and have no correspondents, except on business) the state easily found; I forget the number, but am probably the of the reception of our late publications, and the feeling only person in Venice who don't know it. There is no upon them, without consulting any delicacies, (I am too comparison between him and any of the other medical seasoned to require them,) I should know how and in what people here. I regret very much to hear of your indispomanner to proceed. I should not like to give them too sition, and shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you much, which may probably have been the case already; the moment I am up. I write this in bed, and have only but, as I tell you, I know nothing. just received the letter and note. I beg you to believe that nothing but the extreme lateness of my hours could have prevented me from replying immediately, or coming in person. I have not been called a minute.--I have the honour to be, very truly, "Your most obedient servant, "BYRON"

"I once wrote from the fulness of my mind and the love of fame, (not as an end, but as a means, to obtain that Influence over men's minds which is power in itself and in its consequences,) and now from habit and from avarice; so that the effect may probably be as different as the inspiration. I have the same facility and indeed necessity, of composition, to avoid idleness, (though idleness in a hot country is a pleasure,) but a much greater indifference to what is to become of it, after it has served my immediate purpose. However, I should on no account like tobut I won't go on, like the archbishop of Granada, as I am very sure that you dread the fate of Gil Blas, and with good reason. "Yours, &c.

“P. S: I have written some very savage letters to Mr. Hobhouse, Kinnaird, to you, and to Hanson, because the silence of so long a time made me tear off my remaining rags of patience. I have seen one or two late English publications which are no great things, except Rob Roy. I shall be glad of Whistlecraft."

LETTER CCCLXXIX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice. Aug. 26, 1818.

LETTER CCCLXXXI.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, Sept. 19. 1818. an opposition one a monster; and, except some extracts "An English newspaper here would be a prodigy, and from extracts in the vile, garbled Paris gazettes, nothing of the kind reaches the Veneto-Lombard public, who are perhaps the most oppressed in Europe. My correspondences with England are mostly on business, and chiefly with my Solicitor, Mr. Hanson, who has no very exalted notion, or extensive conception, of an author's attributes; for he once took up an Edinburgh Review, and, looking at it a minute, said to me," So, I see you have got into the magazine, which is the only sentence I ever heard him utter upon literary matters, or the inen thereof.

"You may go on with your edition, without calculating quently, been from yourself. But, as it will not be forgotten "My first news of your Irish apotheosis has, conse on the Memoir, which I shall not publish at present. It is in a hurry, either by your friends or your enemies, I hope nearly finished, but will be too long; and there are so many to have it more in detail from some of the former, and, in things, which, out of regard to the living, cannot be men- the mean time, I wish you joy with all my heart. Such a tioned, that I have written with too much detail of that which interested me least; so that my autobiographical minster-Abbey,-besides being an assurance of that one moment must have been a good deal better than WestEssay would resemble the tragedy of Hamlet at the country theatre, recited with the part of Hamlet left day (many years hence, I trust) into the bargain. out by particular desire.' I shall keep it among my letter, that even you have not escaped the 'surgit amari "I am sorry to perceive, however, by the close of your papers; it will be a kind of guide-post in case of death, &c. and that your damned deputy has been gathering such and prevent some of the lies which would otherwise bedew from the still vext Bermoothes'—or rather vexatious. told, and destroy some which have been told already. "The Tales also are in an unfinished state, and I can serious one; and, if it grows more so, you should make a Pray, give me some items of the affair, as you say it is a fix no time for their completion: they are also not in the trip over here for a few months, to see how things turn best manner. You must not, therefore, calculate upon out. I suppose you are a violent admirer of England by any thing in time for this edition. The memoir is already your staying so long in it. For my own part, I have passed above forty-four sheets of very large, long paper, and will between the age of one-and-twenty and thirty, half the inbe about fifty or sixty; but I wish to go on leisurely; and tervenient years out of it without regretting any thing, ex when finished, although it might do a good deal for you at cept that I ever returned to it at all, and the gloomy prosthe time, I am not sure that it would serve any good pur-pect before me of business and parentage obliging me, one pose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and day, to return again,—at least, for the transaction of affairs, prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep the signing of papers, and inspecting of children. clear: I have not the patience.

