'if you have no [italics] odd things [end italics] lying about you which I daresay you do not lack there are many pieces among those you published in your youth which are I deem not much known and which I think extremely beautifull if you would deign to favour us with something of either the one class or the other you can hardly conceive how much it would oblige [italics] me [end italics] in particular and turn as it were every letter of our little repository into gold'.