return to * *, where I shall not be far from you. Perhaps I shall
hear from you in the mean time. Good night.

"Saturday morn--Your letter has cancelled all my anxieties. I did
_not suspect_ you in _earnest_. Modest again! Because I don't do a
very shabby thing, it seems, I 'don't fear your competition.' If it
were reduced to an alternative of preference, I _should_ dread you,
as much as Satan does Michael. But is there not room enough in our
respective regions? Go on--it will soon be my turn to forgive.
To-day I dine with Mackintosh and Mrs. _Stale_--as John Bull may be
pleased to denominate Corinne--whom I saw last night, at Covent
Garden, yawning over the humour of Falstaff.

"The reputation of 'gloom,' if one's friends are not included in
the _reputants_, is of great service; as it saves one from a legion
of impertinents, in the shape of common-place acquaintance. But
thou know'st I can be a right merry and conceited fellow, and
rarely 'larmoyant.' Murray shall reinstate your line forthwith.[85]
I believe the blunder in the motto was mine:--and yet I have, in
general, a memory for _you_, and am sure it was rightly printed at
first.

"I do 'blush' very often, if I may believe Ladies H. and M.;--but
luckily, at present, no one sees me. Adieu."

[Footnote 85: The motto to The Giaour, which is taken from one of the
Irish Melodies, had been quoted by him incorrectly in the first editions
of the poem. He made afterwards a similar mistake in the lines from
Burns prefixed to the Bride of Abydos.]

* * * * *

LETTER 141. TO MR. MOORE.

"November 30. 1813.

"Since I last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and
indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me from
reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you,
and to whom _your_ thoughts, in many a measure, have frequently
been a consolation. We were once very near neighbours this autumn;
and a good and bad neighbourhood it has proved to me. Suffice it to
say, that your French quotation was confoundedly to the
purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine
by what I _said_ before, and my silence since. However, 'Richard's
himself again,' and except all night and some part of the morning,
I don't think very much about the ma