particulars
which will not be found uninteresting.

LETTER 22.

TO MR. HENRY DRURY.

"Dorant's Hotel, Jan. 13. 1808.

"My dear Sir,

"Though the stupidity of my servants, or the porter of the house, in
not showing you up stairs (where I should have joined you directly),
prevented me the pleasure of seeing you yesterday, I hoped to meet you
at some public place in the evening. However, my stars decreed
otherwise, as they generally do, when I have any favour to request of
them. I think you would have been surprised at my figure, for, since
our last meeting, I am reduced four stone in weight. I then weighed
fourteen stone seven pound, and now only _ten stone and a half_. I
have disposed of my _superfluities_ by means of hard exercise and
abstinence.

"Should your Harrow engagements allow you to visit town between this
and February, I shall be most happy to see you in Albemarle Street. If
I am not so fortunate, I shall endeavour to join you for an afternoon
at Harrow, though, I fear, your cellar will by no means contribute to
my cure. As for my worthy preceptor, Dr. B., our encounter would by no
means prevent the _mutual endearments_ he and I were wont to lavish on
each other. We have only spoken once since my departure from Harrow in
1805, and then he politely told Tatersall I was not a proper associate
for his pupils. This was long before my strictures in verse; but, in
plain _prose_, had I been some years older, I should have held my
tongue on his perfections. But, being laid on my back, when that
schoolboy thing was written--or rather dictated--expecting to rise no
more, my physician having taken his sixteenth fee, and I his
prescription, I could not quit this earth without leaving a memento of
my constant attachment to Butler in gratitude for his manifold good
offices.

"I meant to have been down in July; but thinking my appearance,
immediately after the publication, would be construed into an insult,
I directed my steps elsewhere. Besides, I heard that some of the boys
had got hold of my Libellus, contrary to my wishes certainly, for I
never transmitted a single copy till October, when I gave one to a
boy, since gone, after repeated importunities. You will, I trust,
pardon this egotism. As you had touched on the subject I thought some
explanation necessary. Defence I shall not attempt, 'Hic murus aheneus
esto, nil conscire sibi'--and 'so on' (as Lord Baltimore said on his
trial for a rape)--I have been