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LETTERS, 1817.

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bow before it. The opera and its sirens were much like other operas and women, but the subject of the said overa "Venice, Dec. 9, 1816. was something edifying; it turned-the plot and conduct "In a letter from England, I am informed that a man fifty married ladies having poisoned a hun tred and fifty thereof-upon a fact narrated by Livy of a hundred and named Johnson has taken upon himself to publish some husbands in good old times. The bachelors of Rome bepoems called a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a Tempest, and lieved this extraordinary mortality to be merely the com an Address to my Daughter,' &c. and to attribute them to mon effect of matrimony or a pestilence; but the surviving me, adding that he had paid five hundred guineas for them. Benedicts, being all seized with the colic, examined in The answer to this is short: I never wrote such poems, never the matter, and found that 'their possets had been drugged received the sum he mentims, nor any other in the same the consequence of which was, much scandal and severa! quarter, nor (as ar as moral or mortal certainty can be suits at law. This is really and truly the subject of the sure,) ever had, directly or indirectly, the slightest communi-musical piece at the Fenice; and you can't conceive what cation with Johnson in my life; not being aware that the person existed till this intelligence gave me to understand strage. The conclusion was a lady's head about to be pretty things are sung and recitativoed about the horrenda that there were such people. Nothing surprises me, or chopped off by a lictor, but (I am sorry to say) he left it this perhaps would, and most things amuse me, or this probably would not. With regard to myself, the man has on, and she got up and sung a trio with the two Consuls, merely lied; that's natural-his betters have set him the was distinguished by nothing remarkable, except that the the Senate in the back ground being chorus. The ballet example: but with regard to you, his assertion may per-principal she-dancer went into convulsions because she haps injure you in your publications; and I desire that it was not applauded on her first appearance; and the manamay receive the most public and unqualified contradiction.ger came forward to ask if there was 'ever a physician in I do not know that there is any punishment for a thing of the theatre.' There was a Greek one in my box, whom I this kind, and if there were, I should not feel disposed to wished very much to volunteer his services, being sure that pursue this ingenious mountebank farther than was ne- in this case these would have been the last convulsions cessary for his confutation; but thus far it may be neces- which would have troubled the ballarina; but he would sary to proceed. You will make what use you please of this letter; and a lady under my arm, I was obliged, in making way, almost not. The crowd was enormous, and in coming out, having Mr. Kinnaird, who has power to act for me in my absence, to beat a Venetian, and traduce the state, being comwill, I am sure, readily join you in any steps which it may pelled to regale a person with an English punch in the proper to take with regard to the absurd falsehood of this poor creature. As you will have recently received several letters from me on my way to Venice, as well as two written since my arrival, I will not at present trouble you farther. "P. S. Pray let me hear that you have received this "Ever, &c. letter. Address to Venice, poste restante.

"Yesterday, being the feast of St. Stephen, every mouth was put in motion. There was nothing but fiddling and paying on the virginals, and all kinds of conceits and divertisements, on every canal of this aquatic city. I dined with the Countess Albrizza and a Paduan and Venetian party, "Venice, Jan. 2, 1817. and afterward went to the opera, at the Fenice theatre Canto, have you omitted any passages? I hope not; and "Your letter has arrived. Pray, in publishing the Third (which opens for the Carnival on that day,)-the finest, indeed wrote to you on my way over the Alps to prevent by-the-way, I have ever seen: it beats our theatres hollow such an incident. Say in your next whether or not the m beauty and scenery, and those of Milan and Brescia whole of the Canto (as sent to you) has been published. I

wrote to you again the other day (twice, I think,) and shaii be glad to hear of the reception of those letters.

To-day is the 2d of January. On this day three years ago the Corsair's publication is dated, I think, in my letter to Moore. On this day two years I married ('Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,'-I sha'n't forget the day in a hurry,) and it is odd enough that I this day received a letter from you announcing the publication of Childe Harold, &c. &c. on the day of the date of the 'Corsair; and I also received one from my sister, written on the 10th of December, my daughter's birth-day (and relative chiefly to my daughter,) and arriving on the day of the date of my marriage, this present 2d of January, the month of my birth,and various other astrologous matters, which I have no time tc enumerate.

circumstances, such as the marriage being recent, &c. &c. &c., that this is the premier pas. It does not much signify. "In another sheet, I send you some sheets of a graminar, English and Armenian, for the use of the Armenians, of which I promoted, and indeed induced, the publication. (It cost me but a thousand francs--French livres.) I stil pursue my lessons in the language without any rapid progress, but advancing a little daily. Padre Paschal, with some little help from me, as translator of his Italian into English, is also proceeding in a MS. Grammar for the English acquisition of Armenian, which will be printed also when finished.

