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Leigh Hunt to Mary Sabilla Novello, 25 July 1823
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
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Contents
Preface
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX
John Keats
Charles Lamb
Mary Lamb
Leigh Hunt
Douglas Jerrold
Charles Dickens
Index
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Albaro, July 25th, 1823.

Dear Friends,—I send you these modicums of distributive justice—first because, though now getting well again, I have been unwell, and secondly, because I have so much to do with my pen just now that, as I wish to keep a head on my shoulders for all your sakes, I am sure you would not willingly let me tax it beyond my strength. I shall answer, however, whatever letters you have been kind enough to send me by the box separately and at proper length. But lo! the box has not yet arrived, and when it will arrive box knows. Meanwhile let me introduce to you all in a body the dear friend who brings you this letter, and with whom you are already acquainted in some measure both privately and publicly. You will show her all the kindness and respect in your power, I am sure, for her husband’s sake, and for her
220 RECOLLECTIONS OF WRITERS  
mother’s sake, and for my sake, and for her own. I am getting grave here. So now we are all in company again I will rouse my spirits and attack you separately; and first for “Wilful Woman:”—
I know not your fellow
For having your way
Both by night and by day.
It was thus I once began a letter in verse to the said Mary Novello, which happened not to be sent; and it is thus I now begin a letter in prose to her because it is of course as applicable as ever—is it not, thou “wilful woman”? (Here I look full in the face of the same M. N., shaking my head at her: upon which she looks ditto, at me—for we cannot say ditta of a lady—and shakes her head in return, imprudently denying the fact with her good-humoured, twinkling eyes and her laughing mouth, which, how it ever happened to become wilful, odd only knows—odd is to be read in a genteel Bond Street style, Novello knows how.) So I understand, Wilful, that you sometimes get up during the perusal of passages of these mine epistles and unthinkingly insist that tired ladies who have a regard for you should eat their dinners, as if the regard for me, Wilful, is not to swallow up everything—appetite, hunger, sickness, faintness, and all. Do you hear? The best passage in all Mr. Reynolds’s plays is one that Mary Shelley has reminded me of. It is where a gentleman traveller and the governor of a citadel compliment each other in a duet, dancing, I believe, at the same time:—
Dancing Governor!
Pleasing Traveller!
Now you must know that the Attorney-General once, in an indictment for libel, had the temerity to designate me as “a yeoman”—“Leigh Hunt, yeoman.” However, the word rhymes to “Woman,” which is a pleasing response: so I shall end my present epistle with imagining you and me on a Twelfth Night harmoniously playing at cross purposes, and singing to one another—

LEIGH HUNT AND HIS LETTERS. 221
Wilful Woman!
Revengeful Yeoman!

God bless the hearts of you both.—Your affectionate friend,

Leigh Hunt.

P.S.—I send you a ring of my hair, value 2s. 8d. When I can afford another such splendid sum I will try and get some little inscription engraved on it, and would have done so indeed already had I thought of it in time. I’d have you to know, at the same time, that the gold is “right earnest,” which, if you mention the sum, I’d be glad you’ll also let the curious inquirers understand. So don’t be ashamed, now, but wear it. If you don’t I’ll pinch back.