“I send you the most I can make of it; for I am not so well as I was, and find I ‘pall in resolution.’
“I wish much to see you, and will be at Tetbury by twelve on Saturday; and from thence I go on to Lord Jersey’s. It is impossible not to allude to the degraded state of the Stage, but I have lightened it, and endeavoured to obviate your other objections. There is a new couplet for Sheridan, allusive to his Monody. All the alterations I have marked thus |,— as you will see by comparison with the other copy. I have cudgelled my brains with the greatest willingness, and only wish I had more time to have done better.
“You will find a sort of clap-trap laudatory couplet inserted for the quiet of the Committee, and I have added, towards the end, the couplet you were pleased to like. The whole Address is seventy-three lines, still
* Some objection, it appears from this, had been made to the passage, “and Shakspeare ceased to reign.” |
| A. D. 1812. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 373 |
“My sixteenth edition of respects to Lady H.—How she must laugh at all this!
“I wish Murray, my publisher, to print off some copies as soon as your lordship returns to town—it will ensure correctness in the papers afterwards.”
