rks whatsoever.

"4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever--_no_
Edinburgh, Quarterly, Monthly, nor any review, magazine, or
newspaper, English or foreign, of any description.

"5thly. That you send me no opinions whatsoever, either _good_,
_bad_, or _indifferent_, of yourself, or your friends, or others,
concerning any work, or works, of mine, past, present, or to come.

"6thly. That all negotiations in matters of business between you
and me pass through the medium of the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, my
friend and trustee, or Mr. Hobhouse, as 'alter ego,' and tantamount
to myself during my absence--or presence.

"Some of these propositions may at first seem strange, but they are
founded. The quantity of trash I have received as books is
incalculable, and neither amused nor instructed. Reviews and
magazines are at the best but ephemeral and superficial reading:
who thinks of the _grand article of last year_ in any _given
Review_? In the next place, if they regard myself, they tend to
increase _egotism_. If favourable, I do not deny that the praise
_elates_, and if unfavourable, that the abuse _irritates_. The
latter may conduct me to inflict a species of satire which would
neither do good to you nor to your friends: _they_ may smile _now_,
and so may _you_; but if I took you all in hand, it would not be
difficult to cut you up like gourds. I did as much by as powerful
people at nineteen years old, and I know little as yet, in
three-and-thirty, which should prevent me from making all your ribs
gridirons for your hearts, if such were my propensity: but it is
_not_; therefore let me hear none of your provocations. If any
thing occurs so very gross as to require my notice, I shall hear of
it from my legal friends. For the rest, I merely request to be left
in ignorance.

"The same applies to opinions, _good_, _bad_, or _indifferent_, of
persons in conversation or correspondence. These do not
_interrupt_, but they _soil_ the _current_ of my _mind_. I am
sensitive enough, but _not_ till I am _troubled_; and here I am
beyond the touch of the short arms of literary England, except the
few feelers of the polypus that crawl over the channels in the way
of extract.

"All these precautions _in_ England would be useless; the libeller