“I wish you could have heard my conversation with Lord Grenville the other day, and the warm and enthusiastic way in which he spoke of Peter Plymley. I did not fail to remind him that the only author to whom we both thought it could be compared in English, lost a bishopric for his wittiest performance; and I hoped that, if we could discover the author, and had ever a bishopric in our gift, we should prove that Whigs were both more grateful and more liberal than Tories.
“He rallied me upon the affectation of concealing who it was, but added that he hoped Peter would not always live in Yorkshire; for, among other reasons, we felt the want of him just now in the state of the press, and that he wished to God Abraham would do something to provoke him to take up the pen again.”