You will oblige me by the loan, if you have it, of Warton's Poems the Edition of 1802, with a Memoir of the author by Mant, and pray tell me whether Mr. Mant be the present Bishop Mant. Now if you have not the book pray further oblige me by borrowing it for me of some poetical friend, and I will return it in a couple of hours — it is for Mant's preface I desire it, and I cannot get out, for I am unwell.
I was not so fortunate as to meet with you at the Insitution2 about a fortnight ago, & was then informed you were unwell. I hope you were so slightly only. What have you to make you ill? To be sure the missing of an Autograph, you thought to clutch, may be an evil, but remember, that real as such a vexation may be to you, you should bear troubles like a man with some philosophy in him, or you are not worthy the name of Upcott the great, collector of Autographs, Protector of the Cutlery confederated in the library kitchen, and of the Prospectuses in your Portfolio.
However I trust this will find you well, and that you will do honor to Christmas—though you and I know that the season is most unchristianly kept after pagan fashions. I fear that I shall encounter the hostility of the Church for defending myself from the Quarterly Churchmen, but there a Christians in the Church, and you are one of the few who, if they shake their heads now and then, when they see the old Lady touzled, are liberal enough to recollect that she takes liberties unbecoming her age and situation, with fellows who are too strong for her weak embraces.
The only autograph of Alman's I have, I send you, on a slip of a title page for a work he meditated — there are two other of his scraps— and an autograph of Dr. Shebbeaus[?] with one of Brownsmith the author. I defy you to produce a duplicate of that important personage.