It is some time since I have had a long letter from you. I hope to
have one of some sort or other to-morrow. I hope all goes quietly,
at least Gregg says that you write cheerfully. On s'accoutume a
tout, they say, but I know and feel very sensibly that there are
exceptions to that adage.

The author of a new Grub Street poem, I see, allows me a great share
of feeling, at the same time that he relates facts of me, which, if
they were true, would, besides making me ridiculous, call very much
into question what he asserts with any reasonable man. I do not know
if you have received this performance. If I thought you had not,
paltry as it is, I should send it to you. The work I mean is called
"The Diaboliad."(138) This hero is Lord Ernham. Lord Hertford and
Lord Beauchamp are the chief persons whom he loads with his
invectives. Lord Lyttleton (and) his cousin Mr. Ascough are also
treated with not much lenity; Lord Pembroke with great familiarity,
as well as C. Fox; and Fitzpatrick, although painted in colours bad
enough at present, is represented as one whom in time the
Devil will lose for his disciple. I am only attacked upon that trite
and very foolish opinion concerning le pene e le Delitte (ed i
delitted), acknowledging (it) to proceed from an odd and insatiable
curiosity, and not from a mauvais coeur. In some places I think
there is versification, and a few good lines, and the piece seems to
be wrote by one not void of parts, but who, with attention, might
write much better.(139)

I forgive him his mention of me, because I believe that he does it
without malice, but, if I had leisure to think of such things, I
must own the frequent repetition of the foolish stories would make