A few months later Hannah More beseeches Garrick to write her a prologue to _Percy_. Garrick received her letter just as he was about to leave the Adelphi for a trip on the river. But he replied immediately, in the following characteristic way: "Write you an epilogue! Give you a pinch of snuff! By the greatest good luck in the world, I received your letter when I was surrounded with ladies and gentlemen, setting out upon a party to go up the Thames. Our expedition will take us seven or eight days upon the most limited calculations. They would hardly allow me a moment to write this scrawl: I snatched up the first piece of paper (and a bad one it is) to tell you how unhappy I am that I cannot confer upon you so small a favour directly. If you will let me know immediately, by a line directed to me at the Adelphi, for whom you intend the epilogue, and what are her or his strong marks of character in the play (for my copy is in town, or with Miss Young), I will do my best on my return. I must desire you not to rely upon me this time, on account of my present situation; I could as soon sleep in a whirlwind as write among these ladies, and I shall be so fatigued with talking myself, and hearing them talk, or I could sit up all night to obey your commands." Garrick complied with the request, and Hannah More writes, on June 16, 1777, to thank him: "I beg to return you my hearty thanks for your goodness in sending me your delightful prologue. That you should think me not unworthy to possess so great a treasure flatters more than my vanity. And that you should send it me so soon makes it doubly gratifying. I have read and re-read it with all the malice of a friend, and pronounce that I never read a sweeter or more beautiful thing.... Many thanks, dear sir, for your good and wholesome advice about my play. I do nothing, except regret my own idleness. I tremble for my fifth act; but I am afraid I shall never make others tremble at it. My love and duty to my sweet Mrs Garrick, and my thankful compliments to the young lady to whose transcription I am so much obliged; she is astonishingly correct, not the smallest error." Hannah More was then invited to visit the Garricks. "As soon as I got to London," she writes to her sister, "I drove straight to the Adelphi, where, to my astonishment, I found a coach waiting for me to carry me to Hampton. Upon my arrival here, I was immediately put in possession of my old chamber. Garrick is all good humour, vivacity, and wit. While I think of it, I must treat you with a little distich which Mrs Barbauld wrote extempore, on my showing my Felix Buckles (the elegant buckles which Garrick wore the last time he ever acted, and with which he presented me as a relic): 'Thy buckles, O Garrick, thy friend may now use, But no mortal hereafter shall tread in thy shoes?'"