DEAR Hazlitt—I sent you on
Saturday a Cobbett,
containing your reply to
the Edinburgh Review, which I
thought you would be glad to receive as an example of attention on the part of
Mr. Cobbett to insert it so
speedily. Did you get it? We have received your pig, and return you thanks; it
will be dressed in due form, with appropriate sauce, this day. Mary has been very ill indeed since you saw
her; that is, as ill as she can be to remain at home. But she is a good deal
better now, owing to a very careful regimen. She drinks nothing but water, and
never goes out; she does not even go to the Captain’s. Her indisposition has been ever since that
night you left town; the night Miss
W[ordsworth] came. Her coming, and that d——d Mrs. Godwin coming and staying so late that
night, so overset her that she lay broad awake all that night, and it was by a
miracle that she escaped a very bad illness, which I thoroughly expected. I
have made up my mind that she shall never have any one in the house again with
her, and that no one shall sleep with her, not even for a night; for it is a
very serious
| 1810 | HAZLITT AND COBBETT | 425 |
Poor Phillips had the cup dash’d out of his lips as it were. He had every prospect of the situation, when about ten days since one of the council of the R. Society started for the place himself, being a rich merchant who lately failed, and he will certainly be elected on Friday next. P. is very sore and miserable about it.
Coleridge is in town, or at least at Hammersmith. He is writing or going to write in the Courier against Cobbett, and in favour of paper money.
No news. Remember me kindly to Sarah. I write from the office.
Yours ever,
I just open’d it to say the pig, upon proof, hath turned out as good as I predicted. My fauces yet retain the sweet porcine odour. I find you have received the Cobbett. I think your paper complete.
Mrs. Reynolds, who is a sage woman, approves of the pig.
