Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury

MADAM, / I read your letter with all that allowance / which critical candour could require, but after all find so much to object / to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot help giving it a / serious answer.

I am not so ignorant, Madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms / contained in it, and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from / the town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and / applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains, from a town also of / that name; -but this is learning you have no taste for! )-I say, / Madam, there are sarcasms in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an / ill-natured critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give you / my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows: -