It hails & rains & blows & thaws--so that I cannot walk--It's so dark that I cannot see to work--I got tipsy with green tea last night & could not sleep, so that I have the headach & am stupid & can't understand what I read--all these are valid reasons for writing to you my dear friend--more especially when reinforced with the fear of not leaving till I have written--are they not?--So write I shall, & plunge at once into my letter as one does into a tubbath --Here goes. Have you read ? Do you like it? What a silly question, What two silly questions! You must have read & you must have liked that most gorgeous & magnificent Tale of Chivalry--I know nothing so rich, so splendid, so profuse--so like old painted glass or a Gothic chapel full of shrines & banners & knightly monuments--The soul too which is sometimes wanting is there in its full glory of passion & tenderness--Rebecca is such a woman as Fletcher used to draw--an Aspasia --a Bellario--There are faults to be sure in plenty if one had a mind to hunt after them--that horrible old woman-- (an old crone is a necessity to W. Scott--he is literally hag ridden) that vapid heroine (the only comfort is that he leaves his readers with a consoling assurance that the hero likes the sweet Jewess best)--the melodramatic air--by which one feels almost as if it were written for the accomodation of the artists of the Coburg & the Surrey theaters with a Tournament in Act the First--a burning castle in act the second--a trial by combat in act the third--nothing for the dramatist to do but to cut out the speeches & there is a grand spectacle ready made--Then neither Richard nor Robin Hood scarcely comes up to one's notions of the lion hearted king whose name the Saracen women used to still their screaming children or the bold outlaw whom the fine Ballads in & Ben Jonson's still finer pastoral (Did you even read that beautiful unfinished drama--?) have made one of the chartered denizens of one's fancy--But there is no finding fault with a book which puts one so much in mind of Froissart-- is more like him than any thing which has been written these three centuries.--I have just finished Mr. Hallam's --a very masterly work in its way, which confirms exactly to W. Scott's view of manners particularly the terrible vices of the higher orders & clergy--& puts one in mind of Froissart in a different way from by making one long every moment for hispicturesque minuteness instead of the large views & sweeping generalities of the author. I don't like philosophical historians who make wise remarks & write fine dissertations--Do you? Live for ever the Barrets & Clarendons! Delightful sellers of what they saw ! -- One page of that narrative is worth whole volumes of disquisition. -- I am now reading -- the last of Madame de Genlis' last words (I believe she has already taken leave of the public & times in town ) --I don't like Madame de Genlis--I don't like Petrarch whose concetti do not appear to me redeemed by any truth of feeling either in love or poetry--> I don't believe in spite of all the prosers & poetisers, L'Abbe de Sade & Lord Woodhouselee included who have about Laura--I don't believe in her--I have no notion that there ever was such a person--I hold her to be not a mistress but a muse--With all these mislikings to my author & her hero & heroine I still read on seduced by Madame Genlis' enchanting style -- her "perfect mastery of her weapon which is language".--Now that I am talking of novels--did I ever recommend to you one which is mentioned in the preface to by the late Mr. Strutt--If you could endure the old words you would like it--the comic part is excellent--it has much of the freshness & jollity of --which you know or perhaps you don't know, for I believe my dear friend you are an anti-antiquarian, is one of the finest coarse comedies in the world.

Have you tried this Lithography? My friend Mr. Hofland is working away at it with great zeal & has produced some very beautiful specimens--a nice invention is it not? So direct & easy a medium of multipling the ideas of a great artist without their being chilled & spoilt by passing through other hands--Better because less difficult than the dry needle. And yet what glorious things fine etchings are! Mr. Dickinson has a very good collection & I have been looking at them half last week for when I once had them I could hardly part with them again--Though I have not served him as his friend Bishop of F The "F" is in grey pencil.Salisbury who naturally filched half a dozen of his best Boths I am unsure whether this is talking about Andries Both or Jan Both. & Salvato r Rosas & Castigliones! Abstracted them!--borrowed them for a d ay & never returned one of them! Glorious things they are to be sure--it was a temptation--Vandyke's who darts the needle with much into the copper --Rembrandt's so full of life & meaning--Daniel de Monssier's --that brother amateur of your's whom few artists can match--Ruysdael's which breathe the very soul of landscape--Waterloo's whose wood scenes are such real forests--as sylvan as "As you like it" --& my favorite of all the delicate airy tasteful Weirotter-- If I had been inclined to thieving I certainly should have taken one of those tiny Weirotters--His etchings seem made in Fairyland--Mrs. Dickinson enquires much after you--She is not put to bed yet & continues quite well.--

Pray is the Duke of Kent dead yet? I suppose I shall know tomorrow--but I want to know now--it would be very good in you to send one of the fairies you keep in pay to tell me--I want to know very much--Now don't fancy it's only on account of crape & bombazine & broad hemmed piles though to be sure it will add very much to my grief to be obliged to buy a new gown & I can't do without one--but really one has a respect for the Duke of Kent--there is something of his old & venerable Father about him--his talents too were certainly considerable--a fine public speaker-- a charitable man--in short between my loyal feelings & my desire not to be obliged to buy a new gown, I am very anxious for his recovery. Now my dear Sir William I am afraid of not getting a frank--so you shall be let off with a single letter. A piece of good forturne which very seldom befalls you!--Adieu my dear friend--pray write soon --