"'To-day it is my wedding-day,
And all the folks would stare
If wife should dine at Edmonton,
And I should dine at Ware.'

Or _thus_--

"Here's a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say--
Wish me _many_ returns of the _season_,
But as _few_ as you please of the _day_.

"My this present writing is to direct you that, _if she chooses_, she may
see the MS. Memoir in your possession. I wish her to have fair play, in
all cases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. For
this purpose, it were but just that Lady B. should know what is their said
of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to
any part or parts, as may seem fitting to herself. This is fair dealing, I
presume, in all events.

"To change the subject, are you in England? I send you an epitaph for
Castlereagh.

* * * * *

Another for Pitt--

"With death doom'd to grapple
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.

"The gods seem to have made me poetical this day--

"In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will. Cobbett has done well:
You visit him on earth again,
He'll visit you in hell.

Or--

"You come to him on earth again,
He'll go with you to hell.

"Pray let not these versiculi go forth with _my_ name, except among the
initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly
fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable House, according to
Galignani's Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are menacing a prosecution
to a pamphlet of his. I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good
for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the
natural effects of taking a part in them."

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

"Ravenna, May 8, 1820.

"Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the
house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her
learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth
ascension of Mount Vesuvius, asked 'if there was not a similar volcano in
_Ireland_?' My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of
Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but on second thoughts
I divined that she alluded to _Ice_land and to Hecla--and so it proved,
though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the
ami