There can be no better proof how greatly I have been engaged of late with guests & visitors, than that I have not found time for talking per-pen with you. John May & his son

left us on Monday. Yesterday I had a Frenchman here sent by Heber, – a M. Pichot,

who had begun to translate Roderick when two other translations

appeared, & cut his work short. He means to write his travels in England, & intersperse them with an account of our living Poets.

Canning is looking ill, – & Heber also, I am sorry to say, begins to show in his appearance that he has lived too hard. – I was glad to see Herries not more aged than he ought to be, – Cupn was introduced to his god-brother.

He loves you for the god-fathership he says; – & if you were here, you would find reasons enough for loving him, for he is a most amusing creature.

Locker was here lately. Like many other persons he would fain tempt me to the neighbourhood of London, – & by way of temptation mentioned that a house on May’s Hill

was now vacant. I guessed at once what house it was, & certainly there is no situation to which I should remove more willingly, – if I were to remove at all, & time & other circumstances suited. But my own conviction is that I am best where I am. I do not think that the QR. would be offered to me in case of Giffords withdrawing. He as well as Murray would think me an impracticable person, which in certain points most certainly I should prove: for as I would suffer nothing to appear in the journal of which I should be ashamed, or which I could not in principle maintain, I should have to turn out half the contributors, or make them conform to my notions of propriety & justice. Would the object be worth the trouble which it would involve me in, – or should I be justified in sacrificing more time than I already do, to a perishable & temporary work? I think not. My wish would be that John Coleridge should succeed to Gifford. He, I know, would conduct it in the same spirit, as I should do. If it fall into the hands of a man who steers a different course, Giffords abdication will be the signal for my secession.

I have some notion of bringing up a certain ms.

when next I visit London, to be printed & published by W^m Nicol,

for the sake of as much secrecy as can be had, – & as much profit by doing it on my own account. You know what I mean (D^r. D. D.)

One of my many reasons for wishing you here this summer was to have shown you this delectable history, which will you would find to your hearts content.

I had corrected G. Stewarts name,

the misspelling was from James Moore,

& the official accounts. – You will admire the skill with which in two places I have dove-tailed in additions to the amount of two pages in each places. How do you like the Ded. & Preface?

–

I must not omit to tell you that the exercise which I have taken with Lightfoot & John May, has set me up wonderfully, & for the time entirely removed the infirmity

which when I began almost incapacitated me from walking to the Lake side.