“Your offer is liberal in the extreme (you see I use the word to you and of you, though I would not consent to your using it of yourself to Mr. * * * *), and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth;
* Had he not erred, he had far less achieved. |
| 658 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1816. |
“I am very glad that the handwriting was favourable omen of the morale of the piece: but you must not trust to that, for my copyist would write out any thing I desired in all the ignorance of innocence—I hope, however, in this instance, with no great peril to either.
“P.S. I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of accidents by the way—I wish you would not throw temptation in mine. It is not from a disdain of the universal idol, nor from a present superfluity of his treasures, I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances.”
