36.
To William Hayley.
27th April 1804.
Dear Sir,—I have at length seen Mr. Hoare, after having repeatedly called on him every day and not finding him. I now understand that he received your reply to P[hillips']s proposal at Brighton, where he has a residence, from whence he sent it to London to Mr. Phillips; he has not seen P. since his return, and therefore cannot tell me how he understood your answer. Mr. H. appears to me to consider it as a rejection of the proposal altogether. I took the liberty to tell him that I could not consider it so, but that as I understood you, you had accepted the spirit of P's intention, which was to leave the whole conduct of the affair to you, and that you had accordingly nominated one of your friends and agreed to nominate others. But if P[hillips] meant that you should yourself take on you the drudgery of the ordinary business of a review, his proposal was by no means a generous one. Mr. H[oare] has promised to see Mr. Phillips immediately, and to know what his intentions are; but he says perhaps Mr. P. may not yet have seen your letter to him, and that his multiplicity of business may very well account for
