aparte,
opera-singers and oratorios, wine, women, wax-work, and
weather-cocks, can't accord with your _insulated_ ideas of decorum and
other _silly expressions_ not inserted in _our vocabulary_.

"Oh! Southwell, Southwell, how I rejoice to have left thee, and how I
curse the heavy hours I dragged along, for so many months, among the
Mohawks who inhabit your kraals!--However, one thing I do not regret,
which is having _pared off_ a sufficient quantity of flesh to enable
me to slip into 'an eel skin,' and vie with the _slim_ beaux of modern
times; though I am sorry to say, it seems to be the mode amongst
_gentlemen_ to grow _fat_, and I am told I am at least fourteen pound
below the fashion. However, I _decrease_ instead of enlarging, which
is extraordinary, as _violent_ exercise in London is impracticable;
but I attribute the phenomenon to our _evening squeezes_ at public and
private parties. I heard from Ridge this morning (the 14th, my letter
was begun yesterday): he says the poems go on as well as can be
wished; the seventy-five sent to town are circulated, and a demand for
fifty more complied with, the day he dated his epistle, though the
advertisements are not yet half published. Adieu.

"P.S. Lord Carlisle, on receiving my poems, sent, before he opened the
book, a tolerably handsome letter:--I have not heard from him since.
His opinions I neither know nor care about: if he is the least
insolent, I shall enrol him with _Butler_[74] and the other worthies.
He is in Yorkshire, poor man! and very ill! He said he had not had
time to read the contents, but thought it necessary to acknowledge the
receipt of the volume immediately. Perhaps the Earl '_bears no brother
near the throne_,'--_if so_, I will make his _sceptre_ totter _in his
hands_.--Adieu!"

LETTER 16.

TO MISS ----.

"August 2. 1807.

"London begins to disgorge its contents--town is empty--consequently I
can scribble at leisure, as occupations are less numerous. In a
fortnight I shall depart to fulfil a country engagement; but expect
two epistles from you previous to that period. Ridge does not proceed
rapidly in Notts--very possible. In town things wear a more promising
aspect, and a man whose works are praised by _reviewers_, admired by
_duchesses_, and sold by every bookseller of the metropolis, does not
dedicate much consideration to _rustic readers_. I have now a review
before me, entitled 'Literary Recreations,' where my _hardship_ is
applau