Between old friends like you and myself it would be needless, at least I feel it so, in a communication like the present, to go back on the recent events, in which you know I have had a deep and an unfortunate interest, and of which I little dreamt when we last met. I shall therefore enter at once into the chief business of this letter, which, in the first place, is to tell you that, after many months of very poor health, I am again, though leaving a sick-bed, about to embark in some of the world’s cares; but I shall do so with greatly abridged anxieties, I trust, compared to those in which it was my lot to be so long involved. I hope your health, my dear sir, has stood its ground. Without that blessing, there are but few of us who could boast of much happiness in this world of change and uncertainty.
I believe you thought well of my ‘Miscellany.’ I am just about to enter on a new career, making it for the present my sole and only object. The times, I am aware are wonderfully changed since my undertaking was first announced; and I am looking forward to nothing but moderate doings, and these I think I can say are likely to be realized. I have made considerable changes in the list of publications, as you will see if you have leisure to glance over the copy of it enclosed. I take the liberty of sending you our friend Captain Hall’s Voyages, which from his uncommon kindness still holds the first place in my undertaking.
I heard some time ago with astonishment (and it is not
everything nowadays, that does so) that a proposition had been made to you to
purchase your literary property. Ambition and folly often go together; and
perhaps in the present instance you will say so of myself, though the scale be
a small one. I ask whether, as a great favour, you will grant me the right of
printing Southey’s ‘Life of Nelson’ in the
‘Miscellany’? In making this
proposition, I know I am doing it to a friend of most liberal feelings, and,
| DEATH OF CONSTABLE. | 251 |
