]
[Footnote 2:
"There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,--
Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail."
Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes', line 159.]
[Footnote 3: Matthew Prior (1664-1721) became a Fellow of St. John's
College, Cambridge, in 1688.]
[Footnote 4: For Capell Lofft and the Bloomfields, see 'Letters', vol.
i. p. 337, 'notes' I and 2 [Footnotes 4 and 5 of Letter 167.]]
* * * * *
239.--To Lord Holland.
June 25, 1812.
MY DEAR LORD,--I must appear very ungrateful, and have, indeed, been
very negligent, but till last night I was not apprised of Lady Holland's
restoration, and I shall call to-morrow to have the satisfaction, I
trust, of hearing that she is well.--I hope that neither politics nor
gout have assailed your Lordship since I last saw you, and that you also
are "as well as could be expected."
The other night, at a ball, I was presented by order to our gracious
Regent, who honoured me with some conversation, and professed a
predilection for poetry [1].--I confess it was a most unexpected honour,
and I thought of poor Brummell's [2] adventure, with some apprehension
of a similar blunder. I have now great hope, in the event of Mr. Pye's
[3] decease, of "warbling truth at court," like Mr. Mallet [4] of
indifferent memory.--Consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the
wine and the disgrace; but then remorse would make me drown myself in my
own butt before the year's end, or the finishing of my first
dithyrambic.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191