be posthumous yet, if I can help it. Notwithstanding, only think
what a 'Life and Adventures,' while I am in full scandal, would be
worth, together with the 'membra' of my writing-desk, the sixteen
beginnings of poems never to be finished! Do you think I would not
have shot myself last year, had I not luckily recollected that Mrs.
C * * and Lady N * *, and all the old women in England would have
been delighted;--besides the agreeable 'Lunacy,' of the 'Crowner's
Quest,' and the regrets of two or three or half a dozen? Be assured
that I _would live_ for two reasons, or more;--there are one or two
people whom I have to put out of the world, and as many into it,
before I can 'depart in peace;' if I do so before, I have not
fulfilled my mission. Besides, when I turn thirty, I will turn
devout; I feel a great vocation that way in Catholic churches, and
when I hear the organ.

"So * * is writing again! Is there no Bedlam in Scotland? nor
thumb-screw? nor gag? nor hand-cuff? I went upon my knees to him
almost, some years ago, to prevent him from publishing a political
pamphlet, which would have given him a livelier idea of 'Habeas
Corpus' than the world will derive from his present production upon
that suspended subject, which will doubtless be followed by the
suspension of other of his Majesty's subjects.

"I condole with Drury Lane and rejoice with * *,--that is, in a
modest way,--on the tragical end of the new tragedy.

"You and Leigh Hunt have quarrelled then, it seems? I introduce him
and his poem to you, in the hope that (malgré politics) the union
would be beneficial to both, and the end is eternal enmity; and yet
I did this with the best intentions: I introduce * * *, and * * *