"Who shot the arrow? The poet-priest Milman, -you 1 Re "I have written by this post to Mr. Hentsch, junior, the banker of Geneva, to provide (if possible) a house for me, and another for Gamba's family, (the father, son, and daughter,) on the Jura side of the lake of Geneva, furnished, and with stabling (for me at least) for eight horses. I "You know very well that I did not approve o shall bring Allegra with me. Could you assist me or Keats's poetry, or principles of poetry, or of his abuse Hentsch in his researches? The Gambas are at Flo- of Pope; but, as he is dead, omit all that is said abon rence, but have authorized me to treat for them. You him in any MSS. of mine, or publication. His Hype know, or do not know, that they are great patriots-and rion is a fine monument, and will keep his name. both-but the son in particular-very fine fellows. This do not envy the man who wrote the article I know, for I have seen them lately in very awkward view-people have no more right to kill than any other situations-not pecuniary, but personal-and they be- footpads. However, he who would die of an article in a haved like heroes, neither yielding nor retracting. Review would probably have died of something esse "You have no idea what a state of oppression this equally trivial. The same thing nearly happened to Kike country is in-they arrested above a thousand of high and White, who died afterward of a consumption." ow throughout Romagna-banished some and confined others, without trial, process, or even accusation!! Every body says they would have done the same by me if they dared proceed openly. My motive, however, for remaining, is because every one of my acquaintance, to the amount of hundreds almost, have been exiled. "Will you do what you can in looking out for a couple of houses furnished, and conferring with Hentsch for us? We care nothing about society, and are only anxious for a temporary and tranquil asylum and individual freedom. "Believe me, &c. LETTER DX. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, August 2, 1821. "I had certainly answered your last letter, though but briefly, to the part to which you refer, merely saying, 'damn the controversy; and quoting some verses of "P. S. Can you give me an idea of the comparative George Colman's, not as allusive to you, but to the disexpenses of Switzerland and Italy? which I have for- putants. Did you receive this letter? It imports mo gotten. I speak merely of those of decent living, horses, to know that our letters are not intercepted or mislaid. 'Your Berlin drama* is an honour, unknown since the &c. and not of luxuries or high living. Do not, however, decide any thing positively till I have your answer, as I can then know how to think upon these topics of transmigration, &c. &c. &c." LETTER DIX. TO MR. MURRAY. days of Elkanah Settle, whose 'Emperor of Morocco was represented by the Court ladies, which was, as Johnson says, 'the last blast of inflammation' to poor Dryden, who could not bear it, and fell foul of Settle without mercy or moderation, on account of that and a frontispiece, which he dared to put before his play. "Was not your showing the Memoranda to ✶ ✶ somewhat perilous? Is there not a facetious allusion or two which might as well be reserved for posterity? "I know Schegel well-that is to say, I have met him occasionally at Copet. Is he not also touched lightly in the Memoranda? In a review of Childe Harold, Canto 4th, three years ago, in Blackwood's Magazine, they quote some stanzas of an elegy of Schegel's on Rome, from which they say that I might have taken some ideas. I give you my honour that I never saw it except in that criticism, which gives, I think, three or four stanzas, sent them (they say) for the nonce by a correspondent-perhaps himself. The fact is easily proved; for I don't understand German and there was, I believe, no translation—at least, it was the first time that I ever heard of, or saw, either transla "Ravenna, July 30, 1821. "Enclosed is the best account of the Doge Faliero, which was only sent to me from an old MS. the other day. Get it translated, and append it as a note to the next edition. You will perhaps be pleased to see that my conceptions of his character were correct, though I regret not having met with this extract before. You will perceive that he himself said exactly what he is made to say about the Bishop of Treviso. You will see also that 'he spoke very little, and those only words of rage and disdain,' after his arrest, which is the case in the play, except when he breaks out at the close of Act Fifth. But his speech to the conspirators is better in the MS. than in the play. Ition or original. wish that I had met with it in time. Do not forget this note, with a translation. "In a former note to the Juans, speaking of Voltaire, I have quoted his famous 'Zaire, tu pleures,' which is an error; it should be 'Zaire,* vous pleurez.' Recollect this. "I am so busy here about those poor proscribed exiles, who are scattered about, and with trying to get some of them recalled, that I have hardly time or patience to write a short preface, which will be proper for the two plays. However, I will make it out on receiving the next proofs. "Yours ever, &c. "I remember having some talk with Schegel about Alfieri, whose merit he denies. He was also wroth about the Edinburgh Review of Goethe, which was sharp enough, to be sure. He