Homer had never wrote, nor wits had read Achilles' anger or Patroclus dead. We gods and goddesses had lived in riot, And the blind fool had let us all be quiet. Mortals had never been stunn'd with!!!!!!!-- Nor Virgil's wooden horse play'd Hocus Pocus. Hang the two Bards! But Montague is pretty. Sirrah, you lie; but I'll allow she's witty. Well! but I'm told she was so at fifteen, Ay, and the veriest so that e'er was seen. Why that I own; and I myself---- "But, hold! as in all probability I am going to tell a parcel of cursed lies, I'll travel no further, lay down my presumptuous pen, and go to bed; for it's half-past two, and two hours and an half is full long enough to write nonsense at one time. You see what it is to give a Goth Tokay: you manure your land with filth, and it produces Tokay; you enrich a man with Tokay, and he brings forth the froth and filth of nonsense. You will learn how to bestow it better another time. I hope what you took yourself had a better, or at least no bad, effect. I wish you had wrote me a note after your first sleep. There wou'd have been your sublime double-distilled, treble-refined wit. I shouldn't have known it to be yours if it could have been anybody's else. "Pray don't show these humble rhimes to R----y. That puppy will write notes upon 'em or perhaps paint 'em upon sign-posts, and make 'em into an invitation to draw people to see the Camel and Dromedary--for I see he can make anything of anything; but, after all, why should I be afraid? Perhaps he might make something of nothing. I have wrote in heroics. Sure the wretch will have a reverence for heroics, especially for such as he never saw before, and never may again. Well, upon my life I will go to bed--'tis a burning shame to sit up so. I lie, for my fire is out, and so will my candle too if I write a word more. "So I will only make my mark. =X= "God eternally bless and preserve you from such writers." "March 5th, 12 o'clock. "DEAR MRS. MONTAGUE, "My fever has been so great that I have not had any time to write to you in such a manner as to try and convince you that I had recovered my senses, and I could write a sober line. Pray, how do you do after your wine and its effects on you, as well as upon me? You are grown a right down rake, and I never expect you for a patient again as long as we live, the last relation I should like to stand to you in, and which nothing could make bearable but serving you, and that is a _J'ay pays_ for all my misery in serving you ill. "I am called out, so adieu." "March 6th.