"We want to know if there are any Armenian types and letter-press in England, at Oxford, Cambridge, or else. where? You know, I suppose, that, many years ago, the two Whistons published in England an original text of a history of Armenia, with their own Latin translation? Do those types still exist? and where? Pray inquire among your learned acquaintance.

"By-the-way, you might as well write to Hentsch, my Geneva banker, and inquire whether the two packets consigned to his care were or were not delivered to Mr. St. Aubyn, or if they are still in his keeping. One contains papers, letters, and all the original MS.* of your Third "When this Grammar (I mean the one now printing) Canto, as first conceived; and the other some bones from is done, will you have any objection to take forty or fifty the field of Morat. Many thanks for your news, and the copies, which will not cost in all above five or ten guineas, good spirits in which your letter is written. and try the curiosity of the learned with a sale of them? Say yes or no, as you like. I can assure you that they have some very curious books and MSS., chiefly transla tions from Greek originals now lost. They are, besides, a much-respected and learned community, and the study of their language was taken up with great ardour by some literary Frenchmen in Buonaparte's time.

"Venice and I agree very well; but I do not know that I have any thing new to say except of the last new opera, which I sent in my late letter. The Carnival is commencing, and there is a good deal of fun here and there besides business; for all the world are making up their intrigues for the season, changing, or going on upon a renewed lease. I am very well off with Marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me; firstly, because I do not tire of a woman personally, but because they are generally bores in their disposition; and, secondly, because she is amiable, and has a tact which is not always the portion of the fair creation; and, thirdly, she is very pretty; and, fourthly, but there is no occasion for farther specification. So far we have gone on very well; as to the future, I never anticipate, carpe diem-the past at least is one's own, which is one reason for making sure of the present. So much for my proper liaison.

"I have not done a stitch of poetry since I left Switzerland, and have not at present the estro upon me. The truth is, that you are afraid of having a Fourth Canto be fore September, and of another copyright, but I have at present no thoughts of resuming that poem, nor of beginning any other. If I write, I think of trying prose, but I dread introducing living people, or applications which migat be made to living people. Perhaps one day or other I may attempt some work of fancy in prose descriptive of Italian manners and of human passions; but at present I am preoccupied. As for poesy, mine is the dream of the sleeping passions; when they are awake, I cannot speak their language, only in their somnambulism, and just now they are not dormant.

"If Mr. Gifford wants carte blanche as to the Siege of Corinth, he has it, and may do as he likes with it.

The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges time: a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connexion, such as the Princess of Wales with her "I sent you a letter contradictory of the Cheapside man courier (who, by-the-way, is made a knight of Malta,) (who invented the story you speak of) the other day. My who are considered as overstepping the modesty of mar-best respects to Mr. Gifford, and such of my friends as riage. In Venice, the nobility have a trick of marrying with you may see at your house. I wish you all prosperity dancers and singers; and, truth to say, the women of and new year's gratulation, and am.

LETTER CCCXVI.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Yours, &c"

"Venice, Jan. 28, 1817.

their own order are by no means handsome; but the general race, the women of the second and other orders, the wives of the merchants, and proprietors, and untitled gentry, are mostly bel sangue, and it is with these that the more amatory connexions are usually formed. There are also instances of stupendous constancy. I knew a woman of fifty who never had but one lover, who dying early, she "Your letter of the 8th is before me. The remedy for became devout, renouncing all but her husband. She piques herself, as may be presumed, upon this miraculous your plethora is simple-abstinence. I was obliged to have fidelity, talking of it occasionally with a species of mis-recourse to the like some years ago, I mean in point of diet, and, with the exception of some convivial weeks and days placed morality, which is rather amusing. There is no convincing a woman here that she is in the smallest degree (it might be months now and then,) have kept to Pytha deviating from the rule of right or the fitness of things in goras ever since. For all this, let me hear that you are having an amoroso. The great sin seems to lie in concealing better. You must not indulge in 'filthy beer nor in porter, It, or having more than one, that is, unless such an exten-nor eat suppers-the last are the devil to those who swal low dinner. sion of the prerogative is understood and approved of by the prior claimant. In my case, I do not know that I had "I am truly sorry to hear of your father's misfortuneany predecessor, and am pretty sure that there is no participator; and am inclined to think, from the youth of the cruel at any time, but doubly cruel in advanced life. However, party, and from the frank, undisguised way in which every you will, at least, have the satisfaction of doing your part body avows every thing in this part of the world, when by him, and, depend upon it, it will not be in vain. Fortune, there is any thing to avow, as well as from some other to be sure, is a female, but not such a b-h as the rest

