chant Tailors' Hall (a very
large room) for this purpose, and shall probably open it in the course of
next week.

Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that I have been retouching it. I
have just concluded a fortnight's hard work upon it, and have the
satisfaction to add that I have been seldom better satisfied than with my
present labor. I have repainted the greater part of the draperies--
indeed, those of all the principal figures, excepting the Dead Man--with
powerful and positive colors, and added double strength to the shadows of
every figure, so that for force and distinctness you would hardly know it
for the same picture. The "Morning Chronicle" would have no reason now to
complain of its "wan red."...

I am sorry that Parliament has been so impolite to you in procrastinating
the fireworks. But they are an unpolished set and will still be in the
dark age of incivility notwithstanding their late illuminations. However
I am in great hopes that the good people of England will derive no small
degree of moral embellishment from their pure admiration of the
illustrious General B----, who, it is said, for drinking and gaming has
no equal.

BRISTOL, September 9, 1814.

MY DEAR PARENTS,--Your kind letters of June last I have received, and
return you a thousand thanks for them. They have relieved me from a
painful state of anxiety with respect to my future prospects. I cannot
feel too thankful for such kind parents who have universally shown so
much indulgence to me. Accept my gratitude and love; they are all I can
give.

You allow me to stay in Europe another year. Your letters are not in
answer to some I have subsequently sent requesting leave to reside in
Paris. Mr. Allston, as well as all my friends, think it by all means
necessary I should lose no time in getting to France to improve myself
for a year in drawing (a branch of art in which I am very deficient).

I shall therefore set out for Paris in about two weeks, unless your
letters in answer to those sent by Drs. Heyward and Gushing should arrive
and say otherwise. Since coming to Bristol I have not found my prospects
so good as I before had reason to expect (owing in a great degree to
political irritation). I have, however, contrived to make sufficient to
pay off _all_ my _debts_, which have given me some considerable
uneasiness.

I can live much more reasonably in Paris (indeed, some say for half what
I can in London); I can improve myself more; and, the