LETTERS, 1821. "It is awful work, this love, and prevents all a man's projects of good or glory. I wanted to go to Greece lately (as every thing seems up here) with her brother, who is a very fine, brave fellow, (I have seen him put to the proof) and wild about liberty. But the tears of a woman who has left a husband for a man, and the weakness of one's own heart, are paramount to these projects, and I can hardly indulge them. whole family of Madame G. who, you know, was divorced now in his hands, or in the printer's. It is in the Manfrom her husband last week, 'on account of P. P. clerk of fred, metaphysical style, and full of some Titanic declathis parish,' and who is obliged to join her father and rela- mation;-Lucifer being one of the dram. pers. who takes tives, now in exile there, to avoid being shut up in a mo- Cain a voyage among the stars, and, afterwards, to 'Hades. nastery, because the Pope's decree of separation required where he shows him the phantoms of a former world, and her to reside in casa paterna, or else, for decorum's sake, its inhabitants. I have gone upon the notion of Cuvier in a convent. As I could not say, with Hamlet, 'Get thee that the world has been destroyed three or four times, and was inhabited by mammoths, behemoths, and what not; to a nunnery,' I am preparing to follow them. but not by man till the Mosaic period, as, indeed, is proved by the strata of bones found;-those of all unknown animals, and known, being dug out, but none of mankind. I have, therefore, supposed Cain to be shown, in the rational Preadamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but totally unlike him in form, and with much greater strength of mind and person. You may suppose the small talk which takes place between him and Lucifer upon these matters is not quite canonical. "The consequence is, that Cain comes back and kills Abel in a fit of dissatisfaction, partly with the politics of Paradise, which had driven them all out of it, and partly because (as it is written in Genesis) Abel's sacrifice was the more acceptable to the Deity. I trust that the Rhapsody has arrived-it is in three acts, and entitled 'A Mystery,' according to the former Christian custom, "Yours, &c." and in honour of what it probably will remain to the reader. "We were divided in choice between Switzerland and Tuscany, and I give my vote for Pisa, as nearer the Mediterranean, which I love for the sake of the shores which it washes and for my young recollections of 1809. Switzerland is a cursed, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world. I never could bear the inhabitants, and still less their English visiters; for which reason, after writing for some information about houses, upon hearing that there was a colony of English all over the cantons of Geneva, &c. I immediately gave up the thought, and persuaded the Gambas to do the same. By last post I sent you 'the Irish Avatar,'-what think you? The last line-a name never spoke but with curses or jeers'-must run either a name only uttered with curses or jeers,' or, 'a wretch never named but with curses or jeers.' Becase as how, 'spoke' is not grammar, except in the House of Commons; and I doubt whether we can say 'a name spoken, for mentioned. I have some doubts, too, about 'repay, and for murder repay with a shout and a smile.' Should it not be,' and for murder repay him with shouts and a smile,' or 'reward him with shouts and a smile?" "So, pray put your poetical pen through the MS. and take the least bad of the emendations. Also, if there be any farther breaking of Priscian's head, will you apply a plaster? I wrote in the greatest hurry and fury, and sent it to you the day after; so, doubtless, there will be some awful constructions, and a rather lawless conception of rhythmus. LETTER DXXII. TO MR. MOORE. "September 20, 1821. "After the stanza on Grattan, concluding with 'His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied,' will it please you to cause insert the following 'Addenda,' which 1 dreamed of during to-day's Siesta: "Ever glorious Grattan ! &c. &c. &c. I will tell you what to do. Get me twenty copies of the whole carefully and privately printed off, as your lines were on the Naples affair. Send me sir, and distribute the rest according to your own pleasure. "I am in a fine vein, 'so full of pastime and prodigality-So, here's to your health in a glass of grog. Pray write, that I may know by return of post-address to me at Pisa. The gods give you joy! "Where are you? in Paris? Let us hear. You will "With respect to what Anna Seward calls 'the liberty of transcript,-when complaining of Miss Matilda Mug-take care that there be no printer's name, nor author's, as gleton, the accomplished daughter of a choral vicar of in the Naples stanzas, at least for the present." Worcester Cathedral, who had abused the said 'liberty of transcript,' by inserting in the Malvern Mercury, Miss Seward's Elegy on the South Pole,' as her own production, with her own signature, two years after having taken a copy, by permission of the authoress-with regard, I say, to the 'liberty of transcript,' I by no means oppose an occasional copy to the benevolent few, provided it does not degenerate into such licentiousness of Verb and Noun as may tend to 'disparage my parts of speech' by the carelessness of the transcribblers. LETTER DXXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, Sept. 20, 1821. "You need not send the Blues,' which is a mere buffoonery, never meant for publication.