time, to your repentance. But as I consented, whatever be its
fate, I won't now quarrel with you, even though I detect it in my
pastry; but I shall not open a pie without apprehension for some
weeks.

"The books which may be marked G.O. I will carry out. Do you know
Clarke's Naufragia? I am told that he asserts the _first_ volume of
Robinson Crusoe was written by the first Lord Oxford, when in the
Tower, and given by him to Defoe; if true, it is a curious
anecdote. Have you got back Lord Brooke's MS.? and what does Heber
say of it? Write to me at Portsmouth. Ever yours, &c.

"N."

[Footnote 72: In an article on this Satire (written for Cumberland's
Review, but never printed) by that most amiable man and excellent poet,
the late Rev. William Crowe, the incongruity of these metaphors is thus
noticed:--"Within the space of three or four couplets, he transforms a
man into as many different animals. Allow him but the compass of three
lines, and he will metamorphose him from a wolf into a harpy, and in
three more he will make him a blood-hound."

There are also in this MS. critique some curious instances of oversight
or ignorance adduced from the Satire; such as "_Fish_ from
_Helicon_"--"_Attic_ flowers _Aonian_ odours breathe," &c. &c.]

* * * * *

TO MR. MURRAY.

"June 18. 1813.

"Dear Sir,

"Will you forward the enclosed answer to the kindest letter I ever
received in my life, my sense of which I can neither express to Mr.
Gifford himself nor to any one else? Ever yours,

"N."

* * * * *

LETTER 122. TO W. GIFFORD, ESQ.

"June 18. 1813.

"My dear Sir,

"I feel greatly at a loss how to write to you at all--still more to
thank you as I ought. If you knew the veneration with which I have
ever regarded you, long before I had the most distant prospect of
becoming your acquaintance, literary or personal, my embarrassment
would not surprise you.

"Any suggestion of yours, even were it conveyed in the less tender
shape of the text of the Baviad, or a Monk Mason note in Massinger,
would have been obeyed; I should have endeavoured to improve myself
by your censure: judge then if I should be less willing to profit
by your kindness. It is not for me to bandy compliments with my
elders and my betters: I receiv