About fifty times I determined, my dear Sir William, to sustain my epistolary dignity & never be betrayed into writing you three letters to one. But it is in vain--the more I resolve the less I execute--especially when the resolution is a sort of unnatural holding one’s tongue--So consoling myself with the sophistry that the letter which crossed yours cannot count for a bona fide letter--only a sort of a sidewind-- & that I have only sent one epistle since--I write. My motive is partly a desire to prattle--partly a desire to hear--mostly the last.--First of all you must condole with me. I have lost my poor Mossy. He died about a fortnight ago of a fit, exceedingly lamented by every body about the place & most of all by me--the faithfullest & most intelligent creature in the world & fonder of me than anything in it except just Papa & Mama. Are not you very sorry for poor Mossy? I remember so well your feeding him & how well he understood when he was to take the meat. I am sure you will be sorry for poor Mossy. He was only 6 years old & had eaten a hearty breakfast just the day he died--but though so large & strong looking a dog he had never been healthy.--Then you must tell me that you have forgiven one breach of promise--I assure you if I have not been to Bickham I have been no where else--scarcely out of our own gates--but sitting under the trees all day long reading, working, & taming by half the redbreasts & black birds in the neighborhood--a very lazy very happy life. Then when you have condoled & pardoned you may say what you will--any thing--or nothing--no not nothing English--nothing French--des riens--they make the best letters of any thing of my acquaintance as witness Madame de Sevigne--Horace Walpole & Sir William Elford. Mrs. Dickinson is come home quite delighted with your Camilla criticism which is indeed admirable--I have promised to show her that on the Bride of Lammermoor which she admires for those precise qualities which you & I call faults! She won’t be converted--but she will think it very clever (your critique I mean) nevertheless. The Legend of Montrose she did not much like in spite of Captain Dalgetty. By the way did I ever say to you that which mention what strikes me so much in reading that & some other of Scott’s Characters--that he is a greater favorite with the Author than he pretends--that he makes believe to decry & undervalue him just by a species of allowable coquetry to gain more surely the hearts of his readers. Shakespeare I think does that with some of his finest & most intellectual characters--Falstaff, Shylock, Richard--& the reaction is felt even by those who do not observe the artifice. Perhaps this is only a fancy of mine--but I have it--& where is that fancy which I do not tell you?--Oh I have been reading Opie’s Lectures--Indeed Dr. Valpy having a spare copy gave them to me--a very valuable gift in my opinion. Nothing can give bebe a juster character than your phrase, There is no standing still in them--all is clear sparkling running water--no weeds, no scum, no mud. They give me a much higher idea of his powers than his paintings--or rather having constantly before my eyes a coarse & unpleasant specimen of his portraits I had allowed myself to be prejudiced against him-- naturally perhaps but certainly unfairly. The lectures are very powerful--they have not Fuseli’s Italian Imagination, but they make up for that deficiency by a great fund of English good sense. I do not like them the less because they contradict Fuseli in the very points which made me stare so much. A great proof that Mr. Opie is right. Don’t you think so?-- Pray have you read Evelyn’s Memoirs? If not do. Begin forthwith--& do not shrug of your shoulders or look askew at the It was a very fine picture of Dr. Mitford & the likeness to the truth was too strong to satisfy the ideal view which the daughter took of his Manners & character bulk of the Volumes--they are as entertaining as they are thick.--I cannot give them a higher character. Perhaps I like them the better for the portion of history that they embrace--The reign of the Stuarts from Charles the 1st to the Revolution has always been the part of English story that has had most attractions in my eyes--After the Revolution all is as dull & flat as a novel when the hero & heroine are married, & I would as soon read the long accounts of Miss Byron’s wedding dresses & Sir Charles Grandison’s furniture, as the petty squabbles of William & Mary & Anne & the Georges--Now Evelyn not only gives you all the finest part of this grand fifty years drama but shows the Actors behind the scenes--off the stage--with their wigs thrown by & their hoops off--You meet them at dinner parties & at plays the Buckinghams, the Shaftesburys the Arlingtons the Clarendons--all the cabal-- you talk with the King & the Duke by land & by water--let houses to the Czar Peter & show gardens to the Russells & the Sidneys--All the personages of thedramatis personae of the the Memoires de Grammont are before you & half the heroes of the State trials. Nothing can be more delightful--there are some charming letters too from that unlucky personage the Queen of Bohemia--whose adhorrence of the K & Queen of Sweden (Christian) is exceedingly dramatic & entertaining & a correspondence between Lord Clarendon when only Sir Edward Hyde & Sir Richard Browne his Majesty's resident at Paris which puts the poverty of that ambulating court in the strongest point of view possible--Only think of the Chancellor's sending the Preisdent a Pistole to pay the postage of his letters--& begging the Resident who had been lucky enough to light upon some wire to pay the Carriage or he should not be able to take it in. Nothing as I said before can be more delightful. Pray read it. Then I have been reading about the same people in a fine lordly book--Lord John Russell's Life of Lord Russell. Don't read that. Its prodigiously heavy indeed--it does nothing but stand still--it quarrels--it turns up its nose--it says How good I am to tell you all this--you never forget that its by a Lord & about a Lord all the way through--that I must say though he is my Cousin.--Now Bishop Burnet tells the very same story & he makes it interesting--but between Bishop Burnet's Book & Lord John's there is much the same difference as between the old Lord Russell alive with his head on, & the said Lord Russell dead with his head off.--It's a great mercy that Lord John when he was about it did not take Algernon Sidney in hand--That would have overset my patience entirely--Instead of the cousinly & civil manner in which I have spoken of him above I should I am afraid have said something disrespectful & saucy--for Algernon Sidney is my hero of Heroes, the only rival of Napoleon in my heart, & millions of miles above Lord Russell--whom (to confess the truth--as a great secret & quite in a corner) I cannot help thinking a good deal over-rated. He was a very good man to be sure--too good by fifty times--though abundantly heavy & preachy & prosy--& but for his excellent luck in being beheaded in such a cause might have lived & died without the slightest risk of pitching in any rhyme but a dedication or an Epitaph. And (as a still greater secret--in a still lower voice & closer squeezed into the corner) my opinion of his wife is pretty much the same--She was a very good wife to be sure & a good Mother--though rather addicted to match making & Bishop-making--& putting me in mind perpetually of Buckingham's presentation of Richard to the Mayor & Alderman See where his Grace stands twixt two Clergymen--but to talk of her as such a miracle of talent & character--to place her on the same line with the Mrs. Hutchesons the Lady Fairfax's the Madame Rolands is an injustice of praise for which I can only account by the violent prejudices of party Historians who will have Angels & Devils for their personages instead of Men & Women.--Pray don't tell. ) But even more than Evelyn I must recommend to you a book that I have just finished--Peter's letters to his Kinsfolk--Have you read it? It is a fictitious account of real people & those people are all the celebrated men of the Northern Athens vulgarly called Edinburgh. The book is charming--so are the people--James Hogg I am in love with--(I always was in love with his poetry)--& I am little less with John Wilson--though his verses are not so much to my taste--Mr. Jeffrey is very taking too--In short I read the book twice over & should like exceedingly to read it again. The Author is a great craniologist & makes a very artistlike & graphical use of this unknown knowledge. He is also a great Tory which you will like & a great Wordsworthite which you will dislike--but altogether I defy you not to be pleased.--The accounts of the great advocates are admirable particularly Mr. Clark mr Jeffrey Mr. Jeffrey Mr. Cranstoun--(Is he a brother of your Correspondent?) One quite wonders at the power which has given such an air of reality & identity to such high coloured panegyric--for he scarcely mentions any one but to praise except poor old Lord Buchan--& yet one is scarcely every tempted to suspect him of flattery. I liked it the better for my old acquaintance with Blackwood's Magazine for which in spite of its toryism & its sauciness I have had all along a sneaking kindness. Do read Peter. By the way I wonder very much who he is! Tell me if you hear. Now I will positively plague you no more about books.-- The Hofland's splendid publication (that can't be called a book for the engravings are the soul of that grand work) is out at last--& they are in great luck not to have got many subscribers for the booksellers have agreed to take them at 7 guineas a copy don't like the sight of one.

Adieu my dear Friend!--I shall not send this till Wednesday when owing to a grand music meeting at Reading there will be a great influx of Lords & M.P.s. Perhaps I may hear from you by that time--so I shall leave "ample room & verge enough" for my answer--Adieu--Papa & Mama beg their best regards & I am ever