--but I certainly have subjects for both at no very great
distance, and am besides embarrassed between _three_ whom I know,
and one (whose name, at least,) I do not know. All this would be
very well if I had no heart; but, unluckily, I have found that
there is such a thing still about me, though in no very good
repair, and, also, that it has a habit of attaching itself to _one_
whether I will or no. 'Divide et impera,' I begin to think, will
only do for politics.

"If I discover the 'toad' as you call him, I shall 'tread,'--and
put spikes in my shoes to do it more effectually. The effect of all
these fine things I do not enquire much nor perceive. I believe * *
felt them more than either of us. People are civil enough, and I
have had no dearth of invitations,--none of which, however, I have
accepted. I went out very little last year, and mean to go about
still less. I have no passion for circles, and have long regretted
that I ever gave way to what is called a town life;--which, of all
the lives I ever saw (and they are nearly as many as Plutarch's),
seems to me to leave the least for the past and future.

"How proceeds the poem? Do not neglect it, and I have no fears. I
need not say to you that your fame is dear to me,--I really might
say _dearer_ than my own; for I have lately begun to think my
things have been strangely over-rated; and, at any rate, whether or
not, I have done with them for ever. I may say to you what I would
not say to every body, that the last two were written, The Bride in
four, and The Corsair in ten days[20],--which I take to be a most
humiliating confession, as it proves my own want of judgment in
publishing, and the public's in reading things, which cannot have
stamina for permanent attention. 'So much for Buckingham.'

"I have no dread of your being too hasty, and I have still less of
your failing. But I think a _year_ a very fair allotment of time to
a composition which is not to be Epic; and even Horace's 'Nonum
prematur' must have been intended for the Millennium, or some
longer-lived generation than ours. I wonder how much we should have
had of _him_, had he observed his own doctrines to the letter.
Peace be with you! Remember that I am always and most truly yours,
&c.

"P.S. I never heard the 'report' you me