went about saying, too, of the French-'I meditate a terrible vengeance against the French-I will prove that Moliere is no poet.' * * "I don't see why you should talk of 'declining.' When I saw you, you looked thinner, and yet younger, than you did when we parted several years before. You may rely upon this as fact. If it were not, I should say nothing for I would rather not say unpleasant personal things to *P. S. Please to append the letter about the Hellespont any one-but, as it was the pleasant truth, I tell it you as a note to your next opportunity of the verses on Lean- If you had led my life, indeed, changing climates and conier, &c. &c. &c. in Childe Harold. Don't forget it amid nexions-thinning yourself with fasting and purgativesyour multitudinous avocations, which I think of celebrating besides the wear and tear of the vulture passions, and a in a Dithyrambic Ode to Albemarle-street. very bad temper besides, you might talk in this way-but "Are you aware that Shelly has written an Elegy on you! I know no man who looks so well for his years, or Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him? who deserves to look better and to be better, in all respects. You are a * * *, and, what is perhaps better fct There had been, a short time before, performed at the Court of Berlin, a spectacle founded on the Peor of Lalla Rookh, in which the present Emperor of Russia personated Feramorz and ae Empres Lalla Rookh. your friends, a good fellow. So, don't talk of decay, but put in for eighty, as you well may. "I am, at present, occupied principally about these unhappy proscriptions and exiles, which have taken place here on account of politics. It has been a miserable sight to see the general desolation in families. I am doing what I can for them, high and low, by such interest and means as I possess or can bring to bear. There have oeen thousands of these proscriptions within the last month in the Exarchate, or (to speak modernly) the Legations. Yesterday, too, a man got his back broken, in extricating a dog of mine from under a mill-wheel. The dog was killed, and the man is in the greatest danger. I was not present-it happened before I was up, owing to a stupid boy taking the dog to bathe in a dangerous spot. I must, of course, provide for the poor fellow while he lives, and his family, if he dies. I would gladly have given a much greater sum than that will come to that he had never been hurt. Pray, let me hear from you, and cxcuse haste and hot weather. "Yours, &c. * "You must also have from Mr. Moore the correspondence between me and Lady Byron, to whom I offered the sight of all which regards herself in these papers. This is important. He has her letter, and a copy of my answer. I would rather Moore edited me than another. "I sent you Valpy's letter to decide for yourself, and Stockdale's to amuse you. I am always loyal with you as I was in Galignani's affair, and you with mee-now and then. "I return you Moore's letter, which is very creditable to him, and you, and me. "Yours ever." LETTER DXII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, August 16, 1821. "I regret that Holmes can't or won't come: it is rather shabby, as I was always very civil and punctual with him. But he is but one * more. One meets with none else among the English. "I wait the proofs of the MSS. with proper impa "You may have probably seen all sorts of attacks upon tience. me in some gazettes in England some months ago. I only saw them, by Murray's bounty, the other day. They call me 'Plagiary,' and what not. I think I now, in my time, have been accused of every thing. "I have not given you details of little events here; but they have been trying to make me out to be the chief of a conspiracy, and nothing but their want of proofs for an English investigation has stopped them. Had it been a poor native, the suspicion were enough, as it has been for hundreds. Why don't you write on Napoleon? I have no spirits, nor estro' to do so. His overthrow, from the beginning, was a blow on the head to me. Since that period, we have been the slaves of fools. Excuse this long letter. Ecco a translation literal of a French epigram. "Egle, beauty and poet, has too little crimes, She makes her own face, and does not make her rhymes. "I am going to ride, having been warned not to ride in a particular part of the forest, on account of the ultrapoliticians. "Is there no chance of your return to England, and of our Journal? I would have published the two plays in it -two or three scenes per number-and, indeed, all of ine in it. If you went to England, I would do so still." "So you have published, or mean to publish, the new Juans? Ar' n't you afriad of the Constitutional Assas sination of Bridge-street? When first I saw the name of Murray I thought it had been yours; but was solaced by seeing that your synonyme is an attorneo, and that you are not one of that atrocious crew. "I am in a great discomfort about the probable war, and with my trustees not getting me out of the funds. If the funds break, it is my intention to go upon the highway. All the other English professions are at present so ungentlemanly by the conduct of those who follow them, that open robbing is the only fair resource left to a man of any principles; it is even honest, in comparison, by being undisguised. "I wrote to you by last post, to say that you had done the handsome thing by Moore