“There was no necessity for your excuses: if you have time and inclination to write, ‘for what we receive, the Lord make us thankful,’—if I do not hear from you, I console myself with the idea that you are much more agreeably employed.
“I send down to you by this post a certain Satire lately published, and in return for the three and
sixpence expenditure upon it, only beg that if you should guess the author, you will
keep his name secret; at least for the present. London is full of the Duke’s business. The Commons have been at it these last
three nights, and are not yet come to a decision. I do not know if the affair will be
brought before our
| 166 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1809. |
“I am going abroad, if possible, in the spring, and before I depart I am collecting the pictures of my most intimate schoolfellows; I have already a few, and shall want yours, or my cabinet will be incomplete. I have employed one of the first miniature-painters of the day to take them, of course at my own expense, as I never allow my acquaintance to incur the least expenditure to gratify a whim of mine. To mention this may seem indelicate; but when I tell you a friend of ours first refused to sit, under the idea that he was to disburse on the occasion, you will see that it is necessary to state these preliminaries to prevent the recurrence of any similar mistake. I shall see you in time, and will carry you to the limner. It will be a tax on your patience for a week, but pray excuse it, as it is possible the resemblance may be the sole trace I shall be able to preserve of our past friendship and present acquaintance. Just now it seems foolish enough, but in a few years, when some of us are dead, and others are separated by inevitable circumstances, it will be a kind of satisfaction to retain in these images of the living the idea of our former selves, and to contemplate in the resemblances of the dead, all that remains of judgment, feeling, and a host of passions. But all this will be dull enough for you, and so good night, and to end my chapter, or rather my homily, believe me, my dear H., yours most affectionately.”
