is!
'Between you and me,' quotha--it reminds me of a passage in the
Heir at Law--'Tete-a-tete with Lady Duberly, I
suppose.'--'No--tete-a-tete with _five hundred people_;' and your
confidential communication will doubtless be in circulation to that
amount, in a short time, with several additions, and in several
letters, all signed L.H.R.O.B., &c. &c. &c.

"We leave this place to-morrow, and shall stop on our way to town
(in the interval of taking a house there) at Col. Leigh's, near
Newmarket, where any epistle of yours will find its welcome way.

"I have been very comfortable here,--listening to that d----d
monologue, which elderly gentlemen call conversation, and in which
my pious father-in-law repeats himself every evening--save one,
when he played upon the fiddle. However, they have been very kind
and hospitable, and I like them and the place vastly, and I hope
they will live many happy months. Bell is in health, and unvaried
good-humour and behaviour. But we are all in the agonies of
packing and parting; and I suppose by this time to-morrow I shall
be stuck in the chariot with my chin upon a band-box. I have
prepared, however, another carriage for the abigail, and all the
trumpery which our wives drag along with them.

"Ever thine, most affectionately,

"B."

[Footnote 75: He here alludes to a circumstance which I had communicated
to him in a preceding letter. In writing to one of the numerous partners
of a well-known publishing establishment (with which I have since been
lucky enough to form a more intimate connection), I had said
confidentially (as I thought), in reference to a poem that had just
appeared,--"Between you and me, I do not much admire Mr. * *'s poem."
The letter being chiefly upon business, was answered through the regular
business channel, and, to my dismay, concluded with the following
words:--"_We_ are very sorry that you do not approve of Mr. * *'s new
poem, and are your obedient, &c. &c. L.H.R.O., &c. &c."]

* * * * *

LETTER 218. TO MR. MOORE.

"March 17. 1815.

"I meaned to write to you before on the subject of your loss[76];
but the recollection of the uselessness and worthlessness of any
observations on such events prevented me. I shall only now add,
that I rejoice to see you bear it so well, and that I trust time