ut, damn'd spot'--you may have perceived
something of the kind yesterday, for on my return, I saw that during
my visit it had increased, was increasing, and ought to be
diminished; and I could not help laughing at the figure I must have
cut before you. At any rate, I shall be with you at six, with the
advantage of twilight.

Ever most truly, &c.

"Eleven o'clock.

"P.S. I wrote the above at three this morning. I regret to say that
the whole of the skin of about an _inch_ square above my upper lip
has come off, so that I cannot even shave or masticate, and I am
equally unfit to appear at your table, and to partake of its
hospitality. Will you therefore pardon me, and not mistake this
rueful excuse for a '_make-believe_,' as you will soon recognise
whenever I have the pleasure of meeting you again, and I will call
the moment I am, in the nursery phrase, 'fit to be seen.' Tell Lady
B. with my compliments, that I am rummaging my papers for a MS.
worthy of her acceptation. I have just seen the younger Count Gamba,
and as I cannot prevail on his infinite modesty to take the field
without me, I must take this piece of diffidence on myself also, and
beg your indulgence for both."

LETTER 515. TO THE COUNT ----.

"April 22. 1823.

"My dear Count ---- (if you will permit me to address you so
familiarly), you should be content with writing in your own language,
like Grammont, and succeeding in London as nobody has succeeded since
the days of Charles the Second and the records of Antonio Hamilton,
without deviating into our barbarous language,--which you understand
and write, however, much better than it deserves.

"My 'approbation,' as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere,
but perhaps not very impartial; for, though I love my country, I do
not love my countrymen--at least, such as they now are. And, besides
the seduction of talent and wit in your work, I fear that to me there
was the attraction of vengeance. I have _seen_ and _felt_ much of
what you have described so well. I have known the persons, and the
re-unions so described,--(many of them, that is to say,) and the
portraits are so like that I cannot but admire the painter no less
than his performance.

"But I am sorry for you; for if you are so well acquainted with life
at your age, what will become of you when the illusion is still more
dissipated? But never mind--_en avant!_--live while you can; and that
you may have the full enjoyment of the many adv