"John Gilpin" at the tail of all. He has made a good deal of noise in
the world, and perhaps it may not be amiss to show, that, tho I write
generally with a serious intention, I know how to be occasionally
merry. The critical reviewers charged me with an attempt at humor.
John having been more celebrated upon the score of humor than most
pieces that have appeared in modern days, may serve to exonerate me
from the imputation; but in this article I am entirely under your
judgment, and mean to be set down by it. All these together will make
an octavo like the last. I should have told you that the piece which
now employs me is rime. I do not intend to write any more blank. It is
more difficult than rime, and not so amusing in the composition. If,
when you make the offer of my book to Johnson, he should stroke his
chin, and look up to the ceiling and cry "Humph!"--anticipate him, I
beseech you, at once, by saying--"that you know I should be sorry that
he should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, or that my volume
should be in any degree prest upon him. I make him the offer merely
because I think he would have reason to complain of me if I did not."
But that punctilio once satisfied, it is a matter of indifference to
me what publisher sends me forth.