TALBOT2284

Sloperton,
Monday.

My dear Talbot –

Pray frank the inclosed for me–¹ Since I saw Feilding ² I have had a summons to town, on a business which I was told could be managed without me – namely, the Deed of Mutual Release between that worst of all Mechanic Powers and myself –³ but Merewether ⁴ is of opinion that I had better come up, and so I must – perhaps on Wednesday, or, at the farthest, Thursday.

It is not worth while routing up Fanny ⁵ for so short a visit, so I shall fly into the arms of some less amiable house-maid.

Feilding told you of my intention not to answer till, in the first place, there were the quantity of combatants I wait for, and, even then, of the quality that I shall think worthy of an onset.⁶ When I say this, I mean not so much the real merit of my opponents, as the impression I see they make on the public – for, [illegible deletion], the cleverer they are, the less it is my interest to bring them into notice, if the Public doesn’t. If they are all as dull as Murtagh O Sullivan,⁷ whom I have just glimpsed at, I shall let them sleep in peace.

Yours ever
T. Moore

As I am upon this subject my vanity will not let me refrain from telling you what the D^r Doyle ⁸ has said about it “I have read this extraordinary work with delight and wonder – wonder to find that we who devote our lives to black-letter lore should be outdone by one who has surpassed the rest of the world in works of wit & fancy”.

What do you think of that for a young sucking theologian like myself?

I had a letter, the day before yesterday, from the Rev^d Something Husenbeth, the opponent of Faber, asking me to communicate some notices upon the Strasburg Controversy (as he calls it) for his next work.⁹ That M^r Little ¹⁰ should come to this! – to say nothing of Sam.¹¹