"Ravenna, May 20. 1820.
"Murray, my dear, make my respects to Thomas Campbell, and tell him
from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right
in his poets: Firstly, he says Anstey's Bath Guide characters are
taken from Smollett. 'Tis impossible:--the Guide was published in
1766, and Humphrey Clinker in 1771--_dunque_, 'tis Smollett who has
taken from Anstey. Secondly, he does not know to whom Cowper
alludes, when he says that there was one who 'built a church to
_God_, and then blasphemed his name:' it was 'Deo erexit
_Voltaire_' to whom that maniacal Calvinist and coddled poet
alludes. Thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from
Shakspeare, 'to gild refined gold, to paint the lily,' &c.; for
_lily_ he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole
quotation.
"Now, Tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct; for the first
is an _injustice_ (to Anstey), the second an _ignorance_, and the
third a _blunder_. Tell him all this, and let him take it in good
part; for I might have rammed it into a review and rowed
him--instead of which, I act like a Christian.
"Yours," &c.
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