Tell me how you go on with German.

What novel have you commenced?
Or, rather, how many dozen have you finished?
Recommend me one.

What say you to "Destiny"?
Is the "Young Duke" worth reading?
and what do you think of "Laurie Todd"?
I am writing about Lord Byron so pathetically that I make Margaret cry, but so slowly that I am afraid I shall make Napier wait.

Rogers, like a civil gentleman, told me last week to write no more reviews, and to publish separate works; adding, what for him is a very rare thing, a compliment: "You may do anything, Mr.Macaulay." See how vain and insincere human nature is! I have been put into so good a temper with Rogers that I have paid him, what is as rare with me as with him, a very handsome compliment in my review.

["Well do we remember to have heard a most correct judge of poetry revile Mr.Rogers for the incorrectness of that most sweet and graceful passage:-- 'Such grief was ours,--it seems but yesterday,-- When in thy prime, wishing so much to stay, Twas thine, Maria, thine without a sigh At midnight in a sister's arms to die, Oh! thou wast lovely; lovely was thy frame, And pure thy spirit as from heaven it came; And, when recalled to join the blest above, Thou diedst a victim to exceeding love Nursing the young to health.