* "The papers to which I allude, in case of survivorship "I do not think that there is much danger of the 'King's are collections of letters, &c. since I was sixteen years Press being abused' upon the occasion, if the publishers old, contained in the trunks in the care of Mr. Hobhouse. of journals have any regard for their remaining liberty of This collection is at least doubled by those I have now person. It is as pretty a piece of invective as ever put here, all received since my last ostracism. To these I publisher in the way to 'Botany. Therefore, if they should wish the editor to have access, not for the purpose meddle with it, it is at their peril. As for myself, I will of abusing confidences, nor of hurting the feelings of coranswer any jontleman-though I by no means recognise respondents living, nor the memories of the dead; but a 'right of search' into an unpublished production and there are things which would do neither, that I have left unavowed poem. The same applies to things published unnoticed or unexplained, and which (like all such things) sans consent. I hope you like, at least, the concluding änes of the Pome? "What are you doing, and where are you? in England? Nail Murray-nail him to his own counter, till he shells out the thirteens. Since I wrote to you, 1 have sent him another tragedy-Cain' by name-making three in MS. time only can permit to be noticed or explained, though some are to my credit. The task will of course require delicacy; but that will not be wanting, if Moore and Hob. house survive me, and, I may add, yourself; and that you See Poems. p. 467 chemical articles, as heretofore 'ad libitum,' upon being reimbursed for the same. may all three do so is, I assure you, my very sincere wish. I am not sure that long life is desirable for one of my temper and constitutional depression of spirits, which of "3dly. That you shall not send me any modern, or (as course I suppress in society; but which breaks out when they are called) new publications, in English, whatsoever, alone, and in my writings, in spite of myself. It has been save and excepting any writing, prose or verse, of (or deepened, perhaps, by some long-past events, (I do not reasonably presumed to be of) Walter Scott, Crabbe, allude to my marriage, &c.-on the contrary, that raised Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Gifford, Joanna Baillie, Irving, them by the persecution giving a fillip to my spirits ;) but (the American,) Hogg, Wilson, (the Isle of Palms man,) I call it constitutional, as I have reason to think it. You or any especial single work of fancy which is thought to know, or you do not know, that my maternal grandfather, be of considerable merit; Voyages and Travels, provided (a very clever man, and amiable, I am told,) was strongly that they are neither in Greece, Spain, Asia Minor, Alsuspected of suicide, (he was found drowned in the Avon bania, nor Italy, will be welcome. Having travelled the at Bath,) and that another very near relative of the same countries mentioned, I know that what is said of them can branch took poison, and was merely saved by antidotes. convey nothing farther which I desire to know about For the first of these events there was no apparent cause, them.-No other English works whatsoever. as he was rich, respected, and of considerable intellectual resources, hardly forty years of age, and not at all addicted to any unhinging vice. It was, however, but a strong suspicion, owing to the manner of his death and his melancholy temper. The second had a cause, but it does not become me to touch upon it; it happened when I was far too young to be aware of it, and I never heard of it till after the death of that relative, many years afterward. I think, then, that I may call this dejection constitutional. I had always been told that I resemoted more my maternal grandfather than any of my father's family—that is, in the gloomier part of his temper, for he was what you call a good-natured man, and I am not. "The Journal here I sent to Moore the other day; but as it is a mere diary, only parts of it would ever do for publication. The other Journal of the Tour in 1816, I should think Augusta might let you have a copy of. "4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever no Edinburgh, Quarterly, Monthly, nor any review, magazine, or newspaper, English or foreign, of any description. "5thly. That you send me no opinions whatsoever, either good, bad, or indifferent, of yourself, or your friends, or others, concerning any work, or works, of mine, past present, or to come. "6thly. That all negotiations in matters of business between you and me pass through the medium of the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, my friend and trustee, or Mr. Hobhouse, as 'Alter ego,' and tantamount to myself during my absence-or presence. "Some of these propositions may at first seem strange, but they are founded. The quantity of trash I have received as books is incalculable, and neither amused nor instructed. Reviews and magazines are at the best but "I am much mortified that Gifford do n't take to my ephemeral and superficial reading:--who thinks of the new dramas. To be sure, they are as opposite to the grand article of last year in any given Review? In the English drama as one thing can be to another; but I have next place, if they regard myself, they tend to increase a notion that, if understood, they will in time find favour egotism. If favourable, I do not deny that the praise (though not on the stage) with the reader. The simpli-elates, and if unfavourable, that the abuse irritates. The city of plot is intentional, and the avoidance of rant also, latter may conduct me to inflict a species of satire, whicn as also the compression of the speeches in the more severe situations. What I seek to show in the Foscaris' is the suppressed passions, rather than the rant of the present day. For that matter Nay, if thou 'It mouth, would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my weapons. LETTER DXXIV. TO MR. MURRAY. I "Ravenna, Sept. 24, 1821. I have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to propose to you the following articles for our future: "Istly, That you shall write to me of yourself, of the health, wealth, and welfare of all friends; but of me (quoad me) little or nothing. 2dly. That you shall send me soda-powders, toothDowder, tooth-brushes, or any such anti-odontalgic or would neither do good to you nor to your friends: they may smile now, and so may you; but if I took you all in hand, it would not be difficult to cut you up like gourds. I did as much by as powerful people at nineteen years old, and I know little as yet, in three-andthirty, which should prevent me from making all your ribs gridirons for your hearts, if such were my propensity: but it is not; therefore let me hear none of your provocations. If any thing occurs so very gross as to require my notice, I shall hear of it from my legal friends. For the rest, I merely request to be left in ignorance. of "The same applies to opinions, good, bad, or indifferent, persons in conversation or correspondence. These do not interrupt, but they soil, the current of my mind. I am sensitive enough, but not till I am troubled; and here I am beyond the touch of the short arms of literary England, except the few feelers of the polypus that crawl over the channels in the way of extract. "All these precautions in England would be useless, the libeller or the flatterer would there reach me in spite of all; but in Italy we know little of literary England, and think less, except what reaches us through some garbled and brief extract in some miserable gazette. For two years (excepting two or three articles cut out and sent to you by the post) I never read a newspaper which was not forced upon me by some accident, and know, upon the whole, as little of England as you do of Italy, and God knows that is little enough, with all your travels, &c. &c. &c. The English travellers know Italy as you know Guernsey: how much is that? "If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires notice, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird will let me know; but of praise, I desire to hear nothing. "You will say, 'to what tends all this? I will answer THAT;-to keep my mind free and unbiased by all paltry and personal irritabilities or praise or censure to let my genius take its natural direction, while my feelings are like the dead, who know nothing and feel nothing of all or aught that is said or done in their regard. *If you can observe these conditions, you will spare yourself and others some pain; let me not be worked apon to rise up; for if I do, it will not be for a little. If you cannot observe these conditions, we shall cease to be correspondents,—but not friends, for I shall always be yours and ever truly, "BYRON. P.S. I have taken these resolutions not from any irritation against you or yours, but simply upon reflection that all reading, either praise or censure, of myself has done me harm. When I was in Switzerland and Greece, I was out of the way of hearing either, and how I wrote there!