“Though I wrote to you so recently, I break in upon you again to congratulate you on a child being born, as a letter from Hodgson apprizes me of that event, in which I rejoice.
“I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled at as great a risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse’s dole in the Medea, of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit.
“Oh how I wish that an embargo Had kept in port the good ship Argo! Who, unlaunch’d from Grecian docks, Had never pass’d the Azure rocks; But now fear her trip will be a Damn’d business for my Miss Medea,
&c. &c. |
“I have now sat on the Cyaneans, swam from Sestos to Abydos
(as I trumpeted in my last), and, after passing through the Morea again, shall st sail
for Santa Maura, and toss myself from the Leucadian promontory;—surviving which
operation, I shall probably rejoin you in England. H., who will deliver this, is bound straight for these parts:
| 228 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1810. |
“I am bound for Athens once more, and thence to the Morea; but my stay depends so much on my caprice, that I can say nothing of its probable duration. I have been out a year already, and may stay another; but I am quicksilver, and say nothing positively. We are all very much occupied doing nothing, at present. We have seen every thing but the mosques, which we are to view with a firman on Tuesday next. But of these and other sundries let H. relate, with this proviso, that I am to be referred to for authenticity; and I beg leave to contradict all those things whereon he lays particular stress. But, if he soars, at any time, into wit, I give you leave to applaud, because that is necessarily stolen from his fellow-pilgrim. Tell Davies that H. has made excellent use of his best jokes in many of his majesty’s ships of war; but add, also, that I always took care to restore them to the right owner; in consequence of which he (Davies) is no lees famous by water than by land, and reigns unrivalled in the cabin, as in the ‘Cocoa Tree.’
“And Hodgson has been publishing more poesy—I wish he would send me his ‘Sir Edgar,’ and ‘Brand’s Anthology’ to Malta, where they will be forwarded. In my last, which I hope you received, I gave an outline of the ground we have covered. If you have not been overtaken by this despatch, H.’s tongue is at your service. Remember me to Dwyer, who owes me eleven guineas. Tell him to put them in my banker’s hands at Gibraltar or Constantinople. I believe he paid them once, but that goes for nothing, as it was an annuity.
“I wish you would write. I have heard from Hodgson frequently. Malta is my post-office. I mean to be with you by next Montem. You remember the last,—I hope for such another; but, after having swam across the ‘broad Hellespont,’ I disdain Datchett*. Good afternoon! I am yours, very sincerely,
