Autograph Letter Signed ('Charles A. Elton') from Sir Charles Abraham Elton, to John Taylor, editor of the 'London Magazine', submitting a contribution on 'Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice' and discussing his own and other contributions.

2pp., 4to. Bifolium. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Addressed by Elton, on reverse of second leaf, to 'John Taylor Esq.' (Taylor had assumed the editorship of the London Magazine on the death by duel of John Scott in February 1821.) Elton begins by informing Taylor that he has 'not been able yet to manage the Batrachomyomachia to my mind'. (Elton's translation of 'The Battle of the Frogs and Mice' would appear anonymously in the issue of October 1821, as the second of a series named 'Leisure Hours'.) He has instead 'sent some chit-chat to serve as an introduction'. ('On Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice' appeared in September 1821 as the first of the series.) He intends this as 'the first of occasional desultory papers of criticism, poetry, or the like: a specimen or two of the Battle of Frogs may form the second of the series'. Changing the subject, he now declines two books Taylor has sent him to review: he feels that too much has already been said about Madame de Stael, and he has 'already administered the ferula to her somewhat roughly'. He is 'equally diffident about Bonaparte's literary character', and asks whether 'Mr Hazlitt, or Leigh Hunt' are not 'the fittest men to undertake it'. He feels that to 'enter fully' into Taylor's 'plan relative to the Monthly Literature seems to require the interchange of sentiments in conversation', and that this is 'one of the disadvantages of a periodical contributor residing in the country'. He suspects that 'a London domicile' is 'necessary for the convenient and ready arrangement and execution of this sort of monthly summary'. He has been 'thinking of some regular supply of poetry, translated or original, independent of the incidental passages in the Leisure Hours', but has not yet 'ascertained either my plan or my powers'. In the first part of a postscript, he asks 'What is Knickerbocker? [Washington Irving] & is he worth reviewing?' This appears to be a reference to a footnote to the 'Epistle to Elia' by 'OLEN', published in the August 1821 issue of the London Magazine; the footnote also discusses two readings of that poem, thanks Taylor 'for the Magazine', and ends 'It is a pity the writer who so ably reviewed Crabbe, does not continue his "Series of Living Poets."