it went off at the second reading, and whether
any one has had the grace to give it a glance of approbation. I
have seen no paper but Perry's and two Sunday ones. Perry is
severe, and the others silent. If, however, you and your Committee
are not now dissatisfied with your own judgments, I shall not much
embarrass myself about the brilliant remarks of the journals. My
own opinion upon it is what it always was, perhaps pretty near that
of the public.

"Believe me, my dear Lord, &c. &c.

"P.S.--My best respects to Lady H., whose smiles will be very
consolatory, even at this distance."

* * * * *

LETTER 113. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Cheltenham, Oct. 18. 1812.

"Will you have the goodness to get this Parody of a peculiar
kind[58] (for all the first lines are _Busby_'s entire) inserted
in several of the papers (_correctly_--and copied _correctly_; _my
hand_ is difficult)--particularly the Morning Chronicle? Tell Mr.
Perry I forgive him all he has said, and may say against _my
address_, but he will allow me to deal with the Doctor--(_audi
alteram partem_)--and not _betray_ me. I cannot think what has
befallen Mr. Perry, for of yore we were very good friends;--but no
matter, only get this inserted.

"I have a poem on Waltzing for _you_, of which I make _you_ a
present; but it must be anonymous. It is in the old style of
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

"P.S.--With the next edition of Childe Harold you may print the
first fifty or a hundred opening lines of the 'Curse of Minerva'
down to the couplet beginning

"Mortal ('twas thus she spake), &c.

Of course, the moment the _Satire_ begins, there you will stop, and
the opening is the best part."

[Footnote 58: Among the Addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee
was one by Dr. Busby, entitled a Monologue, of which the Parody was
enclosed in this letter. A short specimen of this trifle will be
sufficient. The four first lines of the Doctor's Address are as
follows:--

"When energising objects men pursue,
What are the pro