"February 16. 1814.
"You may be assured that the only prickles that sting from the
Royal hedgehog are those which possess a torpedo property, and may
benumb some of my friends. _I_ am quite silent, and 'hush'd in grim
repose.' The frequency of the assaults has weakened their
effects,--if ever they had any;--and, if they had had much, I
should hardly have held my tongue, or withheld my fingers. It is
something quite new to attack a man for abandoning his resentments.
I have heard that previous praise and subsequent vituperation were
rather ungrateful, but I did not know that it was wrong to
endeavour to do justice to those who did not wait till I had made
some amends for former and boyish prejudices, but received me into
their friendship, when I might still have been their enemy.
"You perceive justly that I must _intentionally_ have made my
fortune like Sir Francis Wronghead. It were better if there were
more merit in my independence, but it really is something nowadays
to be independent at all, and the _less_ temptation to be
otherwise, the more uncommon the case, in these times of
paradoxical servility. I believe that most of our hates and likings
have been hitherto nearly the same; but from henceforth they must,
of necessity, be one and indivisible,--and now for it! I am for any
weapon,--the pen, till one can find something sharper, will do for
a beginning.
"You can have no conception of the ludicrous solemnity with which
these two stanzas have been treated. The Morning Post gave notice
of an intended motion in the House of my brethren on the subject,
and God he knows what proceedings besides;--and all this, as
Bedreddin in the 'Nights' says, 'for making a cream tart without
pepper.' This last piece of intelligence is, I presume, too
laughable to be true; and the destruction of the Custom-house
appears to have, in some degree, interfered with mine; added to
which, the last battle of Buonaparte has usurped the column
hitherto devoted to my bulletin.
"I send you from this day's Morning Post the best which have
hitherto appeared on this 'impudent doggerel,' as the Courier calls
it. There was another about my _diet_, when a boy--not at all
bad--some time ago; but the rest are but indifferent.
"I shall think about your _oratorical_ hint[17];--but I have never
set much upon 'that cast,' and am grown as tired as Solomon of
every thing, and of myself more than any thing. This is being what
the learned call philosophical, and the vulgar lack-a-daisical. I
am, however, always glad of a blessing[18]; pray, repeat yours
soon,--at least your letter, and I shall think the benediction
included.
"Ever," &c.
[Footnote 17: I had endeavoured to persuade him to take a part in
parliamentary affairs, and to exercise his talent for oratory more
frequently.]
[Footnote 18: In concluding my letter, having said "God bless you!" I
added--"that is, if you have no objection."]
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