himself, but Alas the thing was not played. The sweetest morsel of the night moreover was, that the musicians began pegging and fagging away--at an overture--never did you see faces more in earnest, three times did they play it over, dropping all kinds of corrections and still did not the curtain go up. Well then they went into a country dance, then into a region they well knew, into the old boonsome Pothouse, and then to see how pompous o' the sudden they turned; how they looked about and chatted; how they did not care a damn; was a great treat---- I hope I have not tired you by this filling up of the dash in my last. Constable the bookseller has offered Reynolds ten guineas a sheet to write for his Magazine--it is an Edinburgh one, which Blackwood's started up in opposition to. Hunt said he was nearly sure that the 'Cockney School' was written by Scott[44] so you are right Tom!--There are no more little bits of news I can remember at present. I remain, My dear Brothers, Your very affectionate Brother JOHN. XXXI.--TO BENJAMIN BAILEY. [Hampstead,] Friday Jan{y.} 23 [1818]. My dear Bailey--Twelve days have pass'd since your last reached me.--What has gone through the myriads of human minds since the 12th? We talk of the immense Number of Books, the Volumes ranged thousands by thousands--but perhaps more goes through the human intelligence in Twelve days than ever was written.--_How has that unfortunate family lived through the twelve?_ One saying of yours I shall never forget--you may not recollect it--it being perhaps said when you were looking on the Surface and seeming of Humanity alone, without a thought of the past or the future--or the deeps of good and evil--you were at that moment estranged from speculation, and I think you have arguments ready for the Man who would utter it to you--this is a formidable preface for a simple thing--merely you said, "_Why should woman suffer?_" Aye, why should she? "By heavens I'd coin my very Soul, and drop my Blood for Drachmas!" These things are, and he, who feels how incompetent the most skyey Knight-errantry is to heal this bruised fairness, is like a sensitive leaf on the hot hand of thought.--Your tearing, my dear friend, a spiritless and gloomy letter up, to re-write to me, is what I shall never forget--it was to me a real thing--Things have happened lately of great perplexity--you must have heard of them--Reynolds and Haydon retorting and recriminating--and parting for ever--the same thing has happened between Haydon and Hunt. It is unfortunate--Men should bear with each other: there lives not the Man who may not be cut up, aye Lashed to pieces on his weakest side. The best of Men have but a portion of good in them--a kind of spiritual yeast in their frames, which creates the ferment of existence--by which a Man is propelled to act, and strive, and buffet with Circumstance. The sure way, Bailey, is first to know a Man's faults, and then be passive--if after