See Childe Harold. Canto Tird. Stanza 63. end note.

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(always excepting your wife and my sister from such sweeping terms;) for she generally has some justice in the long run. I have no spite against her though, between

her and Nemesis, I have had some soie gauntlets to ran-her lord and husband, and finds me with his wife fainting but then I have done my best to deserve no better. But upon a sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled to you, she is a good deal in arrear, and she will come hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smeiling bottles-and the found-mind if she don't: you have the vigour of life, of lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion. His first independence, of talent, spirit, and character, all with you. question was, 'What is all this? The lady could not reply What you can do for yourself, you have done and will do; so I did. I told him the explanation was the easiest and surely there are some others in the world who would thing in the world; but in the mean time, it would be as not be sorry to be of use, if you would allow them to be well to over his wife-at least her senses. This came useful, or at least attempt it. about in due time of suspiration and respiration.

"I think of being in England in the spring. If there is "You need not be alarmed-jealousy is not the order of a row, by the sceptre of King Ludd, but I'll be one; and the day in Venice, and daggers are out of fashion, whe if there is none, and only a continuance of this ineek, duels, on love matters, are unknown-at least, with the piping time of peace,' I will take a cottage a hundred yards husbands. But, for all this, it was an awkward affair; and to the south of your abode, and become your neighbour; though he must have known that I made love to Mariana, and we will compose such canticles, and hold such dia- yet I believe he was not, till that evening, aware of the logues, as shall be the terror of the times, (including the extent to which it had gone. It is very well known that newspaper of that name,) and the wonder, and honour, and almost all the married women have a lover; but it is usual praise of the Morning Chronicle and posterity. to keep up the forms, as in other nations. I did not, there"I rejoice to hear of your forthcoming in February-fore, know what the devil to say. I could not out with the though I tremble for the magnificence which you atrribute truth, out of regard to her, and I did not choose to lie for to the new Childe Harold. I am glad you like it; it is a my sake;-besides, the thing told itself. I thought the best fine, indistinct piece of poetical desolation, and my favour-way would be to let her explain it as she chose, (a woman ite. I was half mad during the time of its composition, being never at a loss-the Devil always sticks by them) — between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguish only determining to protect and carry her off, in case of able, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own any ferocity on the part of the Signor. I saw that he was delinquencies. I should, many a good day, have blown my quite calm. She went to bed, and next day-how they brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given settled it, I know not, but settle it they did. Well-then pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could I had to explain to Marianna about this never to be suthhave been certain to haunt her, and fling the shattered ciently confounded sister-in-law; which I did by swearing scalp of my sinciput and occiput in her frightful face-but innocence, eternal constancy, &c. &c.

I won't dwell upon these trifling family matters

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"Venice is in the estro of her Carnival, and I have been But the sister-in-law, very much discomposed with being up these last two nights at the ridotto and the opera, and treated in such wise, has (not having her own shame all that kind of thing. Now for an adventure. A few before her eyes,) told the affair to half Venice, and the days ago a gondolier brought me a billet without a sub-servants (who were summoned by the fight and the faintscription, intimating a wish on the part of the writer to ing,) to the other half. But here, nobody minds such trifles meet me either in gondola, or at the island of San Lazaro, except to be amused by them. I don't know whether you So, but I have scrawled a long letter out of these "Believe me ever, &c."

will be follies.

TO MR. MURRAY.

LETTER CCCXVII.

"Venice, Jan. 24, 1817.

