has a design upon you in the paper line. He wants you to become the
staple and stipendiary editor of a periodical work. What say you?
Will you be bound, like 'Kit Smart, to write for ninety-nine years
in the Universal Visiter?' Seriously he talks of hundreds a year,
and--though I hate prating of the beggarly elements--his proposal
may be to your honour and profit, and, I am very sure, will be to
our pleasure.

"I don't know what to say about 'friendship.' I never was in
friendship but once, in my nineteenth year, and then it gave me as
much trouble as love. I am afraid, as Whitbread's sire said to the
king, when he wanted to knight him, that I am 'too old:' but,
nevertheless, no one wishes you more friends, fame, and felicity,
than Yours," &c.

* * * * *

Having relinquished his design of accompanying the Oxfords to Sicily, he
again thought of the East, as will be seen by the following letters, and
proceeded so far in his preparations for the voyage as to purchase of
Love, the jeweller, of Old Bond Street, about a dozen snuff-boxes, as
presents for some of his old Turkish acquaintances.

LETTER 124. TO MR. MOORE.

"4. Benedictine Street, St. James's, July 8. 1813.

"I presume by your silence that I have blundered into something
noxious in my reply to your letter, for the which I beg leave to
send beforehand a sweeping apology, which you may apply to any, or