"But my book on 'Diet and Regimen,' where is it? I thirst for Scott's Rokeby; let me have your first-begotten copy. The Anti-jacobin Review is all very well, and not a bit worse than the Quarterly, and at least less harmless. By the by, have you secured my books? I want all the Reviews, at least the critiques, quarterly, monthly, &c., Portuguese and English, extracted, and bound up in one volume for my _old age_; and pray, sort my Romaic books, and get the volumes lent to Mr. Hobhouse--he has had them now a long time. If any thing occurs, you will favour me with a line, and in winter we shall be nearer neighbours. "P.S.--I was applied to, to write the Address for Drury Lane, but the moment I heard of the contest, I gave up the idea of contending against all Grub Street, and threw a few thoughts on the subject into the fire. I did this out of respect to you, being sure you would have turned off any of your authors who had entered the lists with such scurvy competitors. To triumph would have been no glory; and to have been defeated--'sdeath!--I would have choked myself, like Otway, with a quartern loaf; so, remember I had, and have, nothing to do with it, upon _my honour_." * * * * * LETTER 109. TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES. "Cheltenham, September 28. 1812. "My dear Bankes, "When you point out to one how people can be intimate at the distance of some seventy leagues, I will plead guilty to your charge, and accept your farewell, but not _wittingly_, till you give me some better reason than my silence, which merely proceeded from a notion founded on your own declaration of _old_, that you hated writing and receiving letters. Besides, how was I to find out a man of many residences? If I had addressed you _now_, it had been to your borough, where I must have conjectured you were amongst your constituents. So now, in despite of Mr. N. and Lady W., you shall be as 'much better' as the Hexham post-office will allow me to make you. I do assure you I am much indebted to you for thinking of me at all, and can't spare you even from amongst the superabundance of friends with whom you suppose me surrounded.