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or at a third rendezvous indicated in the note. 'I know the country's disposition well,'-in Venice they do let heaven see those tricks they dare not show,' &c. &c.; so,| for all response, I said that neither of the three places suited me; but that I would either be at home at ten at night alone, or be at the ridotto at midnight, where the writer might meet me masked. At ten o'clock I was at home and alone, (Marianna was gone with her husband to a conversazione,) when the door of my apartment opened,] and in walked a well-looking and (for an Italian) bionda "I have been requested by the Countess Albrizzi here girl of about nineteen, who informed me that she was mar-to present her with 'the Works: and wish you therefore ried to the brother of iny amorosa, and wished to have some to send me a copy, that I may comply with her requisition. conversation with me. I made a decent reply, and we You may include the last published, of which I have seen had some talk in Italian and Romaic, (her mother being a and know nothing, but from your letter of the 13th of Greek of Corfu;) when, lo! in a very few minutes in December. marches, to my very great astonishment, Marianna S **, "Mrs. Leigh tells me that most of her friends prefer the in propria persona, and, after making a most polite curtsey first two Cantos. I do not know whether this be the to her sister-in-law and to me, without a single word, seizes general opinion or not, (it is not hers;) but it is natural it her said sister-in-law by the hair, and bestows upon her should be so. I, however, think differently, which is nasome sixteen slaps, which would have made your ear ache tural also; but who is right, or who is wrong, is of very only to hear their echo. I need not describe the screaming little consequence.

which ensued. The luckless visiter took flight. I seized "Dr. Polidori, as I hear from him by letter from Pisa, is Marianna, who, after several vain efforts to get away in about to return to England, to go to the Brazils on a pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and God knows what other water besides, continued so till past midnight.

medical speculation with the Danish consul. As you are in the favour of the powers that be, could you not get hum some letters of recommendation from some of your government friends to some of the Portuguese settlers? he "Alter damning my servants for letting people in without understands his profession well, and has no want of general appriz.ng me, I found that Marianna in the morning had talents; his faults are the faults of a pardonable vanity and seen her sister-in-law's gondolier on the stairs; and, sus- youth. His remaining with me was out of the question: I pecting that his apparition boded her no good, had either have enough to do to manage my own scrapes; and as returned of her own accord, or been followed by her maids precepts without example are not the most gracious homior some other spy of her people to the conversazione, from lies, I thought it better to give him his congé: but I know whence she returned to perpetrate this piece of pugilism. no great harm of him, and some good. He is clever and I had seen fits before, and also some small scenery of the accomplished; knows his profession, by all accounts, well; same genus in and out of our island; but this was not all. and is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent After about an hour, in comes-who? why, Signor S**, I think, with luck, he will turn out a useful member of

society. (from which he will lop the diseased members,) and but two or three-are Spirits of the earth and air, or the the College of Physicians. If you can be of any use to waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a kind of manim, or know any one who can, pray be so, as he has his gician, vho is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause fortune to make. He has kept a medical journal under the of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about eve of Vacca, (the first surgeon on the continent) at Pisa: invoking these Spirits, which appear to him, and are of no Vacca has corrected it, and it must contain some valuable use; he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle. ints or information on the practice of this country. If you in propria persona, to evocate a ghost, which appears, and can aki him in publishing this also, by your influence with gives him an ambiguous and disagreeable answer; and in your brethren, do; I do not ask you to publish it yourself, the third act he is found by his attendants dying in a tower because that sort of request is too personal and embarrass- where he had studied his art. You may perceive by this ing. He has also a tragedy, of which, having seen nothing, outline that I have no great opinion of this piece of phan. I say nothing: but the very circumstance of his having tasy; but I have at least rendered it quite impossible for the made these efforts (if they are only efforts,) at one-and-stage, for which my intercourse with Drury-lane has given twenty, is in his favour, and proves him to have good me the greatest contempt.

dispositions for his own improvement. So if, in the way "I have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present of commendation or recommendation, you can aid his to attempt the whole; but when I have, I will send it you, objects with your government friends, I wish you would. and you may either throw it into the fire or not " I should think some of your Admiralty Board might be likely to have it in their power."

LETTER CCCXVIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Feb. 15, 1817. "I have received your two letters, but not the parcel you mention. As the Waterloo spoils are arrived, I will make vou a present of them, if you choose to accept of them; pray do.