-In Italy I am out of the way of it too; but latterly, partly through my fault, and partly through your kindness in wishing to send me the newest and most periodical publications, I have had a crowd of Reviews, &c. thrust upon me, which have bored me with their jargon, of one kind or another, and taken off my attention from greater objects. You have also sent me a parcel of trash of poetry, for no reason that I can conceive, unless to provoke me to write a new English Bards. Now this I wish to avoid: for if ever I do, it will be a strong production; and I desire peace as long as the fools will keep their nonsense out of my way." LETTER DXXV TO MR. MOORE. did not choose before to apply to Lady Cowper, as her mother's death naturally kept me from intruding upon her feelings at the time of its occurrence. Some years have now elapsed, and it is essential that I should ).ave my own epistles. They are essential as confirming that part of the 'Memoranda' which refers to the two periods (1812 and 1814) when my marriage with her niece was in contemplation, and will tend to show what my real views and feelings were upon that subject. "You need not be alarmed; the 'fourteen years' wid hardly elapse without some mortality among us: it is a long lease of life to speculate upon. So your calculation will not be in so much peril, as the 'argosie' will sink before that time, and 'the pound of flesh' be withered previously to your being so long out of a return. "I also wish to give you a hint or two, (as you have really behaved very handsomely to Moore in the business, and are a fine fellow in your line,) for your advan tage. If by your own management you can extract any of my epistles from Lady * - (** ** * *,) they might be of use in your collection, (sinking of course the names, and all such circumstances as might hurt living feelings, or those of survivors;) they treat of more topics than love occasionally. * "I will tell you who may happen to have some letters of mine in their possession: Lord Powerscourt, some to his late brother; Mr. Long of-(I forget his place)— but the father of Edward Long of the Guards, who was drowned in going to Lisbon early in 1809; Miss Elizabeth Pigot, of Southwell, Notts, (she may be Mistress by this time, for she had a year or two more than 1:) they were not love-letters, so that you might have them "September 27, 1821. without scruple. There are, or might be, some to the it was not Murray's fault. I did not send the MS. late Rev. J. C. Tattersall, in the hands of his brother overture, but I send it now, and it may be restored;-(half-brother) Mr. Wheatley, who resides near Canter. or, at any rate, you may keep the original, and give any copies you please. I send it, as written, and as I read it to you-I have no other copy. "By last week's two posts, in two packets, I sent to your address, at Paris, a longish poem upon the late İrishism of your countrymen in their reception of * * *. Pray, have you received it? It is in the high Roman fashion,' and full of ferocious fantasy. As you could not well take up the matter with Paddy, (being of the same nest,) I have ;-but I hope still that I have done justice to his great men and his good heart. As for ** will find it laid on with a trowel. I delight in your 'fact « Yours, &c. historical-is it a fact? you bury, I think. There are some of Charles Gordon, now of Dulwich; and some few to Mrs. Chaworth; bu these latter are probably destroyed or inaccessible. * "I mention these people and particulars merely as chances. Most of them have probably destroyed the letters, which in fact are of little import, many of then written when very young, and several at school and college. "Peel (the second brother of the Secretary) was a cor. respondent of mine, and also Porter, the son of the Bishop of Clogher; Lord Clare a very voluminous one; Willian Harness (a friend of Milman's) another; Charles Drum"P.S. You have not answered me about Schlegel-mond, (son of the banker ;) William Bankes (the voyager, why not? Address to me at Pisa, whither I am going, to join the exiles-a pretty numerous body, at present. Let me hear how you are, and what you mean to do. Is there no chance of your recrossing the Alps? If the G. Rex marries again, let him not want an Epithalamium Suppose a joint concern of you and me, like Sternhold and Hopkins!" LETTER DXXVI. TO MR. MURRAY. "September 28, 1821. "I add another cover to request you to ask Moore to obtain (if possible) my letters to the late Lady Mel bourne from Lady Cowper. They are very numerous, and ought to have been restored long ago, as I was ready to give back Lady Melbourne's in exchange. These atter are in Mr. Hobhouse's custody with my other papers, and shall be punctually