University of Virginia Library

[A letter from Charles Lester, to Henry Howard.]

You, yourself, have said it! you are a coward.

But you have told me no news. When we left Portland I presayed
your fall; and in order to reinforce your courage, if it was yet time,
(for I saw how it went with you the moment you sat eyes on Miss Lintot!)
or in order to make more open and apparent your perjury, I invited
thee to a banquet where alone were admitted bachelors: bachelors,
you will understand.

It was at the Cumberland Hotel! We were six! enemies all of
matrimony! and when, at that time, I hinted, in jest, that you would
be our first deserter, you cried out, exclaiming loudly, `Calumny!' and
when we alleged, in proof, your passion (apparent to all) for Louise
Lintot, you denied it, saying, `If I could be so base as to let love for
woman cause me to break my word, then should I deserve to be broken
upon the wheel as I break this glass!..' and the fragments
of the crystal fell upon the table in the midst of the thunder of our applause!

Our oaths, those oaths of which you speak in your letter, were then
renewed with all due solemnity, and when the champagne appeared,
you sang the popular song,

and we repeated and re-echoed the chorus with formidable enthusiasm.

Of the six friends that joined that day their hands and their pledges,
four are, at this moment, while I am writing you, seated in my room,
and your letter has given us a subject to laugh at for a whole rainy day!
As for the sixth, his marriage bans are being published and he is getting
ready his wedding garments! Ah, what a fall is there.

Harry! if you are a man, break through every thing, take the cars
the very evening you get this letter, come to us and repeat the oaths of
the first of July. If not, leave us and we will compose a dirge for thee,
and at our next meeting chant it over the vacant chair you once occupied
in our midst. Requiescat in pace.