whose 'Emperor of Morocco' was represented by the
Court ladies, which was, as Johnson says, 'the last blast of
inflammation' to poor Dryden, who could not bear it, and fell foul
of Settle without mercy or moderation, on account of that and a
frontispiece, which he dared to put before his play.

"Was not your showing the Memoranda to * * somewhat perilous? Is
there not a facetious allusion or two which might as well be
reserved for posterity?

"I know S * * well--that is to say, I have met him occasionally at
Copet. Is he not also touched lightly in the Memoranda? In a review
of Childe Harold, Canto 4th, three years ago, in Blackwood's
Magazine, they quote some stanzas of an elegy of S * *'s on Rome,
from which they say that I _might_ have taken some ideas. I give
you my honour that I never saw it except in that criticism, which
gives, I think, three or four stanzas, sent them (they say) for the
nonce by a correspondent--perhaps himself. The fact is easily
proved; for I don't understand German, and there was, I believe, no
translation--at least, it was the first time that I ever heard of,
or saw, either translation or original.

"I remember having some talk with S * * about Alfieri, whose merit
he denies. He was also wroth about the Edinburgh Review of Goethe,
which was sharp enough, to be sure. He went about saying, too, of
the French--'I meditate a terrible vengeance against the French--I
will prove that Moliere is no poet[45].'

"I don't see why you should talk of 'declining.' When I saw you,
you looked thinner, and yet younger, than you did when we parted
several years before. You may rely upon this as fact. If it were
not, I should say _nothing_, for I would rather not say unpleasant
_personal_ things to anyone--but, as it was the pleasant _truth_, I
tell it you. If you had led my life, indeed, changing climates and
connections--_thinning_ yourself with fasting and
purgatives--besides the wear and tear of the vulture passions, and
a very bad temper besides, you might talk in this way--but _you_! I
know no man who looks so well for his years, or who deserves to
look better and to be better, in all respects. You are a * * *,
and, what is perhaps better for your friends, a good fellow. So,
don't talk of decay, but put in for eighty, as you