scorched and drenched at the same
time.' Blessings on his experience! Ask him these questions about
'scorching and drenching.' Did he never play at cricket, or walk a
mile in hot weather? Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself
in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his
nankeen breeches? Did he never swim in the sea at noonday with the
sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could
not cool? Did he never draw his foot out of too hot water,
d----ning his eyes and his valet's? Did he never tumble into a
river or lake, fishing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or
on the bank, afterwards 'scorched and drenched,' like a true
sportsman? 'Oh for breath to utter!'--but make him my compliments;
he is a clever fellow for all that--a very clever fellow.

"You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny: I _have_ no plan; I _had_
no plan; but I had or have materials; though if, like Tony Lumpkin,
'I am to be snubbed so when I am in spirits,' the poem will be
naught, and the poet turn serious again. If it don't take, I will
leave it off where it is, with all due respect to the public; but
if continued, it must be in my own way. You might as well make
Hamlet (or Diggory) 'act mad' in a strait waistcoat as trammel my
buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon; their gestures and my thoughts
would only be pitiably absurd and ludicrously constrained. Why,
man, the soul of such writing is its licence; at least the
_liberty_ of that _licence_, if one likes--_not_ that one should
abuse it. It is like Trial by Jury and Peerage and the Habeas
Corpus--a very fine thing, but chiefly in the _reversion;_ because
no one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his
possession of the privilege.

"But a truce with these reflections. You are too earnest and eager
about a work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I
could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?--a playful
satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what I meant.
And as to the indecency, do, pray, read in Boswell what _Johnson_,
the sullen moralist, says of _Prior_ and Paulo Purgante.

"Will you get a favour done for me? _You_ can, by your government
friends, Croker, Canning, or my old schoolfellow Peel, and I can't.
Here it is.