restored if required. I • The lines "Oh Wellington," Don Juan, Canto IX. Stanza 1, &c. which I had missed in their original place at the opening of the Third Cante, and took for granted that they had been suppressed by his enblater. Moore. your friend; R. C. Dallas, Esq.; Hodgson; Henry 'The cold, the faithless, and the dead,' because I know that, like the curious in fish-sauce,' you are a researcher of such things. "Besides these, there are other occasional ones to literary men and so forth, complimentary, &c. &c. &c. not worth much more than the rest. There are some hundreds, too, of Italian notes of mine, scribbled with a noble contempt of the grammar and dictionary, in very English Etruscen; for I speak Italian very fluently, but write it carelessly and incorrectly to a degree." LETTER DXXVII. TO MR. MOORE. "September 29, 1821. "I send you two rough things, prose and verse, no He here adverts to a passing remark in one of Mr. Murray's letters that, as his lordship's "Memoranda" were not to be published in hi lifetime, the sum now paid for the work, 21007. would most probably. upon a reasonable calculation of sur▾ vorship, amount ultimately to ne less than 80001-Moore. inuch in themselves, but which will show, one of them The state of the country, and the other of your friend's mind, when they were written. Neither of them were sent to ine person concerned, but you will see, by the style of them, that they were sincere, as I am in signing niyself "Yours ever and truly, "B." [Of the two enclosures, mentioned in the foregoing note, one was a letter intended to be sent to Lady Byron, relative to his money invested in the funds, of which the following are extracts.] "Ravenna, Marza Imo, 1821. "I have received your message, through my sister's etter about English security, &c. &c. It is considerate, (and true, even,) that such is to be found-but not that I shall find it. Mr. **, for his own views and purposes, will thwart all such attempts till he has accomplished his ɔwn, viz. to make me lend my fortune to some client of his choosing. "At this distance-after this absence, and with my utter ignorance of affairs and business-with my temper and impatience, I have neither the means nor the mind to resist. * * * * Thinking of the funds as I do, and wishing to secure a rervesion to my sister and her children, I should jump at most expedients. "What I told you is come to pass-the Neapolitan war is declared. Your funds will fall, and I shall be in consequence ruined. That's nothing-but my bloodrelations will be so. You and your child are provided for. Live and prosper-I wish so much to both. Live and prosper-you have the means. I think but of my real kin and kindred, who may be the victims of this accursed bubble. "You neither know nor dream of the consequences of this war. It is a war of men with monarchs, and will spread like a spark on the dry, rank grass of the vegetable desert. What it is with you and your English, you do not know, for ye sleep. What it is with us here, I know, for it is before, and around, and within us. "Judge of my detestation of England and of all that it inherits, when I avoid returning to your country at a time when not only my pecuniary interest, but, it may be, even my personal security require it. I can say no more, for all letters are opened. A short time will decide upon what is to be done here, and then you will learn it without being more troubled with me or my correspondence. Whatever happens an individual is little, so that the cause is forwarded. "I have no more to say to you on the score of affairs or on any other subject." [The second enclosure in the note consisted of some verses, written by him, December 10th, 1820, on seeing the following paragraph in a newspaper. "Lady Byron is this year the lady patroness at the annual Charity Ball given at the Town Hall at Hinckly, Leicestershire, and Sir G. Crewe, Bart. the principal steward." These verses are full of strong and indignant feeling, every stanza concluding pointedly with the words "Charity Ball," and the thought that predominates through the whole may be collected from a few of the opening lines.Moore.] "What matter the pangs of a husband and father, If his sorrows in exile be great or be small, What matters-a heart, which though faulty was feeling, As the Saint keeps her charity back for the Ball.' &c. &c." LETTER DXXVIIL TO MR. MOORE. "September-no-October 1, 1821. "I have written to you lately, both in prose and verse at great length, to Paris and London. I presume that Mrs. Moore, or whoever is your Paris deputy, will for ward my packets to you in London. tent fever do not prevent me. I fear it is not strong "I am setting off for Pisa, if a slight incipient intermit. enough to give Murray much chance of realizing his thir teens again. I hardly should regret it, I think, provided you raised