he demonstrates to the entire satisfaction of the literary world, in a
way that must silence all reply for ever, that the pastoral was
introduced by Theocritus and polished by Virgil and Pope--that Gray and
Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have a good deal of
poetical fire and true lyric genius--that Cowley was ruined by excess of
wit (a warning to all moderns)--that Charles Lloyd, Charles Lamb, and
William Wordsworth, in later days, have struck the true chords of poesy.
O, George, George, with a head uniformly wrong and a heart uniformly
right, that I had power and might equal to my wishes!--then I would call
the Gentry of thy native Island, and they should come in troops,
flocking at the sound of thy Prospectus Trumpet, and crowding who shall
be first to stand in thy List of Subscribers. I can only put twelve
shillings into thy pocket (which, I will answer for them, will not stick
there long), out of a pocket almost as bare as thine. [_Lamb here erases
six lines._]

Is it not a pity so much fine writing should be erased? But, to tell the
truth, I began to scent that I was getting into that sort of style which
Longinus and Dionysius Halicarnassus aptly call "the affected." But I am
suffering from the combined effect of two days' drunkenness, and at such
times it is not very easy to think or express in a natural series. The
ONLY useful OBJECT of this Letter is to apprize you that on Saturday I
shall transmit the PENS by the same coach I sent the Parcel. So enquire
them out. You had better write to Godwin _here_, directing your letter
to be forwarded to him. I don't know his address. You know your letter
must at any rate come to London first. C. L.

["Your satire upon me"--"This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" (see above).

"Those nine other wandering maids"--the Muses. A recollection of _The