extraction. [1] Ten lines about the blue sky of her country will
do, as it's her foible to be proud of it. Item, I have made her a
tolerable Latinist. She is called Emma Isola. I shall, I think, be in
town in a few weeks, when I will assuredly see you. I will put in here
loves to Mrs. Procter and the Anti-Capulets [Montagus], because Mary
tells me I omitted them in my last. I like to see my friends here. I
have put my lawsuit into the hands of an Enfield practitioner,--a plain
man, who seems perfectly to understand it, and gives me hopes of a
favorable result.

Rumor tells us that Miss Holcroft is married. Who is Baddams? Have I
seen him at Montacute's? I hear he is a great chemist. I am sometimes
chemical myself. A thought strikes me with horror. Pray Heaven he may
not have done it for the sake of trying chemical experiments upon
her,--young female subjects are so scarce! An't you glad about Burke's
case? We may set off the Scotch murders against the Scotch novels,--Hare
the Great Unhanged. [2]

Martin Burney is richly worth your knowing. He is on the top scale of my
friendship ladder, on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some,
alas! descending. I am out of the literary world at present. Pray, is
there anything new from the admired pen of the author of "The Pleasures
of Hope"? Has Mrs. He-mans (double masculine) done anything pretty
lately? Why sleeps the lyre of Hervey and of Alaric Watts? Is the muse
of L. E. L. silent? Did you see a sonnet of mine in Blackwood's last? [3]
Curious construction! _Elaborata facilitas!_ And now I 'll tell. 'Twas
written for "The Gem;" but the--editors declined it, on the plea that it
would _shock all mothers_; so they published "The Widow" instead. I am
born out of time, I have no conjecture about what the present world
calls delicacy. I thought "Rosamund Gray" was a pretty modest thing.
Hessey assures me that the world would not bear it. I have lived to grow
into an indecent character. When my sonnet was rejected, I exclaimed,
"Damn the age; I will write for Antiquity!"

_Erratum_ in sonnet. Last line but something, for "tender" read "tend,"
The Scotch do not know our law terms, but I find some remains of honest,
plain old writing lurking there still. They were not so mealy mouthed as
to refuse my verses. Maybe, 't is their oatmeal,

Blackwood sent me L20 for the drama. Somebody cheated me out of it next
day; and my new pair of breeches, just sent home, cracking at first