your price upon him—as what Lady Holderness (my sister's grandmother, a Dutchwoman) used to call Augusta, her Residee Legatoo-so as to provide for us all; my bones with a splendid and larmoyante edition, and you with double what is extractable during my lifetime. "I have a strong presentiment that (bating some outof-the-way accident) you will survive me. The differ ence of eight years, or whatever it is between our ages is nothing. I do not feel (nor am, indeed anxious to feel) the principles of life in me tend to longevity. My father and mother died, the one at thirty-five or six, and the other at forty-five; and Doctor Rush, or somebody else, says that nobody lives long, without having one parent, at least, an old stager. "I should, to be sure, like to see out my eternal motherin-law, not so much for her heritage, but from my natural antipathy. But the indulgence of this natural desire is too much to expect from the Providence who presides over old women. I bore you with all this about lives because it has been put in my way by a calculation of ensurances which Murray has sent me. I really think you should have more, if I evaporate within a reasonable time. "I wonder if my 'Cain' has got safe to England. I have written since about sixty stanzas of a poem, in octave stanzas,* (in the Pulci style, which the fools in England think was invented by Whistlecraf-it is as old as the hills in Italy,) called 'The Vision of Judgment, by Que vedo Redivivus,' with this motto A Danie! come to judgment, yea, a Daniel: I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.' "In this it is my intent to put the said George's Apotheosis in a Whig point of view, not forgetting the Poet Laureate for his preface and his other demerits. "I am just got to the pass where Saint Peter, hearing that the royal defunct had opposed Catholic Emanci pation, rises up and, interrupting Satan's oration, declares he will change places with Cerberus sooner than let him into heaven, while he has the keys thereof. "I must go and ride, though rather feverish and chilly. It is the ague season; but the agues do me rather good than harm. The feel after the fit is as if one had got rid of one's body for good and all. "The gods go with you!-Address to Pisa. "Ever yours. "P. S. Since I came back I feel better, though I stayed out too late for this malaria season, under the thin crescent of a very young moon, and got off my horse to walk in an avenue with a Signora for an hour I thought of you and "When at eve thou rovest By the star thou lovest.' But it was not in a romantic mood, as I should have been once; and yet it was a new woman, (that is, new to But me,) and, of course, expected to be made love to. I merely made a few commonplace speeches. I feel as your poor friend Curran said, before his death,' a mountain of lead upon my heart,' which I believe to be See Don Juan, Canto IV. Stanza 6. constitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the the Old Testament, for the New struck men as a task same remedy." LETTER DXXIX. TO MR. MOORE. October 6, 1821. "By this post I have sent my nightmare to balance the incubus of Southey's impudent anticipation of the Apotheosis of George the Third. I should like you to take a look over it, as I think there are two or three things in it which might please 'our puir hill folk.' "By the last two or three posts I have written to you at length. My ague bows to me every two or three days, but we are not as yet upon intimate speaking terms. have an intermittent generally every two years, when the climate is favourable, (as it is here,) but it does me no harm. What I find worse, and cannnot get rid of, is the growing depression of my spirits, without sufficient cause. I ride-I am not intemperate in eating or drinking-and my general health is as usual, except a slight ague, which rather does good than not. It must be constitutional; for I know nothing more than usual to depress me to that degree. but the other as a pleasure. I speak as a boy from the recollected impression of that period at Aberdeen in 1796 "Any novels of Scott, or poetry of the same. Ditto of Crabbe, Moore, and the Elect; but none of your cursed commonplace trash,-unless something starts up of actual merit, which may very well be, for 't is time it should." LETTER DXXXI. TO MR. MURRAY. "October 20, 1821. "If the errors are in the MS. write me down an ass! they are not, and I am content to undergo any penalty if they be. Besides, the omitted stanza, (last but one or two,) sent afterward, was that in the MS. too? "As to 'honour,' I will trust no man's honour in affairs of barter. I will tell you why: a state of bargain is Hobbes's 'state of nature-a state of war. It is so with all men. If I come to a friend, and say, 'Friend, lend me five hundred pounds,'-he either does it, or says that he can't or won't; but if I come to ditto, and say, 'Ditto, I have an excellent house, or horse, or carriage, or MSS.or books, or pictures, or &c. &c. &c. &c. honestly worth a “How do you manage? I think you told me, at Ve- thousand pounds, you shali have them for five hundred, nice, that your spirits did not keep up without a little what does Ditto say? why, he looks at them, he hums, ho claret. I can drink and bear a good deal of wine, (as has,-he humbugs, if he can, to get a bargain as cheaply you may recollect in England;) but it don't exhilarate-as he can, because it is a bargain.