erit in it. Oh that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in
a _Libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A
propos_ (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself
sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well?
Methinks my thoughts fall naturally into it)--

In all this time I have done but one thing which I reckon tolerable, and
that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a
picture of _my_ humors. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly is
a first number of a series, thus strangled in its birth.

More news! The Professor's Rib [1] has come out to be a disagreeable
woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his
house. He must not wonder if people are shy of coming to see him because
of the _Snakes_.

C. L.

[1] Mrs. Godwin

XLIII.

TO WILLIAM GODWIN.

_November_ 10, 1803.

Dear Godwin,--You never made a more unlucky and perverse mistake than to
suppose that the reason of my not writing that cursed thing was to be
found in your book. I assure you most sincerely that I have been greatly
delighted with "Chaucer." [1] I may be wrong, but I think there is one
considerable error runs through it, which is a conjecturing spirit, a
fondness for filling out the picture by supposing what Chaucer did and
how he felt, where the materials are scanty. So far from meaning to
withhold from you (out of mistaken tenderness) this opinion of mine, I
plainly told Mrs. Godwin that I did find a _fault_, which I should
reserve naming until I should see you and talk it over. This she may
very well remember, and also that I declined naming this fault until she
drew it from me by asking me if there was not too much fancy in the
work. I then confessed generally what I felt, but refused to go into
particulars until I had seen you. I am never very fond of saying things
before third persons, because in the relation (such is human nature)
something is sure to be dropped. If Mrs. Godwin has been the cause of
your misconstruction, I am very angry, tell her; yet it is not an anger
unto death. I remember also telling Mrs. G. (which she may have _dropt_)
that I was by turns considerably more delighted than I expected. But I
wished to reserve all this until I saw you. I even had conceived an
expression to meet you with, which was thanking you for some of the most
exquisite pieces of criticism I had ever read in my life. In part