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present to his Colonel the moment He returned from a Trip to London - & the martial youth Entreats me to express our mutual obligations to you in the warmest Language of Gratitude

But Language, that superfluous Test!
Need not its powers employ
To speak what you have seen exprest
In Tears of tender joy —

Let me thank you however for the inclosed copy of yr Sonnet! & I shall thank you for this favor in the Scottish style, by asking another: I cannot part with the Copy you have kindly sent me, & I wish for another to present to a fair Friend, who will value it the more for being in the Muse’s own Hand——

Had I not received yr kind letter last night, I should still have scribbled to you today, to inform you of my safe arrival at my Hermitage. - my return appears to me quite providential, for I arrived just in Time to act as Physician & Apothecary to a poor female domestic whom I found most wretchedly ill with a violent bilious disorder. The good Euryclea had dispatched a messenger for Sandino