"I have some knowledge of your countryman Muley Moloch, the
lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to
convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian already, I should
probably have been now, in consequence. I thought there was
something of wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of
absurdity,--as there must be in all talent, let loose upon the
world, without a martingale.

"The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen * * * but they
_won't_ go out, the sons of b----es. Damn Reform--I want a
place--what say you? You must applaud the honesty of the
declaration, whatever you may think of the intention.

"I have quantities of paper in England, original and
translated--tragedy, &c. &c. and am now copying out a fifth Canto
of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near _three thin_
Albemarle, or _two thick_ volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean
to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about
me like a dragon till I make manure of * * * for the top of
Parnassus.

"These rogues are right--_we do_ laugh at _t'others_--eh?--don't
we?[14] You shall see--you shall see what things I'll say, an' it
pleases Providence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are
all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a
constitution--when they can get them. But I won't talk politics--it
is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her
bottle--that's the only _motley_ nowadays.

"If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests