Leigh Hunt letter to Rowland Hunter, January 1, 1805

              Sommers Town  Tuesday Eve—Jany. [1,] 1805.[1]  

Dear Hunter, 

I am much obliged to you for mentioning my rhymes to Mr. Damiani, [2] and, if could have given you a call in St. Paul’s Church Yard, would have more exactly described the nature of my request. It is not for the poem I would ask his assistance but for an “Essay on Heroi-comic Poetry” intended to introduce it, in which I have ventured to insert a sort of memoir, and criticism on the “Rape of the Bucket” (La Secchia Rapita) of Tassoni, [3] who was the inventor of this species of composition. I have examined, I believe, the best Italian critics who have mentioned this celebrated wit, and diligently perused to the best of my ability the poem itself, which has infinitely amused me; but as I greatly distrust my researches into a language, which, to say the most of my powers, I understand but imperfectly, I should think myself favoured, if Mr. Damiani would look over
my manuscript and just touch with his pen any false criticism or conclusions into which my ignorance may have led me. I am now reading Boileau’s Lutrin [4] for the second time after /the/ wading through it with the help of a dictionary and execrating all the irregular verbs in the French language: only conceive after all this, that I have the impudence to say something of it in my essay! To my edition of the Lutrin however there are two or three epigrams subjoined, which I can read with perfect felicity: one of them written upon a portrait of the author wretchedly
engraved, will no doubt amuse you:  

Du celebre Boileau tu vois ici l’image 
“Quoim c’est-la,” diras-tu, “ce critique acheve? 
D’ou vient ce noir chagrin qu’on lit sur son visage?” 
“C’est de se voir si mal grave.[“] [5]