e not a friend in the world (but you and Drury) who
can construe Horace's Latin or my English well enough to adjust
them for the press, or to correct the proofs in a grammatical way.
So that, unless you have bowels when you return to town (I am too
far off to do it for myself), this ineffable work will be lost to
the world for--I don't know how many _weeks._

"'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' must wait till _Murray's_ is
finished. He is making a tour in Middlesex, and is to return soon,
when high matter may be expected. He wants to have it in quarto,
which is a cursed unsaleable size; but it is pestilent long, and
one must obey one's bookseller. I trust Murray will pass the
Paddington Canal without being seduced by Payne and Mackinlay's
example,--I say Payne and Mackinlay, supposing that the partnership
held good. Drury, the villain, has not written to me; 'I am never
(as Mrs. Lumpkin says to Tony) to be gratified with the monster's
dear wild notes.'

"So you are going (going indeed!) into orders. You must make your
peace with the Eclectic Reviewers--they accuse you of impiety, I
fear, with injustice. Demetrius, the 'Sieger of Cities,' is here,
with 'Gilpin Homer.' The painter[30] is not necessary, as the
portraits he already painted are (by anticipation) very like the
new animals.--Write, and send me your 'Love Song'--but I want
'paulo majora' from you. Make a dash before you are a deacon, and
try a _dry_ publisher.

"Yours always, B."

[Footnote 30: Barber, whom he had brought down to Newstead to paint his
wolf and his bear.]

* * * * *

It was at this period that I first had the happiness of seeing and
becoming acquainted with Lord Byron. The correspondence in which our
acquaintance originated is, in a high degree, illustrative of the frank
manliness of his character; and as it was begun on my side, some egotism
must be tolerated in the detail which I have to give of the
circumstances that led to it. So far back as the year 1806, on the
occasion of a meeting which took place at Chalk Farm between Mr. Jeffrey
and myself, a good deal of ridicule and raillery, founded on a false
representation of what occurred before the magistrates at Bow Street,
appeared in almost all the public prints. In consequence of this, I was
induced to address a letter to the Editor of one of