Chapter XLII: Letter 313: To Mr. Murray

"Venice, April 11. 1818.

"Will you send me by letter, packet, or parcel, half a dozen of the
coloured prints from Holmes's miniature (the latter done shortly
before I left your country, and the prints about a year ago); I
shall be obliged to you, as some people here have asked me for the
like. It is a picture of my upright self done for Scrope B. Davies,
Esq.[18]

"Why have you not sent me an answer, and list of subscribers to the
translation of the Armenian _Eusebius_? of which I sent you printed
copies of the prospectus (in French) two moons ago. Have you had
the letter?--I shall send you another:--you must not neglect my
Armenians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh,
tooth-brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal
demands.

"Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times,
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
My Murray.

"To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
The unfledged MS. authors come;
Thou printest all--and sellest some--
My Murray.

"Upon thy table's baize so green
The last new Quarterly is seen,
But where is thy new Magazine,
My Murray?

"Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine--
The 'Art of Cookery,' and mine,
My Murray.

"Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
And Sermons to thy mill bring grist!
And then thou hast the 'Navy List,'
My Murray.

"And Heaven forbid I should conclude
Without 'the Board of Longitude,'
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray!"

[Footnote 18: There follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gaiety and humour, that it is with some reluctance I suppress them. They might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not have deliberately inflicted it;--from a pen like his, touches may be wounds, and without being actually intended as such.]

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