"Newstead Abbey, August 22. 1811.
"You may have heard of the sudden death of my mother, and poor
Matthews, which, with that of Wingfield, (of which I was not fully
aware till just before I left town, and indeed hardly believed it,)
has made a sad chasm in my connections. Indeed the blows followed
each other so rapidly that I am yet stupid from the shock; and
though I do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh, at times, yet
I can hardly persuade myself that I am awake, did not every
morning convince me mournfully to the contrary.--I shall now wave
the subject,--the dead are at rest, and none but the dead can be
so.
"You will feel for poor Hobhouse,--Matthews was the 'god of his
idolatry;' and if intellect could exalt a man above his fellows, no
one could refuse him pre-eminence. I knew him most intimately, and
valued him proportionably; but I am recurring--so let us talk of
life and the living.
"If you should feel a disposition to come here, you will find 'beef
and a sea-coal fire,' and not ungenerous wine. Whether Otway's two
other requisites for an Englishman or not, I cannot tell, but
probably one of them.--Let me know when I may expect you, that I
may tell you when I go and when return. I have not yet been to
Lanes. Davies has been here, and has invited me to Cambridge for a
week in October, so that, peradventure, we may encounter glass to
glass. His gaiety (death cannot mar it) has done me service; but,
after all, ours was a hollow laughter.
"You will write to me? I am solitary, and I never felt solitude
irksome before. Your anxiety about the critique on * *'s book is
amusing; as it was anonymous, certes it was of little consequence:
I wish it had produced a little more confusion, being a lover of
literary malice. Are you doing nothing? writing nothing? printing
nothing? why not your Satire on Methodism? the subject (supposing
the public to be blind to merit) would do wonders. Besides, it
would be as well for a destined deacon to prove his orthodoxy.--It
really would give me pleasure to see you properly appreciated. I
say _really_, as, being an author, my humanity might be suspected.
Believe me, dear H., yours always."
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