od, baking himself up to the work of creation in a solar
oven, not yet by the terms of the context itself existing. Blake's
ravings made genteel. So there's verses for thy verses; and now let me
tell you that the sight of your hand gladdend me. I have been daily
trying to write to you, but paralysed. You have spurd me on this tiny
effort, and at intervals I hope to hear from and talk to you. But my
spirits have been in a deprest way for a long long time, and they are
things which must be to you of faith, for who can explain depression?
Yes I am hooked into the Gem, but only for some lines written on a dead
infant of the Editor's, which being as it were his property, I could not
refuse their appearing, but I hate the paper, the type, the gloss, the
dandy plates, the names of contributors poked up into your eyes in 1st
page, and whistled thro' all the covers of magazines, the barefaced sort
of emulation, the unmodest candidateship, bro't into so little space--in
those old Londons a signature was lost in the wood of matter--the paper
coarse (till latterly, which spoil'd them)--in short I detest to appear
in an Annual. What a fertile genius (an[d] a quiet good soul withal) is
Hood. He has 50 things in hand, farces to supply the Adelphi for the
season, a comedy for one of the great theatres, just ready, a whole
entertainment by himself for Mathews and Yates to figure in, a meditated
Comic Annual for next year, to be nearly done by himself.-- You'd like
him very much. Wordsworth I see has a good many pieces announced in one
of em, not our Gem. W. Scott has distributed himself like a bribe haunch
among 'em. Of all the poets, Cary has had the good sense to keep quite
clear of 'em, with Clergy-gentle-manly right notions. Don't think I set
up for being proud in this point, I like a bit of flattery tickling my
vanity as well as any one. But these pompous masquerades without masks
(naked names or faces) I hate. So there's a bit of my mind. Besides they
infallibly cheat you, I mean the booksellers. If I get but a copy, I
only expect it from Hood's being my friend. Coleridge has lately been
here. He too is deep among the Prophets--the Yearservers--the mob of
Gentlemen Annuals. But they'll cheat him, I know.

And now, dear B.B., the Sun shining out merrily, and the dirty clouds
we had yesterday having washd their own faces clean with their own rain,
tempts me to wander up Winchmore Hill, or into some of the delightful
vicinages of Enfi