Sidmouth: December 14, 1832.

My dearest Mrs. Martin,--I hope you are very angry indeed with us for
not writing. We are as penitent as we ought to be--that is, I am,
for I believe I am the idle person; yet not altogether idle, but
procrastinating and waiting for news rather more worthy of being read
in Rome than any which even now I can send you.... And now, my dear
Mrs. Martin, I mean to thank you, as I ought to have done long ago,
for your kindness in offering to procure for me the _Archbishop of
Dublin's_[13] valuable opinion upon my 'Prometheus. I am sure that if
you have not thought me very ungrateful, you must be very indulgent.
My mind was at one time so crowded by painful thoughts, that they shut
out many others which are interesting to me; and among other things, I
forgot once or twice, when I had an opportunity, to thank _you_, dear
Mrs. Martin. I believe I should have taken advantage of your proposal,
but papa said to me, 'If he criticises your manuscript in a manner
which does not satisfy you, you won't be easy without defending
yourself, and he might be drawn into taking more trouble than you
have now any idea of giving him.' I sighed a little at losing such an
opportunity of gaining a great advantage, but there seemed to be some
reason in what papa said I have completed a preface and notes to my
translation; and since doing so, a work of exactly the same character
by a Mr. Medwin has been published, and commended in Bulwer's
magazine.[14] Therefore it is probable enough that my trouble,
excepting as far as my own amusement went, has been in vain. But papa
means to try Mr. Valpy, I believe. He left us since I began to write
this letter, with a promise of returning before Christmas Day. We
_do_ miss him. Mr. Boyd has made me quite angry by publishing his
translations by rotation in numbers of the 'Wesleyan Magazine,'
instead of making them up into a separate publication, as I had