sides a book, &c., a rare print, which I take to be a Titian; begging the said W. H. to acknowledge the receipt thereof; which he not having done, I conclude the said parcel to be lying at the inn, and may be lost; for which reason, lest you may be a Waleshunting at this instant, I have authorized any of your family, whosoever first gets this, to open it, that so precious a parcel may not moulder away for want of looking after. What do you in Shropshire when so many fine pictures are a-going a-going every day in London ? Monday I visit the Marquis of Lansdowne's, in Berkeley Square. Catalogue 2s. 6d. Leonardos in plenty. Some other day this week I go to see Sir Wm. Young's, in Stratford Place. Hulse's, of Blackheath, are also to be sold this month; and in May, the first private collection in Europe, Welbore Ellis Agar's. And there are you, perverting Nature in lying landscapes, filched from old rusty Titians, such as I can scrape up here to send you, with an additament from Shropshire Nature thrown in to make the whole look unnatural. I am afraid of your mouth watering when I tell you that Manning and I got into Angerstein's on Wednesday. Mon Dieu! Such Claude's! Four Claudes bought for more than £10,000; (those who talk of Wilson being equal to Claude are either mainly ignorant or stupid;) one of these was perfectly miraculous. What colours short of bond fide sunbeams it could be painted in, I am not earthly colourman enough to say; but I did not think it had been in the possibility of things. Then, a music piece by Titian, a thousand-pound picture, five figures standing behind a piano, the sixth playing-none of the heads, as M. observed, indicating great men, or affecting it, but so sweetly disposed all leaning separate ways, but so easy-like a flock of some divine shepherd; the colouring, like the economy of the picture, so sweet and harmonious -as good as Shakspeare's Twelfth Night, almost, that is. It will give you a love of order, and cure you of restless, fidgety passions for a week after-more musical than the music which it would, but cannot, yet in a manner does, show. I have no room for the rest. Let me say, Angerstein sits in a room-his study (only that and the library are shown), when he writes a common letter, as I am doing, surrounded with twenty pictures worth £60,000. What a luxury! Apicius and Heliogabalus, hide your diminished heads! My dear Manning,-I didn't know what your going was till I shook a last fist with you, and then 'twas just like having shaken hands with a wretch on the fatal scaffold, and when you are down the ladder, you can never stretch out to him again. Mary says you are dead, and there's nothing to do but to leave it to time to do for us in the end what it always does for those who mourn for people in such a case. But she'll see by your letter you are not quite dead. little kicking and agony, and then-Martin Burney took me out a walking that evening, and we talked of Mister Manning; and then I came home and smoked for you, and at twelve o'Clock came home Mary and Monkey Lousia from the play, and there was more talk & more smoking, and they all seemed first-rate characters, because they knew a certain person. But what's the use of talking about 'em? By the time A you'll have made your escape from the Kalmuks, you'll have staid so long I shall never be able to bring to your mind who Mary was, who will have died about a year before, nor who the Holcrofts were! me perhaps you will mistake for Phillips, or confound me with Mr Daw, because you saw us together. Mary (whom you seem to remember yet) is not quite easy that she had not a formal parting from you. I wish it had so happened. But you must bring her a token, a shawl or something, and remember a sprightly little Mandarin for our mantle piece, as a companion to the Child I am going to purchase at the Museum. She says you saw her writings about the other day, and she wishes you should know what they are. She is doing for Godwin's bookseller twenty of Shakspear's plays, to be made into Children's tales. Six are already done by her, to wit, "The Tempest," "Winter's Tale," "Midsummer Night," "Much Ado," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," and "Cymbeline" and "The Merchant of Venice" is in forwardness. I have done "Othello" and " Macbeth," and mean to do all the Tragedies. I think it will be popular among the little people. Besides money. It's to bring in 60 guineas. Mary has done them capitally, I think you'd think. These are the humble amusements we propose, while you are gone to plant the cross of Christ among barbarous Pagan anthropophagi. Quam homo homini præstat! but then, perhaps, you'll get murdered, and we shall die in our beds with a fair literary reputation. Be sure, if you see any of those people, whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders, that you make a draught of them. It will be very curious. O Manning, I am serious to thinking almost, when I think that all those evenings, which you have made so pleasant, are gone perhaps for ever. Four years : you talk of, maybe ten, and you may come back and find such alterations! Some circumstance may grow up to you or to me, that may be a bar to the return of any such intimacy. I dare say all this is Hum, and that all will come back; but indeed we die many deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when I think that such a hold as I had of you is gone. I have friends, but some of 'em are changed. Marriage, or some circumstance, rises up to make them not the same. But I felt sure of you. And that last token you gave me of expressing a wish to have my name joined with yours, you know not how it affected me: like a legacy. God bless you in every way you can form a wish. May He give you health, and safety, and the accomplishment of all your objects, and return you again to us, to gladden some fireside or other (I suppose we shall be moved from the Temple). I will nurse the remembrance of your steadiness and quiet, which used to infuse something like itself into our nervous minds. Mary called you our ventilator. Farewell, and take her best wishes and mine. One thing more. When you get to Canton, you will most likely see a young friend of mine, Inspector of Teas, named Ball. He is a very good fellow & I should like to have my name talked of in China Give my kind remembrances to the same Ball. Good bye, Dear Wordsworth,-We are pleased, you may be sure, with the good news of Mrs W Hope all is well over by this time. "A fine boy. Have you any more?- -one more and a girl-poor copies of me!" vide Mr H., a farce which the proprietors have done me the honour; but I will set down Mr Wroughton's own words. N.B. The ensuing letter was sent in answer to one which I wrote, begging to know if my piece had any chance, as I might make alterations, &c. I writing on Monday, there comes this letter on the Wednesday. Attend! [Copy of a Letter from Mr R. Wroughton.] "Sir,-Your piece of Mr H., I am desired to say, is accepted at Drury Lane Theatre, by the proprietors, and, if agreeable to you, will be brought forwards when the proper opportunity serves. The piece shall be sent to you, for your alterations, in the course of a few days, as the same is not in my hands, but with the proprietors. [Dated] "I am, sir, your obedient servant, "66, Gower Street, "Wednesday, June 11, 1806." On the following Sunday Mr Tobin comes. The scent of a manager's letter brought him. He would have gone further any day on such a business. read the letter to him. He deems it authentic and I peremptory. Our conversation naturally fell upon pieces, different sorts of pieces; what is the best way of offering a piece, how far the caprice of managers is an obstacle in the way of a piece, how to judge of the merits of a piece, how long a piece may remain in the hands of the managers before it is acted; and my piece, and your piece, and my poor brother's piecemy poor brother was all his life endeavouring to get a piece accepted. I am not sure that, when my poor brother bequeathed the care of his pieces to Mr Tobin, he did not therein convey a legacy which |