y)
his own again'--I wear no bright weapon out of that Panoply ... or
Panoplite, as I think you call Nonnus, nor ever, like Leigh Hunt's
'Johnny, ever blythe and bonny, went singing Nonny, nonny' and see
to-morrow, what a vengeance I will take for your 'mere suspicion in
that kind'! But to the serious matter ... nay, I said yesterday, I
believe--keep off that Burgess--he is stark staring mad--mad, do you
know? The last time I met him he told me he had recovered I forget how
many of the lost books of Thucydides--found them imbedded in Suidas (I
think), and had disengaged them from _his_ Greek, without loss of a
letter, 'by an instinct he, Burgess, had'--(I spell his name wrongly
to help the proper _hiss_ at the end). Then, once on a time, he found
in the 'Christus Patiens,' an odd dozen of lines, clearly dropped out
of the 'Prometheus,' and proving that AEschylus was aware of the
invention of gunpowder. He wanted to help Dr. Leonhard Schmitz in his
'Museum'--and scared him, as Schmitz told me. What business has he,
Burges, with English verse--and what on earth, or under it, has Miss
Thomson to do with _him_. If she must displease one of two, why is Mr.
B. not to be thanked and 'sent to feed,' as the French say prettily?
At all events, do pray see what he has presumed to alter ... you can
alter at sufficient warrant, profit by suggestion, I should think! But
it is all Miss Thomson's shame and fault: because she is quite in her
propriety, saying to such intermeddlers, gently for the sake of their
poor weak heads, 'very good, I dare say, very desirable emendations,
only the work is not mine, you know, but my friend's, and you must no
more alter it without her leave, than alter this sketch, this
illustration, because you think you could mend Ariadne's face or
figure,--Fecit Tizianus, scripsit E.B.B.' Dear friend, you will tell
Miss Thomson to stop further proceedings, will you not? There! only,
do mind what I say?

And now--till to-morrow! It seems an age since I saw you. I want to
catch our first post ... (this phrase I ought to get stereotyped--I
need it so constantly). The day is fine ... you will profit by it, I
trust. 'Flush, wag your tail and grow restless and scratch at the
door!'

God bless you,--my one friend, without an 'other'--bless you ever--

R.B.

_E.B.B. to R.B._

Wednesday.
[Post-m