ys (and I am sure, when the Greatheads are once set upon a thing,
they will do it) he is determined it shall be all new. These were his
words, and they are fate.

II

TO HIS FRIEND MASON ON THE DEATH OF MASON'S MOTHER[38]

I break in upon you at a moment when we least of all are permitted to
disturb our friends, only to say that you are daily and hourly present
to my thoughts. If the worst be not yet passed, you will neglect and
pardon me; but if the last struggle be over, if the poor object of
your long anxieties be no longer sensible to your kindness, or to her
own sufferings, allow me (at least in idea, for what could I do were I
present more than this), to sit by you in silence, and pity from my
heart, not her who is at rest, but you who lose her. May He who made
us, the Master of our pleasures and of our pains, preserve and support
you. Adieu.

I have long understood how little you had to hope.

III

ON HIS OWN WRITINGS[39]

To your friendly accusation I am glad I can plead not guilty with a
safe conscience. Dodsley told me in the Spring that the plates from
Mr. Bentley's designs were worn out, and he wanted to have them copied
and reduced to a smaller scale for a new edition. I dissuaded him from
so silly an expense, and desired he would put in no ornaments at all.
The "Long Story" was to be totally omitted, as its only use (that of
explaining the prints) was gone: but to supply the place of it in
bulk, lest my works should be mistaken for the works of a flea, or a
pismire, I promised to send him an equal weight of poetry or prose:
so, since my return hither, I put up about two ounces of stuff, viz.,
the "Fatal Sisters," the "Descent of Odin" (of both which you have
copies), a bit of something from the Welch, and certain little Notes,
partly from justice (to acknowledge the debt where I had borrowed
anything), partly from ill temper, just to tell the gentle reader that
Edward I was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of
Endor. This is literally all; and with all this, I shall be but a
shrimp of an author. I gave leave also to print the same thing at
Glasgow; but I doubt my packet has miscarried, for I hear nothing of
its arrival as yet.

To what you say to me so civilly, that I ought to write more, I reply
in your own words (like the Pamphleteer, who is going to confute you
out of your own mouth), What has one to do when turned of fifty, but
really to think of finishing? H