I cannot defer for a moment thanking you for the pleasure you have given us in the prospect of seeing you here. Nothing I trust will or can arise to disappoint us. Your health & your eyes would be so much benefitted by rest & country air that your would go on the faster for the excursion--you would gain in power more than you would lose in time. Papa says he can show you excellent coursing--Again I must prepare you for our homely ways, & our little variety of company--We have not at any time a large society & just now all our neighbours seem migrating--But this you will pardon I am sure. I can promise you a most delighted welcome in our little family circle from the two you know & the one you do not know--I think you will like my dear Mother--every body does--she is so very good--though perhaps I oughht not to say so. If not inconvenient to you let us have the pleasure of seeing you rather before than after the middle of next month--& be so good to write a day or two before to fix the time that my Father shall meet you in Reading--I have exprest expressed myself with my usual awkwardness I see & seem to limit you to the middle of the month--As early in September as you like we shall be most happy to receive you--only the beginning would suit my Father better than the latter end. Pray do not let anything prevent your coming.

You shall certainly have a very beautiful thoroughbred dark coloured young greyhound--of that my dear Sir be assured. My Father's most intimate friend, & the father of my most intimate friends is the greatest courser in this neighborhood & has a breed of dogs so celebrated that Lord Rivers himself was in great part supplied by him. This Gentleman, Mr. Webb, has just now 8 or nine very fine young greyhounds all blue, of which he does not mean to keep more than five or six, so that there will be neither trouble nor obligation in promising one for you--& if you do not like that one you shall have my little beauty from Stratford A reference to Mitford's greyhound Miranda, who came from a breeder in Stratford. Mr. Webb is ill just now, so that I cannot very well chuse choose one, but I shall prefer my petition & am sure of getting you a very handsome one by September. Mr. Webb will be most proud to supply you--He is getting better, & will I hope be well enough to be introduced to you when we have the happiness of your company--& I am sure you will think it a pleasure to be supplied by him. He is a most excellent man--a brewer by trade & a gentleman by nature--quite as thorough bred as his greyhounds.

What you say of your delights me. Is the Christ finished?--I do not wonder that you are improved in the interval that has elapsed since your illness--you must have thought so intently on that divine figure--& surely after a certain degree of mechanical power is acquired the mind has as much to do with that noble art as the hand--Such a is only another & a finer form of poetry. --But you are a great Poet too even out of the canvas my dear Mr. Haydon with your "whirlwind as quick as your own thoughts"--those beautiful words of yours would be fit companions for Mr. Wordsworth's "crescent boat" A reference to the Prologue of Wordsworth's Peter Bell: There's something in a flying horse,/And something in a huge balloon;/But through the clouds I'll never float/Until I have a little Boat,/Whose shape is like the crescent-moon" (page 1, stanza 1).--I do not know which I should like best to travel in--the whirlwind I think.--You must be content with the Reading Coach which in point of speed you will find a very decent substitute, & a good deal safer. They are the very best coaches on the road. Mind you try them.