Muffins and metaphysics,

contradictions and crumpets,

will you come?

I want to recommend

the latest Mrs Crowe,

despite improbabilities,

her much-too-complicated plot

(boy climbs aboard a frigate

in the dead of night,

penetrates, unchallenged, to

the captain's cabin;

the heroine climbs through

a second-storey window

to bring off a rescue

of two grenadiers; a man

about to be murdered is saved

by rescuing a woman about

to be drowned). I must admit

there is excitement, pace,

and on the whole I think it good.

Then I wish to advert you to

a book I saw whose title is

Hasty Thoughts on Pickles,

which I suspect is Georgiana's hand.

Or you might perhaps enlighten me

about the Scottish Church. Something

to do with oatmeal I believe.

And now that you ask,

I've gout, asthma

and seven other maladies

(we could bemoan our growing old!)

but otherwise I'm well enough.

Digestion is the secret.

Come round one morning soon

and share with me.