faint,--and then to CARDS with my father, who will not let me enjoy a
meal in peace--but I must conform to my situation, and I hope I am, for
the most part, not unthankful.

I am got home at last, and, after repeated games at Cribbage have got my
father's leave to write awhile: with difficulty got it, for when I
expostulated about playing any more, he very aptly replied, "If you
won't play with me, you might as well not come home at all." The
argument was unanswerable, and I set to afresh.

I told you, I do not approve of your omissions. Neither do I quite
coincide with you in your arrangements: I have not time to point out a
better, and I suppose some self-associations of your own have determined
their place as they now stand. Your beginning indeed with the Joan of
Arc lines I coincide entirely with: I love a splendid Outset, a
magnificent Portico; and the Diapason is Grand--the Religious Musings--
when I read them, I think how poor, how unelevated, unoriginal, my blank
verse is, "Laugh all that weep" especially, where the subject demanded a
grandeur of conception: and I ask what business they have among
yours--but Friendship covereth a multitude of defects. Why omit 73? At
all events, let me plead for those former pages,--40. 63. 84. 86. I
should like, for old acquaintance sake, to spare 62. 119 would have made
a figure among _Shenstone_'s Elegies: _you_ may admit it or reject, as
you please. In the Man of Ross let the old line stand as it used:
"wine-cheer'd moments" much better than the lame present one. 94, change
the harsh word "foodful" into "dulcet" or, if not too harsh,
"nourishing." 91, "moveless": is that as good as "moping"?--8, would it
not read better omitting those 2 lines last but 6 about Inspiration? I
want some loppings made in the Chatterton; it wants but a little to make
it rank among the finest irregular Lyrics I ever read. Have you time and