‘My dear Friend,—It is now twenty years since we discussed together in Norbury Park the subject of “Columbus and the Spirits” and its merits as a poetical subject. Now, may I ask you what you would have said then, and what you have now to say, in answer to an objection which has been triumphantly brought against it, and which Mackintosh seems to admit to be unanswerable—the impropriety of blending truth and fiction together, when the real circumstances are so recent and so well known?
‘Perhaps you would rather state your sentiments in conversation than in writing. If so, and you can eat a cutlet with me at six o’clock any day this week, I shall be very happy to see you.
‘I have drawn up a short answer, with which I mean to let the subject rest for ever, but I am not quite satisfied with it.
