[2] I quote wrong, but
no matter. These letters I lent to a friend to be out of the way for a
season; but I have claimed them in vain, and shall not cease to regret
their loss. Your packets posterior to the date of my misfortunes,
commencing with that valuable consolatory epistle, are every day
accumulating,--they are sacred things with me.
Publish your _Burns_ [3] when and how you like; it will "be new to
me,"--my memory of it is very confused, and tainted with unpleasant
associations. Burns was the god of my idolatry, as Bowles of yours. I am
jealous of your fraternizing with Bowles, when I think you relish him
more than Burns or my old favorite, Cowper, But you conciliate matters
when you talk of the "divine chit-chat" of the latter; by the expression
I see you thoroughly relish him. I love Mrs. Coleridge for her excuses
an hundred-fold more dearly than if she heaped "line upon line,"
out-Hannah-ing Hannah More, and had rather hear you sing "Did a very
little baby" by your family fireside, than listen to you when you were
repeating one of Bowles's sweetest sonnets in your sweet manner, while
we two were indulging sympathy, a solitary luxury, by the fireside at
the "Salutation." Yet have I no higher ideas of heaven. Your company was
one "cordial in this melancholy vale,"--the remembrance of it is a
blessing partly, and partly a curse.
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