Latin; you may make something of that. Don't be modest. For in it you shall appear, if I rummage out some of your old pleasant letters for rhymes. But an original is better. Has your Pa* any scrap? C. L. We shall be most glad to see your sister or sisters Can't you contrive it? Write in that case. with you * The infantile word for father. T. Dibdin, Esq., Messrs. Railtons', Old Jewry, London. LETTER CCCIII.] To J. B. DIBDIN. September 13, 1827. Dear John-Your verses are very pleasant, and have been adopted into the splendid Emmatic constellation, where they are not of the least magnitude. She is delighted with their merit and readiness. They are just the thing. The 14th line is found. We advertised it. "Hell is cooling for want of company." We shall make it up, along with our kitchen fire to roast you into our new House where I hope you will find us in a few Sundays. We have actually taken it, and a compact thing it will be. Kemble does not return till the month's end. My heart sometimes is good, sometimes bad about it, as the day turns out wet or walky. Emma has just died, choked with a Gerund-in-dum. On opening her, we found a Participle-in-rus in the pericardium. The King never dies, which may be the reason that it always reigns here. We join in loves. What a pen! Mr. John B. Dibdin, Messrs. Rankings, C. L. his orthograph. VOL. IL Old Jewry. N LETTER CCCIV.] To THOMAS HOOD. Tuesday [September 18, 1827.] Dear Hood-If I have anything in my head, I will send it to Mr. Watts. Strictly speaking, he should have had my album-verses, but a very intimate friend importun'd me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar souvenir. Jamieson conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble; he will not be in town before the 27th. Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have finally torn ourselves outright away from Colebrooke, where I had no health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have experienced good. "Lord, what good hours do we keep ! See the rest in the Complete Angler. We have got our books into our new house. I am a dray-horse, if I was not asham'd of the undigested, dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the cart, and blest Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuff'd brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's Mass. 'Twas with some pain we were evuls'd from Colebrook. You may find some of our flesh sticking to the door-posts. To change habitations is to die to them; and in my time I have died seven deaths. But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a rejuvenescence. 'Tis an enterprise; and shoves back the sense of death's approximating, which, tho' not terrible to me, is at all times particularly distasteful. My housedeaths have generally been periodical, recurring after seven years; but this last is premature by half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrook! The Middletonian stream, and all its echoes, mourn. Even minnows dwindle. A parvis fiunt minimi! I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she envy it, and hate us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come and try it. I heard she and you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy-to-be-cared-for attacks, and have tried to set up a feeble counter-action thro' the Table Book of last Saturday. Has it not reach'd you, that you are silent about it? Our new domicile is no manor-house; but new, and externally not inviting, but furnish'd within with every convenience: capital new locks to every door, capital grates in every room; with nothing to pay for incoming; and the rent £10 less than the Islington one. It was built, a few years since, at £1100 expence, they tell me--and I perfectly believe it. And I get it for £35, exclusive of moderate taxes. We think ourselves most lucky. It is not our intention to abandon Regent Street, and West-End perambulations (monastic and terrible thought!), but occasionally to breathe the fresher air of the metropolis. We shall put up a bedroom or two (all we want) for occasional ex-rustication, where we shall visit-not be visited. Plays, too, we'll see—perhaps our own; Urbani Sylvani and Sylvan Urbanuses in turn; courtiers for a sport, then philosophers; old, homely telltruths and learn-truths in the virtuous shades of Enfield, liars again and mocking gibers in the coffee-houses and resorts of London. What can a mortal desire more for his bi-parted nature? O, the curds-and-cream you shall eat with us here ! O, the turtle-soup and lobster-salads we shall devour with you there! O, the old books we shall peruse here! O, the new nonsense we shall trifle over there! O, Sir T. Browne, here! O, Mr. Hood and Mr. Jerdan, there! Thine, C. (URBANUS) L. (SYLVANUS)-(ELIA ambo)Inclos'd are verses which Emma sat down to write (her first) on the eve after your departure. Of course, they are only for Mrs. H.'s perusal. They will shew, at least, that one of our party is not willing to cut old friends. What to call 'em I don't know. Blank verse they are not, because of the rhymes; rhymes they are not, because of the blank verse; heroics they are not, because they are lyric; lyric they are not, because of the heroic measure. They must be call'd Emmaics. The Hoods, 2, Robert Street, Adelphi, London. LETTER CCCV.] To J. B. DIBDIN. September 18, 1827. My dear, and now more so, John-How that name smacks ! What an honest, full, English, and yet withal holy and apostolic sound it bears, above the methodistical priggish Bishoppy name of Timothy, under which I had obscured your merits! What I think of the paternal verses you shall read within, which I assure you is not pen praise but heart praise. It is the gem of the Dibdin Muses. I have got all my books into my new house, and their readers in a fortnight will follow, to whose joint converse nobody shall be more welcome than you, and any of yours. The house is perfection to our use and comfort. Milton is come. I wish Wordsworth were here to meet him. The next importation is of pots and saucepans, window curtains, crockery, and such base ware. The pleasure of moving, when Becky moves for you. O the moving Becky! I hope you will come and warm the house with the first. From my temporary domicile, Enfield. Elia, that "is to go." To HENRY COLBURN. Enfield Chase Side, LETTER CCCVI.] September 25, 1827. Dear Sir-I beg leave in the warmest manner to recommend to your notice Mr. Moxon, the bearer of this, if by any chance yourself should want a steady hand in your business, or know of any Publisher that may want such a one. He is at present in the house of Messrs. Longman and Co., where he has been established for more than six years, and has the conduct of one of the four departments of the Country Line. A difference respecting salary, which he expected to be a little raised on his last promotion, makes him wish to try to better himself. I believe him to be a young man of the highest integrity and a thorough man of business, and should not have taken the liberty of recommending him, if I had not thought him capable of being highly useful. I am, Sir, with great respect, your h'ble servant, LETTER CCCVII.] To P. G. PATMORE. Mrs. Leishman's, Chase, Enfield, Dear P.-Excuse my anxiety, but how is Dash? I should have asked if Mrs. Patmore kept her rules, and was improving; but Dash came uppermost. The order of our thoughts should be the order of our writing. Goes he muzzled, or aperto ore? Are his intellects sound, or does he wander a little in his conversation? You cannot be too careful to watch the first symptoms of incoherence. The first illogical snarl he makes, to St. Luke's with him! All the dogs here are going mad, if you believe the overseers; but I protest they seem to me very rational and |