*I do not exactly understand from your letter what has been omitted, or what not, in the publication; but I shall see probably some day or other. I could not attribute any but a good motive to Mr. Gifford or yourself in such omission; but as our politics are so very opposite, we should probably differ as to the passages. However, if it is only a note or notes, or a line or so, it cannot signify. You say 'a poem; what poem? You can tell me in your next.

LETTER CCCXIX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Feb. 25, 1817.

"I wrote to you the other day in answer to your letter, at present, I would trouble you with a commission, if you would be kind enough to undertake it.

"You perhaps know Mr. Love, the jeweller, of Old Bond-street.-In 1813, when in the intention of returning to Turkey, I purchased of him, and paid (argent comptant) about a dozen snuff-boxes, of more or less value, as presents for soine of my Mussulman acquaintance. These I have now with me. The other day, having occasion to make an alteration in the lid of one (to place a portrait in it,) it has turned out to be silver-gilt instead of gold, for which last it was sold and paid for. This was discovered by the workman in trying it, before taking off the hinges and working upon the lid. I have of course recalled and preserved the box in statu quo. What I wish you to do is, to see the said Mr. Love, and inform him of this circumstance, adding, from me, that I will take care he shall not have done this with impunity.

"I shall carefully preserve all the purchases I made of him on that occasion for my return, as the plague in Turkey is a barrier to travelling there at present, or rather the endless quarantine which would be the consequence before one could land in coming back. Pray state the matter to him with due ferocity.

*Of Mr. Hobhouse's quarrel with the Quarterly Review, I know very little except **'s article itself, which was certainly harsh enough: but I quite agree that it would have been better not to answer-particularly after Mr. W. W. who never more will trouble you, trouble you. I "If there is no remedy in law, there is a least the equit have been uneasy, because Mr. H. told me that his letterable one of making known his guilt,—that is, his silver gilt, or preface was to be addressed to me. Now, he and I are and be d-d to him. friends of many years; I have many obligations to him, and be none to me, which have not been cancelled and more than repaid: but Mr. Gifford and I are friends also, and he has moreover been literally so, through thick and thin, n despite of difference of years, morals, habits, and even politics; and therefore I feel in a very awkward situation between the two, Mr. Gifford and my friend Hobhouse, and can only wish that they had no difference, or that such as they have were accommodated. The Answer I have not seen, for—it is odd enough for people so intimate-but Mr. Hobhouse and I are very sparing of our literary confidences. For example, the other day he wished to have a MS. of the Thi-1 Canto to read over to his brother, &c. which was refused;—and I have never seen his journals, nor he mine-(I only kept the short one of the mountains for my sister)-nor do I think that hardly ever he or I saw any of the other's productions previous to their publication. *The article in the Edinburgh Review on Coleridge I have not seen; but whether I am attacked in it or not, or in any other of the same journal, I shall never think ill of Mr. Jeffrey on that account, nor forget that his conduct towards me has been certainly most handsome during the last four or more years.

"I sent you the other day some extracts from a kind of Drama which I had begun in Switzerland and finished here; you will tell me if they are received. They were only in a letter. I have not yet had energy to copy it out, or I would send you the whole in different covers. "The carnival closed this day last week. "Mr. Hobhouse is still at Rome, I believe. I am at present a little unwell;-sitting up too late and some subsidiary dissipations have lowered my blood a good deal; but I have at present the quiet and temperance of Lent before me. "Believe me, &c."

"P. S. Remember me to Mr. Gifford.--I have not received your parcel or parcels.-Look into Moore's (D1. Moore's) View of Italy' for me; in one of the volumes you will find an account of the Doge Valiere (it ought to be Falieri) and his conspiracy, or the motives of it. Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me soon. 1 *I forgot to mention to you that a kind of poem in dia- want it, and cannot find so good an account of that business lugue* (in blank verse) or drama, from which 'The In- here; though the veiled patriot, and the place where he was cantation' is an extract, begun last summer in Switzerland, crowned, and afterward decapitated, stail exist, and aro is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, meta- shown. I have searched all their histories; but the policy physical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons-of the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his mo. tives, which were a private grievance against one of the patricians.

• Manfred.

