out--'the mail-coach copy' I have,
by special licence, of Murray.

"Now is _your_ time;--you will come upon them newly and freshly. It
is impossible to read what you have lately done (verse or prose)
without seeing that you have trained on tenfold. * * has
floundered; * * has foundered. _I_ have tried the rascals (i.e. the
public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but
S * * * *y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's
pudding; and _he_ has not luck enough to be found out in doing a
good thing. Now, Tom, is thy time--'Oh joyful day!--I would not
take a knighthood for thy fortune. Let me hear from you soon, and
believe me ever, &c.

"P.S. Lady Byron is vastly well. How are Mrs. Moore and Joe
Atkinson's 'Graces?' We must present our women to one another."

* * * * *

LETTER 210. TO MR. MOORE.

"January 19. 1815.

"Egad! I don't think he is 'down;' and my prophecy--like most
auguries, sacred and profane--is not annulled, but inverted.

"To your question about the 'dog'[64]--Umph!--my 'mother,' I won't
say any thing against--that is, about her: but how long a
'mistress' or friend may recollect paramours or competitors (lust
and thirst being the two great and only bonds between the amatory
or the amicable) I can't say,--or, rather, you know, as well as I
could tell you. But as for canine recollections, as far as I could
judge by a cur of mine own, (always bating Boatswain, the dearest
and, alas! the maddest of dogs,) I had one (half a _wolf_ by the
she side) that doted on me at ten years old, and very nearly ate me
at twenty. When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away
the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of
recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him.
So, let Southey blush and Homer too, as far as I can decide upon
quadruped memories.

"I humbly take it, the mother knows the son that pays her
jointure--a mistress her mate, till he * * and refuses salary--a
friend his fellow, till he loses cash and character--and a dog his
master, till he changes him.

"So, you want to know about milady and me? But let me not, as
Roderick Random says, 'profane the chaste mysteries of
Hymen'[65]--damn the word, I had nearly spelt