similitude nor dissimilitude to English? Why, thou cursed Smellfungus! your account of your landing and reception, and Bullen (I forget how you spell it,--it was spelt my way in Harry the Eighth's time), was exactly in that minute style which strong impressions INSPIRE (writing to a Frenchman, I write as a Frenchman would). It appears to me as if I should die with joy at the first landing in a foreign country. It is the nearest pleasure which a grown man can substitute for that unknown one, which he can never know,--the pleasure of the first entrance into life from the womb. I daresay, in a short time, my habits would come back like a "stronger man" armed, and drive out that new pleasure; and I should soon sicken for known objects. Nothing has transpired here that seems to me of sufficient importance to send dry-shod over the water; but I suppose you will want to be told some news. The best and the worst to me is, that I have given up two guineas a week at the "Post," and regained my health and spirits, which were upon the wane. I grew sick, and Stuart unsatisfied. _Ludisti satis, tempus abire est_; I must cut closer, that's all. Mister Fell--or as you, with your usual facetiousness and drollery, call him, Mr. Fell--has stopped short in the middle of his play. Some _friend_ has told him that it has not the least merit in it. Oh that I had the rectifying of the Litany! I would put in a _Libera nos (Scriptores videlicet) ab amicis_! That's all the news. _A propos_ (is it pedantry, writing to a Frenchman, to express myself sometimes by a French word, when an English one would not do as well? Methinks my thoughts fall naturally into it)-- In all this time I have done but one thing which I reckon tolerable, and that I will transcribe, because it may give you pleasure, being a picture of _my_ humors. You will find it in my last page. It absurdly is a first number of a series, thus strangled in its birth. More news! The Professor's Rib [1] has come out to be a disagreeable woman, so much so as to drive me and some more old cronies from his house. He must not wonder if people are shy of coming to see him because of the _Snakes_. C. L. [1] Mrs. Godwin XLIII. TO WILLIAM GODWIN. _November_ 10, 1803.