and midwife to their
wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on
Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will
be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up
thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe,
calves' kidneys, or whatever else the Cornucopia of St. Clare may be
willing to pour out on the occasion, might we not adjourn together to
the Heathen's, thou with thy Black Backs, and I with some innocent
volume of the Bell Letters,--Shenstone, or the like; it would make him
wash his old flannel gown (that has not been washed, to my knowledge,
since it has been _his_,--Oh, the long time!) with tears of joy. Thou
shouldst settle his scruples, and unravel his cobwebs, and sponge off
the sad stuff that weighs upon his dear wounded pia mater; thou shouldst
restore light to his eyes, and him to his friends and the public;
Parnassus should shower her civic crowns upon thee for saving the wits
of a citizen! I thought I saw a lucid interval in George the other
night: he broke in upon my studies just at tea-time, and brought with
him Dr. Anderson, an old gentleman who ties his breeches' knees with
packthread, and boasts that he has been disappointed by ministers. The
Doctor wanted to see _me_; for, I being a poet, he thought I might
furnish him with a copy of verses to suit his "Agricultural Magazine."
The Doctor, in the course of the conversation, mentioned a poem, called
the "Epigoniad," by one Wilkie, an epic poem, in which there is not one
tolerable good line all through, but every incident and speech borrowed
from Homer.

George had been sitting inattentive seemingly to what was going
on,--hatching of negative quantities,--when, suddenly, the name of his
old friend Homer stung his pericranicks, and, jumping up, he begged to
know where he could meet with Wilkie's work. "It was a curious fact that
there should be such an epic poem and he not know of it; and he _must_
get a copy of it, as he was going to touch pretty deeply upon the
subject of the epic,--and he was sure there must be some things good in
a poem of eight thousand lines!" I was pleased with this transient
return of his reason and recurrence to his old ways of thinking; it gave
me great hopes of a recovery, which nothing but your book can completely
insure. Pray come on Monday if you _can_, and stay your own time. I have
a good large room, with two beds in it, in th