"Send me '_Rokeby_.' Who the devil is he?--no matter, he has good connections, and will be well introduced. I thank you for your enquiries: I am so so, but my thermometer is sadly below the poetical point. What will you give _me_ or _mine_ for a poem of six cantos, (_when complete_--_no_ rhyme, _no_ recompense,) as like the last two as I can make them? I have some ideas that one day may be embodied, and till winter I shall have much leisure. "P.S.--My last question is in the true style of Grub Street; but, like Jeremy Diddler, I only 'ask for information.'--Send me Adair on Diet and Regimen, just republished by Ridgway." * * * * * LETTER 108. TO MR. MURRAY. "Cheltenham, Sept. 14. 1812. "The parcels contained some letters and verses, all but one anonymous and complimentary, and very anxious for my conversion from certain infidelities into which my good-natured correspondents conceive me to have fallen. The books were presents of a _convertible_ kind. Also, 'Christian Knowledge' and the 'Bioscope,' a religious Dial of Life explained;--and to the author of the former (Cadell, publisher,) I beg you will forward my best thanks for his letter, his present, and, above all, his good intentions. The 'Bioscope' contained a MS. copy of very excellent verses, from whom I know not, but evidently the composition of some one in the habit of writing, and of writing well. I do not know if he be the author of the 'Bioscope' which accompanied them; but whoever he is, if you can discover him, thank him from me most heartily. The other letters were from ladies, who are welcome to convert me when they please; and if I can discover them, and they be young, as they say they are, I could convince them perhaps of my devotion. I had also a letter from Mr. Walpole on matters of this world, which I have answered. "So you are Lucien's publisher? I am promised an interview with him, and think I shall ask _you_ for a letter of introduction, as 'the gods have made him poetical.' From whom could it come with a better grace than from _his_ publisher and mine? Is it not somewhat treasonable in you to have to do with a relative of the 'direful foe,' as the Morning Post calls his brother?