“Your letter of the 23rd August I did not receive till my arrival here, several weeks after it was written. My stay in London was only of a few days, or I should have been pleased to renew my acquaintance with you.
“I really cannot change my opinion as to the little interest which would attach to such observations as my ability or opportunity enabled me to make during my ramble upon the continent, or it would have given me pleasure to meet your wishes. There is an obstacle in the way of my ever producing anything of this kind, viz.—idleness, and yet another which is an affair of taste.* Periodical writing, in order to strike, must be ambitious; and this style is, I think, in the record of tours or travels, intolerable; or, at any rate, the worst that can be chosen. My model would be Gray’s Letters and Journal, if I could muster courage to set seriously about anything of the kind; but I suspect Gray himself would be found flat in these days.
“I have named to Mr. Southey your communication about Mr. Percival’s death; he received them and wrote you a letter of thanks, which by some mishap or other does not appear to have reached you.
“If you happen to meet with Mr. Reynolds, pray tell him that I received his prospectuses, (an ugly word!) and did as he wished with them. “I remain, dear Sir,
