f late not much accustomed to kindness from any quarter,
and am not the less pleased to meet with it again from one where I
had known it earliest. I have not changed in all my
ramblings,--Harrow, and, of course, yourself never left me, and the

"'Dulces reminiscitur Argos'

attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the
mind of the fallen Argive--Our intimacy began before we began to
date at all, and it rests with you to continue it till the hour
which must number it and me with the things that _were_.

"Do read mathematics.--I should think _X plus Y_ at least as
amusing as the Curse of Kehama, and much more intelligible. Master
S.'s poems _are_, in fact, what parallel lines might be--viz.
prolonged _ad infinitum_ without meeting any thing half so absurd
as themselves.

"What news, what news? Queen Oreaca,
What news of scribblers five?
S----, W----, C----e, L----d, and L----e?--
All damn'd, though yet alive.

C----e is lecturing. 'Many an old fool,' said Hannibal to some such
lecturer, 'but such as this, never.'

"Ever yours, &c."

[Footnote 34: The Rev. Robert Bland, one of the authors of "Collections
from the Greek Anthology." Lord Byron was, at this time, endeavouring to
secure for Mr. Bland the task of translating Lucien Buonaparte's poem.]

* * * * *

LETTER 78. TO MR. HARNESS.

"St. James's Street, Dec. 8. 1811.

"Behold a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and
consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of
your precision; but this being Sunday, I can procure no better,
and will atone for its length by not filling it. Bland I have not
seen since my last letter; but on Tuesday he dines with me, and
will meet M * * e, the epitome of all that is exquisite in poetical or
personal accomplishments. How Bland has settled with Miller, I know
not. I have very little interest with either, and they must arrange
their concerns according to their own gusto. I have done my
endeavours, _at your request_, to bring them together, and hope
they may agree to their mutual advantage.

"Coleridge has been lecturing against Campbell. Rogers was present,
and from him I derive the information. We are going to make a party
to hear this Manichean of p