310—to Thomas Moore
4, Benedictine Street, St. James's, July 8, 1813.
I presume by your silence that I have blundered into something noxious in my reply to your letter, for the which I beg leave to send beforehand a sweeping apology, which you may apply to any, or all, parts of that unfortunate epistle. If I err in my conjecture, I expect the like from you in putting our correspondence so long in quarantine. God he knows what I have said; but he also knows (if he is not as indifferent to mortals as the
nonchalant
deities of Lucretius), that you are the last person I want to offend. So, if I have,—why the devil don't you say it at once, and expectorate your spleen?
Rogers
is out of town with Madame de Stael, who hath published an Essay against Suicide
, which, I presume, will make somebody shoot himself;—as a sermon by Blenkinsop, in
proof
of Christianity, sent a hitherto most orthodox acquaintance of mine out of a chapel of ease a perfect atheist. Have you found or founded a residence yet? and have you begun or finished a poem? If you won't tell me what
I
have done, pray say what you have done, or left undone, yourself. I am still in equipment for voyaging, and anxious to hear from, or of, you
before
I go, which anxiety you should remove more readily, as you think I sha'n't cogitate about you afterwards. I shall give the lie to that calumny by fifty foreign letters, particularly from any place where the plague is rife,—without a drop of vinegar or a whiff of sulphur to save you from infection.
The Oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort,—for, never having been much together, we are naturally more attached to each other. I
presume
the illuminations have conflagrated to Derby (or wherever you are) by this time
. We are just recovering from tumult and train oil, and transparent fripperies, and all the noise and nonsense of victory. Drury Lane had a large
M. W.
, which some thought was Marshal Wellington; others, that it might be translated into Manager Whitbread; while the ladies of the vicinity of the saloon conceived the last letter to be complimentary to themselves. I leave this to the commentators to illustrate. If you don't answer this, I sha'n't say what
you
deserve, but I think
I
deserve a reply.
Do
you conceive there is no Post-Bag but the Twopenny
? Sunburn me, if you are not too bad.
Footnote 1:
"Madame de Stael treats me as the person whom she most delights to honour; I am generally ordered with her to dinner, as one orders beans and bacon: she is one of the few persons who surpass expectation; she has every sort of talent, and would be universally popular, if, in society, she were to confine herself to her inferior talents— pleasantry, anecdote, and literature. I have reviewed her Essay on Suicide in the last Edinburgh Review: it is not one of her best, and I have accordingly said more of the author and the subject than of the work."
Sir J. Mackintosh (
Life
, vol. ii. p. 269).
Footnote 2:
One result of the illuminations in honour of the battle of Vittoria (June 21, 1813), which took place July 7, was a great fire at Woolwich. Moore was at this time living at Mayfield Cottage near Ashbourne, in Derbyshire.
Footnote 3:
Moore's
Intercepted Letters, or the Twopenny Post-bag
, was published, without his name, in 1813.
