ich quoted the passage
correctly enough, I believe. I blundered--God knows how--into
attributing the tremors of the lovers to "the Woods of Madeira," by
which they were surrounded. And I hereby do fully and freely declare
and asseverate, that the Woods did _not_ tremble to a kiss, and that
the lovers did. I quote from memory--

------"A kiss
Stole on the listening silence, &c. &c.
They [the lovers] trembled, even as if the power," &c.

And if I had been aware that this declaration would have been in the
smallest degree satisfactory to Mr. Bowles, I should not have waited
nine years to make it, notwithstanding that "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers" had been suppressed some time previously to my meeting him
at Mr. Rogers's. Our worthy host might indeed have told him as much,
as it was at his representation that I suppressed it. A new edition
of that lampoon was preparing for the press, when Mr. Rogers
represented to me, that "I was _now_ acquainted with many of the
persons mentioned in it, and with some on terms of intimacy;" and
that he knew "one family in particular to whom its suppression would
give pleasure." I did not hesitate one moment, it was cancelled
instantly; and it is no fault of mine that it has ever been
republished. When I left England, in April, 1816, with no very
violent intentions of troubling that country again, and amidst scenes
of various kinds to distract my attention,--almost my last act, I
believe, was to sign a power of attorney, to yourself, to prevent or
suppress any attempts (of which several had been made in Ireland) at
a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons
with whom I was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in
that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or
through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of
my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to
this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was
begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal
communication from a third person.

I have dwelt for an instant on these circumstances, because it has
sometimes been made a subject of bitter reproach to me to have
endeavoured to _suppress_ that satire. I never shrunk, as those who
know me know, from any personal consequences which could be attached
to its publication. Of its subsequent suppression, as I possessed the
copyright, I was the best ju