156 — To Henry Drury
Volage
frigate, off Ushant, July 17, 1811.
My Dear Drury, — After two years' absence (on the 2d) and some odd days, I am approaching your country. The day of our arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter.
At
present, we are becalmed comfortably, close to Brest Harbour; — I have never been so near it since I left Duck Puddle
. We left Malta thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious passage of it. You will either see or hear from or of me, soon after the receipt of this, as I pass through town to repair my irreparable affairs; and thence I want to go to Notts. and raise rents, and to Lanes. and sell collieries, and back to London and pay debts, — for it seems I shall neither have coals nor comfort till I go down to Rochdale in person.
I
have brought home some marbles for Hobhouse; — for myself, four ancient Athenian skulls
, dug out of sarcophagi — a phial of Attic hemlock
— four live tortoises — a greyhound (died on the passage) — two live Greek servants, one an Athenian, t'other a
Yaniote
, who can speak nothing but Romaic and Italian — and
myself
, as Moses in the
Vicar of Wakefield
says,
slily
and I may say it too, for I have as little cause to boast of my expedition as he had of his to the fair.
I wrote to you from the Cyanean Rocks to tell you I had swam from Sestos to Abydos — have you received my letter? Hobhouse went to England to fish up his
Miscellany,
which foundered (so he tells me) in the Gulph of Lethe. I daresay it capsized with the vile goods of his contributory friends, for his own share was very portable. However, I hope he will either weigh up or set sail with a fresh cargo, and a luckier vessel. Hodgson, I suppose, is four deep by this time. What would he have given to have seen, like me, the
real Parnassus,
where I robbed the Bishop of Chrisso of a book of geography! — but this I only call plagiarism, as it was done within an hour's ride of Delphi.
Footnote 1:
The swimming-bath at Harrow.
Footnote 2:
Given afterwards to Sir Walter Scott.
Footnote 3:
At present in the possession of Mr. Murray.
Footnote 4:
"'Welcome, welcome, Moses! Well, my boy, what have you brought us from the fair?'
'I have brought you myself,' cried Moses, with a sly look, and resting the box on the dresser."
Vicar of Wakefield
, ch. xii.
