"I have also, more or less, been breaking a few of the favourite commandments; but I mean to pull up and marry, if any one will have me. In the mean time, the other day I nearly killed myself with a collar of brawn, which I swallowed for supper, and _in_digested for I don't know how long: but that is by the by. All this gourmandise was in honour of Lent; for I am forbidden meat all the rest of the year, but it is strictly enjoined me during your solemn fast. I have been, and am, in very tolerable love; but of that hereafter as it may be. "My dear Moore, say what you will in your preface; and quiz any thing or any body,--me if you like it. Oons! dost thou think me of the _old_, or rather _elderly_, school? If one can't jest with one's friends, with whom can we be facetious? You have nothing to fear from * *, whom I have not seen, being out of town when he called. He will be very correct, smooth, and all that, but I doubt whether there will be any 'grace beyond the reach of art;'--and, whether there is or not, how long will you be so d----d modest? As for Jeffrey, it is a very handsome thing of him to speak well of an old antagonist,--and what a mean mind dared not do. Any one will revoke praise; but--were it not partly my own case--I should say that very few have strength of mind to unsay their censure, or follow it up with praise of other things. "What think you of the review of _Levis_? It beats the Bag and my hand-grenade hollow, as an invective, and hath thrown the Court into hysterics, as I hear from very good authority. Have you heard from * * *? "No more rhyme for--or rather, _from_--me. I have taken my leave of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer. I have had my day, and there's an end. The utmost I expect, or even wish, is to have it said in the Biographia Britannica, that I might perhaps have been a poet, had I gone on and amended. My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me. They can't say I have truckled to the times, nor to popular topics, (as Johnson, or somebody, said of Cleveland,) and whatever I have gained has been at the expenditure of as much _personal_ favour as possible; for I do believe never was a bard more unpopular, _quoad homo_, than myself. And now I have done;--'ludite nunc alios.' Every body may be d----d, as they seem fond of it, and resolve to stickle lustily for endless brimstone.