‘My dear Rogers,—I beg leave to introduce to you Mr. Madden, whose travels and other writings are most probably known to you. He is an extremely sensible and amiable man, and constitutes, I may say, all my conversible society at this place.
| 74 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘I am very happy to tell you that the five hundred pounds which you so generously lent me is at my bankers’ in James’s Street, and awaits your calling for it. Blessed be God that I have saved both it and myself from being involved as partner in “The Metropolitan.” Respecting the history of this transaction, though I have made it known to my friends confidentially, yet I should not wish that there should be any public talk, for though I blame the publisher Cochrane for swaggering and putting on the airs of a wealthy capitalist all the time he was but a needy, seedy . . . . still, poor devil, he may keep above water if his credit does not sink; and he has a wife and several children, of whom it pains my heart to think. I therefore abide by him and “The Metropolitan” out of sheer compassion. But I have got out of the scrape of being a sharer in the periodical.
‘The pain I suffered before I made this rescue was not slight. Amidst the horror of bad news, public and private, I felt at times misanthropic enough to pronounce my species all rascals. But still I recalled your loan. Ah, there, I thought to myself, there is a fact to show that benevolence has not left the earth. Aye, and days and sleepless nights went over my head in which I knew not whether even that loan was not to be thrown into a gulf of bankruptcy. All, however, is now safe. And my feeling of obligation to you is as thoroughly grateful as if all my chimerical dreams had been realised. I shall now go on with Mrs. Siddons’s life. Have you seen Haynes Bayly’s song on the “Italian Boy,” the music by “Bishop”? Query, what Bishop? There has been more than one composer of that name.
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‘Adieu, my dear friend. Believe me most affectionately yours,
