On Saturday we were greatly surprised by a letter from Mrs. Murray, dated at London, and with an account of your return from your Northern expedition. Yesterday we passed anxiously in expectation of your appearance; and this day is beautiful—so you have lost a day. We wish much to see you, and whenever you come you can be always certain of an excellent bedroom.
I long to hear how your new enterprise [Blackwood’s Magazine] is unfolding itself. On their side they have sent forth their note of gratulation, in their whimsical poet, on “this league with Mr. Murray.” Some young men of great promise they have got, and some I think do rather promise than perform. Three months are now closing on me, in which I am innocent of having once dipped into ink, and I believe I may promise I shall not again. But though engaging in no glorious adventures with a ship of my own any more, I’ll be glad to be useful to you, as a pilot about the narrow coast in which I have foolishly spent my days.
I congratulate you on your absence from the place this day; a
storm of wind and rain is playing about my ears, which may hinder me from
sending off this letter, as we are above a mile from the village. But I can
find no subject for congratulation in regard to next week. We are very
reluctantly obliged to deny ourselves the pleasure of receiving Mrs. Murray and yourself on next Sunday; for
| THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE. | 71 |
I am gratified to hear of any honourable mention of myself, but I have long been expecting others of a different cast. Pray, has any notice whatever been taken in the Reviews of ‘The Literary Character’? Here I am quite out of the reach of anything of this sort. My Verse will never give you any trouble, and I think my Prose will end as has my Verse. It is true, I have some things respecting Books and Authors which are new to the lovers of books, and I might give them with propriety, could I hit upon some plan; but the days of enterprise are closed. It is true that I have not dipped my pen here for literary purposes; but I have passed three months in pretty close reading of some of the best divinity which I found at my hands in Mr. Slingsby’s library. Blackwood’s was always a favourite work of mine; but a little too much personality; too much firing at small birds. Believe me, with warm attachment,
