Madam
I have been much inclined to address you poetically on this anniversary of your birth, but having never “lisped in numbers” nor been any favorite with the Muses, I thought I would try the effect of one of Electro-Magus’s sparks — but judge of my mortification and disappointment! On arriving at his lodgings — I must not say house, for his finances it appears would not allow him to keep one — I found everything in confusion and himself looking as though he had just received one of the most violent shocks from his own battery. Poor Electro-Magus was lying on the ground in an almost senseless state, and after he had recovered a little, I learnt that having relied on the members of the Attic Society not only for employment from themselves but recommendation to others, all his hopes had been cruelly blasted by their recess, which he was not aware would take place so early; indeed he acknowledged to me that he was afraid he should not have benefitted so much by the society as he had expected, for he found they were already so brilliant in many kinds of poetical composition that they would have needed very little of his assistance and now he should be unable to render them that little his merciless creditors having just carried off everything likely to be saleable.
Electro-Magus further informed me that it was his intention to apply to the Attic Society and he hoped to receive some temporary relief from the known kindness and generosity of its members.
This, therefore Madam, must be my apology for addressing you in this humble manner; but if the sincere congratulations and most cordial good wishes for many, may happy years may be accepted in unpresuming prose, you have those of
Affezionatissima
July 14 1813