and the Memoranda. You are very good as times go, and would probably be still better but for the march of events,' (as Napoleon called it,) which won't permit any body to be better than they should be. "Love to Gifford. Believe me, &c. "P. S. I restore Smith's letter, whom thank for his good opinion. Is the bust by Thorwaldsen arrived ?” LETTER DXI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, August 10, 1821. LETTER DXII. TO MR. MURRAY, "Ravenna, August 23, 1821. Enclosed are the two acts corrected. With regard to the charges about the shipwreck, I think that I "Your conduct to Mr. Moore is certainly very hand-told both you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there some; and I would not say so if I could help it, for you was not a single circumstance of it not taken from fact; are not at present by any means in my good graces. not, indeed, from any single shipwreck, but all from actual "With regard to additions, &c. there is a Journal which facts of different wrecks. Almost all Don Juan is real life, I kept in 1814 which you may ask him for; also a Jour- either of my own, or from people I knew. By-the-way, nal which you must get from Mrs. Leigh, of my journey much of the description of the furniture, in Canto Third, in the Alps, which contains all the germs of Manfred. I is taken from Tully's Tripoli, (pray note this,) and the rest have also kept a small Diary here for a few months last from my own observation. Remember, I never meant to winter, which I would send you, and any continuation. conceal this at all, and have only not stated it, because You would find easy access to all my papers and letters, Don Juan had no preface nor name to it. If you think and do not neglect this (in case of accidents,) on account it worth while to make this statement, do so in your own of the mass of confusion in which they are; for out of way. I laugh at such charges, convinced that no writer that chaos of papers you will find some curious ones of ever borrowed less, or made his materials more his own.j mme and others, if not lost or destroyed. If circum-Much is coincidence: for instance, Lady Morgan (in a stances, however (which is almost impossible,) made me really excellent book, I assure you, on Italy) calls Venice an ever consent to a publication in my lifetime, you would in ocean Rome: I have the very same expression in Foscari, that case, I suppose, make Moore some advance, in pro- and yet you know that the play was written months ago, portion to the likelihood or non-likelihood of success. You! are both sure to survive rne, however. • Some critics had accused him of plagiarism. † See Appendix to the "Two Fuscari." and sent to England: the 'Italy' I received only on the just sent him the following answer to a proposition of 16th inst. "Your friend, like the public, is not aware, that my dramatic simplicity is studiously Greek, and must continue so: o reform ever succeeded at first. I admire the old English dramatists; but this is quite another field, and has nothing to do with theirs. I want to make a regular English drama, no matter whether for the stage or not, which is not my object,-but a mental theatre. P.S. Can't accept your courteous offer. "For Orford and for Waldegrave "Because if a live dog, 't is said, A live lord must be worth two dead, "And if, as the opinion goes, Verse hath a better sale than prose- But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd, "Yours. his: "For Orford and for Waldegrave, &c. "The argument of the above is, that he wanted to stint me of my sizings,' as Lear says-that is to say, not to propose an extravagant price for an extravagant poem, as is becoming. Pray take his guineas by all means-1 taught him that. He made me a filthy offer of pounds once, but I told him that, like physicians, poets must be dealt with in guineas, as being the only advantage poets could have in the association with them, as votaries of Apollo. I write to you in hurry and bustle, which I will expound in my next. "Yours, ever, &c. "P. S. You mention something of an attorney on his way to me on legal business. I have had no warning of such an apparition. What can the fellow want? I have some lawsuits and business, but have not heard of any thing to put me to the expense of a travelling lawyer They do enough, in that way, at home. "Ah, poor Queen! but perhaps it is for the best, if Herodotus's anecdote is to be believed * LETTER DXV. TO MR. MURRAY. These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as, 'heavy season-flat public'-'don't go off-lordship writes "Ravenna, August 31, 1821. too much'-'won't take advice'-'declining popularity'- "I have received the Juans, which are printed so carededuction for the trade'-'make very little' generally lessly, especially the fifth canto, as to be disgraceful to me, lose by him-pirated edition-foreign edition-severe and not creditable to you. It really must be gone over criticisms,' &c., with other hints and howls for an oration, again with the manuscript, the errors are so gross ;which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer. words added-changed-so as to make cacophony and "You can also state them more freely to a third per-nonsense. You have been careless of this poem because son, as between you and me they could only produce some of your squad don't approve of it; but I tell you some smart postscripts, which would not adorn our