l811.] IRKSOME SOLITUDE. 339
proportionably; but I am recurring — so let us talk of life and the living.
If you should feel a disposition to come here, you will find " beef and a sea-coal fire," and not ungenerous wine. Whether Otway's two other requisites for an Englishman or not, I cannot tell, but probably one of them.^ — Let me know when I may expect you, that I may tell you when I go and when return. I have not yet been to Lanes. Davies has been here, and has invited me to Cambridge for a week in October, so that, peradventure, we may encounter glass to glass. His gaiety (death cannot mar it) has done me service ; but, after all, ours was a hollow laughter. You will write to me ? I am soHtary, and I never felt solitude irksome before. Your anxiety about the critique on * *'s book is amusing ; as it was anonymous, certes it was of little consequence : I wish it had pro- duced a little more confusion, being a lover of literary malice. Are you doing nothing ? writing nothing ? print- ing nothing? why not your Satire on Methodism? the subject (supposing the public to be blind to merit) would do wonders. Besides, it would be as well for a destined deacon to prove his orthodoxy. — It really would give me pleasure to see you properly appreciated. I say really^ as, being an author, my humanity might be suspected. Believe me, dear H., yours always. I. " Give but an Englishman his whore and ease, Beef and a sea-coal fire, he's yours for ever." Venice Preserved^ act ii. sc. 3.
