“I suspect you of Jesuitism, enough to forge at least
a date; and that, like Bonaparte and his
decrees, you manufactured a 7th of January to suit your own purposes. Take this
upon your own conscience; but upon mine, the gentlest oath that can be sworn in
a cold climate, I believe you to be among the worst depositaries of
correspondence to be found anywhere, from this to Berwick, or forward and
upward to Inverness. You absolutely kept some of my epistles—that is, epistles
to me—a month, and have afflicted some of my she-friends with all the horrors
of being forgotten by me. May I trust you again? I was actually beginning to
have my fears for yourself; and as a typhus fever, or a St. Vitus’s
dance, might seize upon a man of genius, and six feet altitude, as well as upon
the diminutives of this world, I did not know but I might have been called on
to write your epitaph. However, let me intreat you to sin no more on this
subject, and, in consideration of your reform, I shall trouble you with sundry
commissions in future. Thank you for your arrangements with the
flageolet-maker—bring it with you; but don’t stir till the wind has been
steadily fair for some time. You may come in twelve hours. You may be kicked
about, starved
| PINDAR, HOGG, BOWLES. | 153 |