mu-that it will be long before you see any thing half so good tual archives. "I am sorry for the Queen, and that's more than you are." LETTER DXIV. TO MR. MOORE. as poetry or writing. Upon what principle have you "And do not link two virtuous souls for life "Now, I must say, once for all, that I will not permit any human being to take such liberties with my writings because I am absent. I desire the omissions to be replaced (except the stanza on Semiramis,)-particularly the stanza upon the Turkish marriages; and I request that the whole be carefully gone over with the MS. "Ravenna, August 24, 1821. Yours of the 5th only yesterday, while I had letters of the 8th from London. Doth the post dabble into our letters? Whatever agreeinent you make with Murray, "I never saw such stuff as is printed;-Gulleyaz inif satisfactory to you, must be so to me. There need be stead of Gulbeyaz, &c. Are you aware that Gulbeyaz no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon is a real name and the other nonsense? I copied the to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian him-cantos out carefully, so that there is no excuse, as the seif, (Shakspeare, to wit)-that, like a Spartan, I would printer read, or at least prints, the MS. of the plays withsell my life as dearly as possible'-it never was my inten-out error. tion to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to be- "If you have no feeling for your own reputation, pray queath it to a friend-yourself-in the event of survivor- have some little for mine. I have read over the poem ship. I anticipated that period, because we happened to carefully, and I tell you, it is poetry. Your little envious meet, and I urged you to make what was possible now by knot of parson-poets may say what they please: tiine it, for reasons which are obvious. It has been no possi-will show that I am not in this instance mistaken. ble privation to me, and therefore does not require the "Desire my friend Hobhouse to correct the press, acknowledgments you mention. So, for God's sake, do n't especially of the last canto, from the manuscript as it is. consider it like * It is enough to drive one out of one's reason to see the "By-the-way, when you write to Lady Morgan, will infernal torture of words from the original. For instance you thank her for her handsome speeches in her book the lineabout my books? I do not know her address. Her work is fearless and excellent on the subject of Italy-pray tell her so and I know the country. I wish she had fallen in with me, I could have told her a thing or two that would have confirmed her positions. * * * * "I am glad that you are satisfied with Murray, who seems to value dead lords more than live ones. I havel "And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her dovesis printed "And praise their rhymes, &c. Also 'precarious' for 'precocious; and this line, stanza 133, "And this strong extreme effect to tire no longer. • Corrected in this edition. LETTERS, 1821. Now do turn to the manuscript and see if I ever wrote such a line; it is not verse. "No wonder the poem should fail, (which, however, it won't you will see,) with such things allowed to creep about it. Replace what is omitted, and correct what is so shamefully misprinted, and let the poem have fair play; and I fear nothing. ་ pages, of a prose story "A few hours afterward we were very good friends, I see in the last two numbers of the Quarterly a and a few days after she set out for Arragon, with my strong itching to assail me, (see the review of The Eto-son, on a visit to her father and mother. I did not acnian;') let it, and see if they sha'n't have enough of it. I company her immediately, having been in Arragon before, do not allude to Gifford, who has always been my friend, but was to join the family in their Moorish chateau within and whom I do not consider as responsible for the articles a few weeks. written by others. "You will publish the plays when ready. I am in such a humour about this printing of Don Juan so inaccurately that I must close this. "Yours. "P. S. I presume that you have not lost the stanza to which I allude? It was sent afterward: look over my letters and find it." LETTER DXVI.* TO MR. MURRAY. * * "During her journey I received a very affectionate of herself and my son. On her arrival at the chateau, I letter from Donna Josepha, apprizing me of the welfare received another still more affectionate, pressing me, in very fond, and rather foolish terms, to join her immedi received a third-this was from her father, Don Jose di ately. As I was preparing to set out from Seville, I Cardozo, who requested me, in the politest manner, to dissolve my marriage. I answered him with equal politeness, that I would do no such thing. A fourth letter arrived-it was from Donna Josepha, in which she informed me that her father's letter was written by her particular desire. I requested the reason by return of post-she replied, by express, that as reason had nothing to do with the matter, it was unnecessary to give anybut that she was an injured and excellent woman. I then inquired why she had written to me the two preceding affectionate letters, requesting me to come to Arragon. She answered, that was because she believed me out of my senses-that, being unfit to take care of myself, I had without difficulty to Don Jose di Cardozo's, I should there only to set out on this journey