Yes I have got my packet quite safe--& I have looked over some part of it--& I really think one might with a great deal of leaving out & a little putting in make a salable Volume--I shall try the experiment by sending one or two letters as specimens (Copies--made letters--of course I mean not the originals)--as specimens to my Maecenas Mr. Colburn, & if he will give me a little some money for said Volume--So! if not we must wait a little longer for our immortality. I shall take great pains to alter & erase names & facts & places not to be found out--for I am convinced that the success of these things depends mainly upon their mystery--therefore I hope, my dear Friend that you will not speak of the plan to any one but the discreetest of the discreet--(I am afraid that it will fail altogether through Colburn's not giving offering me any thing--I think I shall ask 50--Is that too much?)--at all events you shall have your M.S.S. back in the spring--You must come & fetch them.--Oh how good you are to me--how inexpressibly good & kind you have always been! I was quite astonished in looking over the packet of the fist first three years at your tolerating such a --I suppose you expected a a butterfly--but alas! alas! after remaining a long time in her chrysalis state she was but a poor shabby little moth at last--a poor silly fluttering thing not worth looking at!----

Good night my dear Friend--we shall have a longer chat tomorrow--Good night! God bless you!

late Friday night--Regularly as you write to me before breakfast I write to you at 20-to-bedtime--Yes I have a book to recommend to you, my dear Sir William--a book that you will like I am sure Have you heard of it? It is a novel in 3 Vols written by I know not who, but certainly well worth reading, Do get it & tell me all you think of it--I shall not say a word more about it myself because you like unexpectedness in a novel & would have half your pleasure destroyed by a previous criticism. You must tell me all your own opinion--And, I must just ask you one question--How do you like the Roman Centurion Sabinus?

I have been reading Madame de Staël's prose works--I was anxious to see what she did in the Drama way--not much to the purpose I think--though there is some merit in Sapho--as that French learned lady, is pleased to spell the Lesbian Muse--It is astonishing how those French people turn every thing over name according to the fashion of their own barbarous tongue--there is her too--which I detest for its abuse of Napoleon--tell you a secret I had some sympathy with the dear Emperor in his dislike of that Germanized Frenchwoman--whose example as to conduct has done great harm, & her example example in literature has done no good--I hate that sentimentality--However I have done with Madame de Staël & I am now stuck fast in the mire of --a novel in four mortal Volumes by your friend of the long nose Miss Hawkins. I never mean to finish it--& now that I read so little I really cannot imagine what could induce me to begin it. Of course I do not recommend that "Done good" piece of vulgarity to you.--No--my dear Friend I cannot tell you any thing about Mr. Waithman--for I was so sick of that unfortunate woman the dead & alive & the inquest looked so tremendously long when I first saw it half covering five newspapers (we don't take a paper now but get them three or four in a bunch from a neighbour by way of loan) that I fairly gave up the job & have not read a word of the matter--Lord! its as long as --& though it cannot possibly be quite so stupid yet I dare say its very nearly so--Pray are you all in black in your parts? Every body is to my sorrow, for I hate mourning at all times--dirty dusty dingy black!--& the ladies of Reading were so much of my opinion that till the order came out, not one would put on mourning though their husbands were as black as crows. There was a sort of Loyal Rebellion against their Jacobin Husbands Houses--a Neri & Bianche faction that was quite entertaining--I never heard of more conjugal quarrels upon a subject in my life.--But I have entirely lost my interest in politics, which you will think a great reformation--Don't you?--You must compliment me very much--& compliment your own discernment on seeing how well I should turn out--What mainly contributed to my care was the unfortunate affair last year of the Queen--I have never recovered the horror I experienced at seeing the use made of that unhappy woman, by the Whigs & Reformers--I am at last settled in the opinion that one party is as bad as the other. What Lady Madelina Palmer will make of this "ratting"? I don't know--I dare say she'll be horror struck but that is a distant consideration--She has never been at Reading since the two days she passed there last September & I don't know when she will--Mrs. Dickinson who is a most thorough-going person in politics & in every thing is prodigiously scandalized at my defection--I have not see her this long while--she has a large family staying in her house & does not bring them here I suppose from a well founded apprehension that our parlour would not hold them. I shall not fail to give her your obliging message. Only think of her having been in London at the Coronation & so stupid as not to go to see it--She said she had the headach headache --but I do really believe it was politics because she is very subject to the headach headache & I never knew it prevent her from doing any thing she liked in my life. He r husband is better & the little girl charming.