“I sent you on Saturday a Cobbett, containing your reply to ‘Edin. Rev.,’ 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 drest, in due form, with appropriate sauce this day.
| TO MR. HAZLITT. | 181 |
“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. came; her coming, and . . . . 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 again in the house with her, and that no one shall sleep with her, not even for a night: for it is a very serious thing to be always living with a kind of fever upon her; and therefore I am sure you will take it in good part if I say that if Mrs. Hazlitt comes to town at any time, however glad we shall be to see her in the daytime, I cannot ask her to spend a night under our roof. Some decision we must come to, for the harassing fever that we have both been in owing to Miss Wordsworth coming is not to be borne, and I had rather be dead than so alive. However, at present, owing to a regimen and medicines which Tuthill has given her, who very kindly volunteered the care of her, she is a great deal quieter, though too much harassed by company, who cannot or will not see how late hours and society tease her.
“Poor Phillips
had the cup dashed out of his lips as it were. He had every prospect of the
situation, when,
| 182 | THE GLORIOUS WINTERSLOW PIG. |
“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.
“I just open 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.