-This is in the blood it makes me savage and suspicious, and even quarrel- and bone of mankind; and the same man who would some. Laudanum has a similar effect; but I can take lend another a thousand pounds without interest, would much of it without any effect at all. The thing that gives not buy a horse of him for half its value if he could help me the highest spirits (it seems absurd, but true) is a dose it. It is so: there's no denying it; and therefore I wil of salts-I mean in the afternoon, after their effect. But one can't take them like champagne. "Excuse this old woman's letter; but my lemancholy don't depend upon health, for it is just the same, well or or here or there. "Yours, &c." LETTER DXXX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, October 9, 1821. *You w please to present or convey the enclosed preta to Mr. Moore. I sent him another copy to Paris;| but he has probarly left that city. have as much as I can, and you will give as little; and there's an end. All men are intrinsical rascals, and I ain only sorry that, not being a dog, I can't bite them. "I am filling another book for you with little anecdotes, to my own knowledge, or well authenticated, of Sheridan, Curran, &c. and such other public men as I recollect to have been acquainted with, for I knew most of them more or less. I will do what I can to prevent your losing by my obsequies. Yours &c." LETTER DXXXII. TO MR. ROGERS. *Don't forget to send me my first act of 'Werner' (if | "Ravenna, October 21, 1821. Hobhouse can find it among my papers)-send it by the "I shall be (the gods willing) in Bologna on Saturday post to (Pisa) and also cut out Sophia Lee's 'German's next. This is a curious answer to your letter; but I have Tale' from the 'Canterbury Tales,' and send it in a letter also. I began that tragedy in 1815. By-the-way, you have a good deal of my prose tracts in MS.? Let me have proofs of them all again-I mean the controversial ones, including the last two or three years of time. Another question-The Epistle of St. Paul, which I translated from the Armenian, for what reason have you kept it back, though you published that stuff which gave rise to the 'Vampire? Is it because you are afraid to print any thing in opposition to the cant of the Quarterly about Manicheism? Let me have a proof of that Epistle directly. I am a better Christian than those parsons of yours, though not paid for being so. "Send-Faber's Treatise on the Cabiri. "Sainte Croix's Mystères du Paganisme, (scarce, perhaps, but to be found, as Mitford refers to his work frequently.) taken a house in Pisa for the winter, to which all my chattels, furniture, horses, carriages, and live stock are already removed, and I am preparing to follow. "The cause of this removal is, shortly, the exile or proscription of all my friends' relations and connexions here into Tuscany, on account of our late politics; and where they go, I accompany them. I merely remained till now to settle some arrangements about my daughter, and to give time for my furniture, &c. to precede me. I have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs, and tables, and a mattress for the week to come. "If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you fo as long as you like, (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is spacious: it is on the Arno;) and I have four carriages, and as many saddle horses, (such as they are in these parts,) with all other conveniences at your command, as also their owner. If you could do this, we "A common Bible, of good legible print, (bound in rus- may, at least, cross the Apennines together; or if you sia.) I have one; but as it was the last gift of my sister, are going by another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I (whom I shall probably never see again,) I can only use hope. I address this to the post-office, (as you desire,) it carefully, and less frequently, because I like to keep it and you will probably find me at the Albergo di San in good order. Don't forget this, for I am a great reader Marco. If you arrive first, wait till I come up. which and admirer of those books, and had read them through will be (barring accidents) on Saturday or Sunday at and through before I was eight vears old,-that is to say, farthest. |