Editor’s NoteEditor’s Note2564To William Thompson29 September 1819 (Aet 71)

29th Sept. 1819.

During your stay in London, my hermitage, such as it is, is at your service, and you will be expected in it. I am a single man, turned of seventy; but as far from melancholy as a man need be. Hour of dinner, six; tea, between nine and ten; bed, a quarter before eleven. Dinner and tea in society; breakfast, my guests, whoever they are, have at their own hour, and by themselves; my breakfast, of which a newspaper, read to me to save my weak eyes, forms an indispensable part, I take by myself. Wine I drink none, being, in that particular, of the persuasion of Jonadab the son of Rechab.² At dinner, soup as constantly as if I were a Frenchman, an article of my religion learnt in France: meat, one or two sorts, as it may happen; ditto sweet things, ofpg 356 which, with the soup, the principal part of my dinner is composed. Of the dessert, the frugality matching with that of the dinner. Coffee for any one that chooses it.