* I mean to write a tragedy on the subject, which ap- "If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that in pears to me very dramatic: an old man, jealous, and con- is not over with me-I don't mean in literature, for that is spiring against the state, of which he was the actually nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not reigning chief. The last circumstance makes it the most think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do remarkable and only fact of the kind in all history of all something or other-the times and fortune permittingnations." that 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages. But I doubt whether my constitution will hold out. I have, at intervals, exorcised it most devilishly.

LETTER CCCXX.

TO MR. MOORE.

Venice, Feb. 28, 1817. "You will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my letters now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. I think this is the fourth within as many moons. I feel anxious to hear from you, even more than usual, because your last indicated that you were unwell. At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival-that is, the latter part of it-and sitting up late o' nights, had knocked me up a little. But it is over,-and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music.

"The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottas, &c. &c.; and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.

"So we'll go no more a rcving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,

Yet we 'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

I have lately had some news of litteratoor, as I heard the editor of the Monthly pronounce it once upon a time. I heard that W. W. has been publishing and responding to the attacks of the Quarterly, in the learned Perry's Chronicle. I read his poesies last autumn, and, among them, found an epitaph on his bull-dog, and another on myself But I beg leave to assure him (like the astrologer Partridge) that I am not only alive now, but was alive also at the time

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"Venice, March 3, 1817 "In acknowledging the arrival of the article from the 'Quarterly,'* which I received two days ago, I cannot express myself better than in the words of my sister Augusta, who (speaking of it) says, that it is written in a spirit 'of the most feeling and kind nature.' It is, however, something more: it seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to judge) to be very well written as a composition, and I think will do the journal no discredit, because even those who condemn its partiality must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and a less favourable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that, what with public opinion, politics, &c. he must be a gallant as well as a good man, who has ventured in that place, and at this time, to write such an article even anonymously. Such things are, however, their own reward, and I even flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be, (and I have no guess,) will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any other has given, and I have had a good many time of one kind or the other. It is not the mere praise, but there is a tact and a delicacy throughout, not only with regard to me, but to others, which, as it had not been observed else where, I had till now doubted whether it could be observed any where.

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Perhaps some day or other you will know or tell me the writer's name. Be assured, had the article been a harsh one, I should not have asked it.

Hobhouse has (I hear, also) expectorated a letter against the Quarterly, addressed to me. I feel awkwardly situated between him and Gifford, both being my friends. "And this is your month of going to press-by the body of Diana! (a Venetian oath,) I feel as anxious-but not "I have lately written to you frequently, with extracts, fearfu' for you-as if it were myself coming out in a work &c. which I hope you have received, or will receive, with of humour, which would, you know, be the antipodes of all or before this letter.-Ever since the conclusion of the my previous publications. I don't think you have any thing Carnival I have been unwell, (do not mention this, on any to dread but your own reputation. You must keep up to account, to Mrs. Leigh: for if I grow worse, she will know that. As you never showed me a ine of your work, I do it too soon, and if I get better, there is no occasion that not even know your measure; but you must send me a she should know it at all,) and have hardly stirred out of copy by Murray forthwith, and then you shall hear what the house. However, I don't want a physician, and if I I think. I dare say you are in a pucker. Of all authors, did, very luckily those of Italy are the worst in the world, you are the only really modest one I ever met with, which so that I should still have a chance. They have, I believe, would sound oddly enough to those who recollect your morals when you were young-that is, when you were extremely young-I don't mean to stigmatize you either with years or morality.

"I believe I told you that the Edinburgh Review had attacked me, in an article on Coleridge (I have not seen it)-Et tu, Jeffrey ?-there is nothing but roguery in villanous man.'--But I absolve him of all attacks, present and future; for I think he had already pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and I shall always think well of him. I only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic destruction was a fine opening for all the world, of which all, who could, did well to avail themselves.

one famous surgeon, Vacca, who lives at Pisa, who might be useful in case of dissection:-but he is some hundred miles off. My malady is a sort of lowish fever, originating from what my pastor and master,' Jackson, would call taking too much out of one's self.' However, I am bettca within this day or two.

"I missed seeing the new Patriarch's procession to St Mark's the other day, (owing to my indisposition,) with six hundred and fifiv priests in his rear-a 'goodly army. The admirable government of Vienna, in its edict froin

• An article in number 31 of this Review, written, as Lord Byron after ward discovered, by Sir Walter Scott.

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