DEAR Sir,—I am extremely sorry to be obliged to decline the article proposed, as I should have been flattered with a Plate accompanying it. In the first place, Midsummer day is not a topic I could make anything of—I am so pure a Cockney, and little read, besides, in May games and antiquities; and, in the second, I am here at Margate, spoiling my holydays with a Review I have undertaken for a friend, which I shall barely get through before my return; for that sort of work is a hard task to me. If you will excuse the shortness of my first contribution—and I know I can promise nothing more for July—I will endeavour a longer article for our next. Will you permit me to say that I think Leigh Hunt would do the article you propose in a masterly manner, if he has not outwrit himself already upon the subject. I do not return the proof—to save postage—because it is correct, with one exception. In the stanza from Wordsworth, you have changed day into air for rhyme-sake: day is the right reading, and I implore you to restore it.
The other passage, which you have queried, is to my ear correct. Pray let it stand.
On second consideration, I do enclose the proof.