alone, and make my way have found the tenderest of wives and-a straight waist "The enclosed letter is written in bad humour, but not without provocation. However, let it (that is, the bad hormour) go for little; but I must request your serious attention to the abuses of the printer, which ought never to have been permitted. You forget that all the fools in London (the chief purchasers of your publications) will condemn in me the stupidity of your printer. For instance, in the notes to Canto Fifth, the Adriatic shore of the Bosphorus' instead of the Asiatic!! All this may seem your ministerial little to you, so fine a gentleman with I connexions, but it is serious to me, who am thousands of miles off, and have no opportunity of not proving myself the fool your printer makes me, except your pleasure and leisure, forsooth. The gods prosper you, and forgive you, for I can't." * * * LETTER DXVII. TO MR. MOORE. * * "Ravenna, Sept. 3, 1821. By Mr. Mawman, (a paymaster in the corps, in which you and I are privates,) I yesterday expedited to your address, under cover one, two paper-books, containing the It won't all do-even Giaour-nal, and a thing or two. for the posthumous public-but extracts from it may. It is a brief and faithful chronicle of a month or so--parts of it not very discreet, but sufficiently sincere. Mr. Mawman saith that he will, in person or per friend, have it delivered to you in your Elysian fields. coat. "I had nothing to reply to this piece of affection but a was answered that they would only be related to the reiteration of my request for some lights upon the subject. had become a public topic of discussion; and the world, Inquisition. In the mean time, our domestic discrepancy which always decides justly, not only in Arragon but in Andalusia, determined that I was not only to blame, but that all Spain could produce nobody so blameable. My case was supposed to comprise all the crimes which could, and several which could not, be committed, and little less than an auto-da-fé was anticipated as the result. But let no man say that we are abandoned by our friends in adversity-it was just the reverse. Mine thronged around me to condenm, advise, and console me with their disapprobation.-They told me all that was, would, or could be said on the subject. They shook their heads-they exhorted me-deplored me, with tears in their eyes, and— went to dinner "Ravenna, Sept. 4, 1821. "If you have got the new Juans, recollect that there are some very gross printer's blunders, particularly in the "By Saturday's post, I sent you a fierce and furibund Fifth Canto, such as 'praise' for 'pair-' precarious' for 'precocious' Adriatic' for 'Asiatic-case' for 'chase-letter upon the subject of the printer's blunders in Don besides gifts of additional words and syllables, which make but a cacophonous rhythmus. Put the pen through the said, as I would mine through Murray's ears if I were alongside of him. As it is, I have sent him a rattling letter, as abusive as possible. Though he is publisher to the 'Board of Longitude,' he is in no danger of discovering it. Juan. I must solicit your attention to the topic, though a friend of yours, my wrath hath subsided into sullenness. "Yesterday I received Mr. and because he is a friend of yours; and that's more than I would do in an English case, except for those whom I honour. I was as civil as I could be among packages even to the very chairs and tables, for I am going to Pisa in a few weeks, and have sent and am sending off my chattels. It regretted me that, my books and every thing being packed, I could not send you a few things I meant [One of the paper-books" mentioned in this letter as for you; but they were all sealed and baggaged, so as to "I am packing for Pisa-but direct your letters here, till farther notice. "Yours ever, • Written in the envelope of the preceding Letter. &c." have made it a month's work to get at them agavi. I gave him an envelope, with the Italian scrap in it,* allud-side of you; nothing is ever done in a man's absence; ed to in my Gilchrist defence. Hobhouse will make it every body runs counter, because they can. If ever I sut for you, and it will make you laugh, and him too, the do return to England, (which I sha'n't, though,) I will pelling particularly. The 'Mericani, of whom they call write a poem to which English Bards,' &c. shall be now me the 'Capo,' (or Chief,) mean 'Americans,' which is milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of the name given in Romagna to a part of the Carbonari; mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar. But I that is to say, to the popular part, the troops of the Carbo- am not yet quite bilious enough: a season or two more, nari. They are originally a society of hunters in the and a provocation or two, will wind me up to the point, forest, who took the name of Americans, but at present and then have at the whole set! comprise some thousands, &c.; but I sha' n't let you far- "I have no patience with the sort of trash you send me ther into the secret, which may be participated with the out by way of books; except Scott's novels, and three or postmasters. Why they thought me their Chief, I know four other things, I never saw such work, or works. Campcot: their Chiefs are like 'Legion, being many. How-bell is lecturing-Moore idling-Southey twaddlingever, it is a post of more honour than profit, for, now that