193—to Francis Hodgson
Newstead Abbey, Sept. 25, 1811.
My Dear Hodgson
,—I fear that before the latest of October or the first of November, I shall hardly be able to make Cambridge. My everlasting agent puts off his coming like the accomplishment of a prophecy. However, finding me growing serious he hath promised to be here on Thursday, and about Monday we shall remove to Rochdale. I have only to give discharges to the tenantry here (it seems the poor creatures must be raised, though I wish it was not necessary), and arrange the receipt of sums, and the liquidation of some debts, and I shall be ready to enter upon new subjects of vexation. I intend to visit you in Granta, and hope to prevail on you to accompany me here or there or anywhere.
I am plucking up my spirits, and have begun to gather my little sensual comforts together. Lucy is extracted from Warwickshire; some very bad faces have been warned off the premises, and more promising substituted in their stead; the partridges are plentiful, hares fairish, pheasants not quite so good, and the Girls on the Manor —— Just as I had formed a tolerable establishment my travels commenced, and on my return I find all to do over again; my former flock were all scattered; some married, not before it was needful. As I am a great disciplinarian, I have just issued an edict for the abolition of caps; no hair to be cut on any pretext; stays permitted, but not too low before; full uniform always in the evening; Lucinda to be commander—
vice
the present, about to be wedded (
mem
. she is 35 with a flat face and a squeaking voice), of all the makers and unmakers of beds in the household.
My tortoises (all Athenians), my hedgehog, my mastiff and the other live Greek, are all purely. The tortoises lay eggs, and I have hired a hen to hatch them. I am writing notes for
my
quarto (Murray would have it a
quarto
), and Hobhouse is writing text for
his
quarto; if you call on Murray or Cawthorn you will hear news of either. I
have
attacked De Pauw
, Thornton
, Lord Elgin
, Spain, Portugal, the
Edinburgh Review
, travellers, Painters, Antiquarians, and others, so you see what a dish of Sour Crout Controversy I shall prepare for myself. It would not answer for me to give way, now; as I was forced into bitterness at the beginning, I will go through to the last.
Væ Victis
! If I fall, I shall fall gloriously, fighting against a host.
Felicissima Notte a Voss. Signoria,
B.
Footnotes 1:
Childe Harold
, Canto II. note D, part ii.
Footnote 2:
Ibid
., note A.
Footnote 3:
Ibid
., note D, part iii.
