great or small. Tasso remade the whole of his Jerusalem; but who
ever reads that version? all the world goes to the first. Pope
_added_ to 'The Rape of the Lock,' but did not reduce it. You must
take my things as they happen to be. If they are not likely to
suit, reduce their _estimate_ accordingly. I would rather give them
away than hack and hew them. I don't say that you are not right: I
merely repeat that I cannot better them. I must 'either make a
spoon, or spoil a horn;' and there's an end.

"Yours.

"P.S. Of the praises of that little * * * Keats. I shall observe as
Johnson did when Sheridan the actor got a _pension_: 'What! has
_he_ got a pension? Then it is time that I should give up _mine_!'
Nobody could be prouder of the praise of the Edinburgh than I was,
or more alive to their censure, as I showed in English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers. At present _all the men_ they have ever praised
are degraded by that insane article. Why don't they review and
praise 'Solomon's Guide to Health?' it is better sense and as much
poetry as Johnny Keats.

"Bowles must be _bowled_ down. 'Tis a sad match at cricket if he
can get any notches at Pope's expense. If he once get into
'_Lord's_ ground,' (to continue the pun, because it is foolish,) I
think I could beat him in one innings. You did not know, perhaps,
that I was once (_not metaphorically_, but _really_,) a good
cricketer, particularly in _batting_, and I played in the Harrow
match against the Etonians in 1805, gaining more notches (as one of
our chosen eleven) than any, except Lord Ipswich and Brookman, on
our side."