Wordsworth drivelling-Coleridge muddling-✶ ✶ pidthey are persecuted, it is fit that I should aid them; and dling-Bowles quibbling, squabbling, and snivelling. so I have done, as far as my means would permit. They ** will do, if he do n't cant too much, nor imitate Southey; will rise again some day, for these fools of the government the fellow has poesy in him; but he is envious and unhappy, are blundering: they actually seem to know nothing, for as all the envious are. Still he is among the best of the they have arrested and banished many of their own party, day. Barry Cornwall will do better by-and-by, I dare say, and let others escape who are not their friends. if he don't get spoiled by green tea, and the praises of Pen"What think'st thou of Greece? tonville and Paradise-row. The pity of these men is, that "Address to me here as usual, till you hear farther from they never lived in high life, nor in solitude: there is no medium for the knowledge of the busy or the still world. If admitted into high life for a season, it is merely as spectators-they form no part of the mechanism thereof. Now, Moore and I, the one by circumstances, and the other by birth, happened to be free of the corporation, and to have entered into its pulses and passions, quarum partes fuimus. Both of us have learned by this much which nothing else could have taught us. me. "By Mawman I have sent a Journal to Moore; but it won't do for the public,-at least a great deal of it won't; -parts may. "I read over the Juans, which are excellent. Your squad are quite wrong; and so you will find by-and-by. I regret that I do not go on with it, for I had all the plan for several cantos, and different countries and climes. You say nothing of the note I enclosed to you, which will explain why I agreed to discontinue it, (at Madame Guiccioli's request;) but you are so grand, and sublime, and occupied, that one would think, instead of publishing for 'the Board of Longitude,' that you were trying to dis cover it. "Let me hear that Gifford is better. He can't be spared either by you or me." "Yours. "P.S. I saw one of your brethren, another of the allied sovereigns of Grub-street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due homage to your imperial seif To-morrow's post may perhaps bring a letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of corre spondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers. Some day I will give you a poetical catalogue of them." LETTER DXIX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, Sept. 12, 1821. "By Tuesday's post, I forwarded, in three packets, the drama of Cain in three acts, of which I request the acknowledgment when arrived. To the last speech of Eve, in the last act, (i. e. where she curses Cain,) add these three lines to the concluding ones "May the grass wither from thy foot! the woods Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust A grave! the sun his light! and Heaven her God! LETTER DXX. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, Sept. 17, 1821. "The enclosed lines,* as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course it is for him to deny them if they are not. "Believe me yours ever and most affectionately, "B. "P. S. Can you forgive this? It is only a reply to your lines against my Italians. Of course I will stand by my There's as pretty a piece of imprecation for you, things in a people as the reception of that unredeemed lines against all men; but it is heart-breaking to see such when joined to the lines already sent, as you may wish✶✶✶✶✶✶ in an oppressed country. Your apotheosis is to meet with in the course of your business. But don't forget the addition of the above three lines, which are tude to Grattan is cancelled by their atrocious adulation of now reduced to a level with his welcome, and their grati clinchers to Eve's speech. "Let me know what Gifford thinks, (if the play arrives this, &c. &c. &c.” in safety;) for I have a good opinion of the piece, as poetry; it is in my gay metaphysical style, and in the Manfred line. LETTER DXXI. TO MR. MOORE. "You must at least commend my facility and variety, when you consider what I have done within the last fifteen months, with my head, too, full of other and of mundane "Ravenna, Sept. 19, 1821. matters. But no doubt you will avoid saying any good "I am in all the sweat, dust, and blasphemy of a uniof it, for fear I should raise the price upon you: that's versal packing of all my things, furniture, &c. for Pisa, right: stick to business. Let me know what your other whether I go for the winter. The cause has been the ragamuffins are writing, for I suppose you do n't like start-exile of all my fellow Carbonics, and, among them, of the mg too many of your vagabonds at once. You may give them the start for any thing I care. Why don't you publish my Pulci-the very best thing I over wrote, with the Italian to 't? I wish I was along "The Irish Avatar," Poems, p. 485. In this copy the following sen tence (taken from a Letter of Curran, in the able Life of that true Irish man, by his son) is prefixed as a motto to the Poem-" And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider.-Letter of Curran, Life, vol. ii. page 335. At the end of the verses are there words • An anonymous letter which he had received, threatening him with" (Signed) W. L. B, M. A., and written with a view to a Bishopassassination. rick-Moore. |