hich I posted on Thursday Jan. 22) to tell you that
not half an hour after I had posted that first Letter, arrived yours! And
now, to make the Coincidence stranger, your Brother Charles, who is now
with us for two days, tells me that very Thursday Jan. 24 (? 22) is your
Birthday! I am extremely obliged to you for your long, kind, and
interesting Letter: yes, yes: I should have liked to be on the Voyage
with you, and to be among the Dark People with you even now. Your
Brother Charles, who came up yesterday, brought us up your Home Letter,
and read it to us last night after Tea to our great Satisfaction. I
believe that in my already posted Letter I have told you much that you
enquire about in yours received half an hour after: of my poor Studies at
all events. This morning I have been taking the Physiognomy of the 19th
Birds. . . . There are, as I wrote you, very pleasant stories. One, of
a Shah returning to his Capital, and his People dressing out a Welcome
for him, and bringing out Presents of Gold, Jewels, etc., all which he
rides past without any Notice, till, coming to the Prison, the Prisoners,
by way of their Welcome, toss before him the Bloody Heads and Limbs of
old and recent Execution. At which the Shah for the first time stops his
Horse--smiles--casts Largess among the Prisoners, etc. And when asked
why he neglected all the Jewels, etc., and stopped with satisfaction at
such a grim welcome as the Prisoners threw him, he says, 'The Jewels,
etc., were but empty Ostentation--but those bloody Limbs prove that my
Law has been executed, without which none of those Heads and Carcases
would have parted Company, etc.' De Tassy notices a very agreeable Story
of Mahmud and the Lad fishing: and I find another as pleasant about
Mahmud consorting 'incog:' with a Bath-Stove-Keeper, who is so good a
Fellow that, at last, Mahmud, making himself known, tells the Poor Man to
ask what he will--a Crown, if he likes. But the poor Fellow says, 'All I
ask is that the Shah will come now and then to me as I am, and here where
I am; here, in this poor Place, which he has made illustrious with his
Presence, and a better Throne to me with Him, than the Throne of Both
Worlds without Him, etc.' You observed perhaps in De Tassy's Summary
that he notices an Eastern Form of William Tell's Apple? A Sultan doats
on a beautiful Slave, who yet is seen daily to pine away under all the
Shah's Favour, and being askt why, replies, 'Because ev