I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for the very agreeable presents you have made me and my friend. You are quite magnificent in your generosity, and nothing can be more welcome than your books.
I am afraid I shall scarcely meet all your wishes in the intended notes. The subject of Lord Byron’s adventures is greatly exhausted; and, besides, the names of ladies are scarcely fair subjects for publication. However, I will do what I can. Of course you will take care that I am not brought forward or named, as you are aware how sedulously I try to keep in the background. By the bye, I must mention that early next month I leave town for some little time, so that I should be glad that Mr. Finden should see me during the course of this present one.
May I, without intruding on you, mention another subject? You apparently consider the closing of your ‘Family Library’ as conclusive, on the subject of my father’s writing to you. Is this necessary? You are but too well aware of the evil days on which literature is fallen, and how difficult it is for a man, however gifted, whose existence depends on his pen, to make one engagement succeed another with sufficient speed to answer the calls of his situation. Nearly all our literati have found but one resource in this—which is in the ample scope afforded by periodicals. A kind of literary pride has prevented my father from mingling in these; and, never having published anything anonymously, he feels disinclined to enter on a, to him, new career.
I feel persuaded that he would render his proposed
‘Lives of the
Necromancers’ a deeply interesting and valuable work. There is
a life and energy in his writings which always exalts them above those of his
contemporaries. If this subject, which seems to me a fortunate one,
| WILLIAM GODWIN. | 329 |
Excuse my pressing this point, which, after all, must be decided by the laws of expediency; and, believe me,
