e him evident
pleasure to converse about their common friends in England. Among those
who appeared to have left the strongest impressions of interest and
admiration on his mind was (as easily will be believed by all who know
this distinguished person) Sir James Mackintosh.

Soon after the arrival of his friends, Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. S. Davies,
he set out, as we have seen, with the former on a tour through the
Bernese Alps,--after accomplishing which journey, about the beginning of
October he took his departure, accompanied by the same gentleman, for
Italy.

The first letter of the following series was, it will be seen, written a
few days before he left Diodati.

LETTER 247. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Diodati, Oct. 5. 1816.

"Save me a copy of 'Buck's Richard III.' republished by Longman;
but do not send out more books, I have too many.

"The 'Monody' is in too many paragraphs, which makes it
unintelligible to me; if any one else understands it in the present
form, they are wiser; however, as it cannot be rectified till my
return, and has been already published, even publish it on in the
collection--it will fill up the place of the omitted epistle.

"Strike out 'by request of a friend,' which is sad trash, and must
have been done to make it ridiculous.

"Be careful in the printing the stanzas beginning,

"'Though the day of my destiny,' &c.

which I think well of as a composition.

"'The Antiquary' is not the best of the three, but much above all
the last twenty years, saving its elder brothers. Holcroft's
Memoirs are valuable as showing strength of endurance in the man,
which is worth more than all the talent in the world.

"And so you have been publishing 'Margaret of Anjou' and an
Assyrian tale, and refusing W.W.'s Waterloo, and the 'Hue and Cry.'
I know not which most to admire, your rejections or acceptances. I
believe that _prose_ is, after all, the most reputable, for certes,
if one could foresee--but I won't go on--that is with this
sentence; but poetry is, I fear, incurable. God help me! if I
proceed in this scribbling, I shall have frittered away my mind
before I am thirty, but it is at times a real relief to me. For the
present--good evening."

* * * * *

LETTER 248. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Martigny, October 9. 1816.

"Thus far on my w