My brother will put into your hands the volume of the Peninsular War

intended for his Majesty, which you have kindly undertaken to present. It is dedicated, as it ought to be, to the King, – briefly, & I trust becomingly.

Never in any period of our history did so much depend upon the determination of a single will, as depended upon his, on his accession to the Regency: every thing has been owing to that determination; & this I have endeavoured to state as strongly as I feel it.

The first volume comes down to the death of Sir John Moore;

the second will reach Massena’s retreat;

& a third concludes the work. The first years occupies so large a portion, because of the preliminary matter, & the great number of events which then rapidly succeeded each other, – events as various & important as they were complicated. There are details respecting Portugal which will be mostly new to English readers; they shew the state & character of the people; & give a faithful picture of French tyranny. These details will exasperate the admirers of Buonaparte:

& the Whigs also will not be conciliated by the cursory notice of them in the introductory chapter:

so the whole pack of Liberals will presently open upon me in full cry. Let them! You know my brother will have it that I like to be abused. The truth is, that not being of the genus irritabile,

I am not annoyed by it: moreover use goes for something, & I am so used to these things, that if I did not now & then think it proper to take the whip in hand, anger alone would never rouse me to the exertion. When I am forgetting the world amid pursuits which carry me back to former times, or forward into futurity, a rattling peal of abuse comes seasonably to let me know that I am not forgotten by it.

I expect to visit London for about a month early in the spring, as soon as I shall have brought out the Book of the Church.

That title was chosen with view to a correspondent sketch of our civil history which I thought of calling the Book of the Constitution,

the object of both being to make people understand the blessings they enjoy, & thereby to excite & foster a well-grounded & principled attachment to the institutions of the country. But it is uncertain whether I may undertake this counterpart; partly because the subject itself does not afford materials equally <so> attractive as those of the ecclesiastical story; & partly because it might interfere in some degree with a work of great magnitude for which I have long been making preparations, – a history of English Literature & Manners.

For many years indeed I have been so much devoted to historical pursuits, that, were it not that I wear the bays,

& am proud of wearing them, I should almost forget that I am a poet. A villainous commutation (made I suppose when my predecessor was a water-drinker) prevents me from trying what inspiration there may be in sack.

Not that I would have drawn my allowance wholly in that liquor; I would have commuted it in part for claret, & rhenish,

– & the Kings health should never have been profaned at my table by drinking it in port. I drank it on his birth day last year (it happens also to be mine) in some Tokay,

– properly called imperial, – for it had been a present from the Emperor Joseph to the last King of Poland,

– given by him to a certain Baron Corry

(Uncle I believe to the late Isaac Corry) – from whom it came in presentation to the father

of my friend Senhouse of Netherhall. The cork was sealed with the royal arms of Poland. One could not but think of the kingdoms which have been shattered while this poor bottle stood quietly on the shelf!