DEAR Sir,—Your packet I have only just received, owing, I suppose, to the absence of Moxon, who is flaunting it about à la Parisienne with his new bride, our Emma, much to his satisfaction and not a little to our dulness. We shall be quite well by the time you return from Worcestershire and most most (observe the repetition) glad to see you here or anywhere.
I will take my time with Darley’s act. I wish poets would write a little plainer; he begins some of his words with a letter which is unknown co the English typography.
Yours, most truly,
P.S.—Pray let me know when you return. We are at Mr. Walden’s, Church-street, Edmonton; no longer at Enfield. You will be amused to hear that my sister and I have, with the aid of Emma, scrambled through the “Inferno” by the blessed furtherance of your polar-star translation. I think we scarce left anything unmadeout. But our partner has left us, and we have not yet resumed. Mary’s chief pride in it was that she should some day brag of it to you. Your Dante and Sandys’ Ovid are the only helpmates of translations. Neither of you shirk a word.
Fairfax’s Tasso is no translation at all. It’s better in some places; but it merely observes the number of stanzas; as for images, similes, &c., he finds ’em himself, and never “troubles Peter for the matter.”
In haste, dear Cary, yours ever,
Has Moxon sent you “Elia,” second volume? if not, he shall. Taylor and we are at law about it.