"I have here my natural daughter, by name Allegra,—a Her pretty little girl enough, and reckoned like papa. end. She is about twenty months old. mamma is English,-but it is a long story, and-there's an

*

*

*

It is called

"Enclosed is a list of books which Dr. Aglietti would be glad to receive by way of price for his MS. letters, if you are disposed to purchase at the rate of fifty pounds sterling. These he will be glad to have as part, and the "I have finished the First Canto, (a long one, of about rest I will ave him in money, and you may carry it to 180 octaves,) of a poem in the style and manner of 'Beppo, the account of books, &c. which is in ballance against me encouraged by the good success of the same. deducing it accordingly. So that the letters are yours, if Don Juan,' and is meant to be a little quietly facetious you like them, at any rate; and he and I are going to hunt for more Lady Montague letters, which he thinks of upon every thing. But I doubt whether it is not-at least, finding. I write in haste. Thanks for the article, and as far as it has yet gone-too free for these very modest believe me, days. However, I shall try the experiment, anonymously "Yours, &c." and if it do n't take, it will be discontinued. It is dedicated to Southey in good, simple, savage verse, upon the ****'s poles, and the way he got them. But the bore of copying it out is intolerable; and if I had an amanuensis he would be of no use, as my writing is so difficult to decipher. "My poem's Epic, and is meant to be

LETTER CCCLXXX.

"DEAR SIR.

TO CAPT. BASIL HALL.

"Venice, Aug. 31, 1818.

"Dr. Aglietti is the best physician, not only in Venice, ont in Italy: his residence is on the Grand Canal, anil

Divided in twelve books, each book containing,

The dedication to Scathey was suppressed

and not 'lost,' which is nonsense, as what losing a scale
means, I know not; but leaving an unbalanced scale, or
scale unbalanced, is intelligible. Correct this, I pray, not
for the public, or the pootry, but I do not choose to have
blunders made in addressing any of the deities so seriously
as this is addressed.
"Yours, &c.

P.S. In the translation from the Spanish, alter
"In increasing squadrons flew,

What does 'thy waters wasted them' mean (in the Canto?) That is not me. Consult the MS. always.

LETTERS, 1819.

when the original is dust,

A book, a d-d bad picture, and worse bust,

insert the following stanza:-

"What are the hopes of man, &c.

"I have written to you several letters, some with additions, and some upon the subject of the poem itself, which my cursed puritanical committee have protested against publishing. But we will circumvent them on that point. I have not yet begun to copy out the Second Canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and the discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown upon the First. I say all this to them as to you, that is, for you to say to them, for I will have nothing underhand. If they had told me the poetry was bad, I would have acquiesced; but they say the contrary, and then talk to me about morality-the first time I ever heard the word from any body who was not a rascal that used it for a purpose. I maintain that it is the most moral of poems; but if people won't discover the moral, that is their fault, not mine. I have already written to beg that in any case you will print fifty for private distribution. I will send you the list of persons to whom it is to be sent afterward.

"Within this last fortnight I have been rather indisposed with a rebellion of stomach, which would retain nothing, (liver, I suppose,) and an inability, or fantasy, not to be able to eat of any thing with relish but a kind of Adriatic fish called 'scampi,' which happens to be the most indigestible of marine viands. However, within these last two days, I am better, and very truly yours."

LETTER CCCLXXXVI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

*

"I have not written for their pleasure. If they are
pleased, it is that they chose to be so; I have never flat-
will I make 'Ladies' books' 'al dilettar le femine e la
tered their opinions, nor their pride; nor will I. Neither
plebe.* I have written from the fulness of my mind, from
passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for their
'sweet voices.'

scribblers have had more of it; and if I chose to swerve
"I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few
into their paths, I could retain it, or resume it. But I
neither love ye, nor fear ye; and though I buy with
sell with ye, I will neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor
ye and
pray with ye. They made me, without my search, a
species of popular idol; they, without reason or judgment,
beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the
image from its pedestal: it was not broken with the fall,
and they would, it seems, again replace it, but they shall
not.

year I was in a state of great exhaustion, attended by such
"You ask about my health: about the beginning of the
was obliged to reform my 'way of life,' which was conduct-
debility of stomach that nothing remained upon it; and I
ing me from the 'yellow leaf to the ground, with all
deliberate speed. I am better in health and morals, and
very much yours, &c.

He is right in defending Pope against the bastard pelicans
"P. S. I have read Hodgson's 'Friends.'
of the poetical winter day, who add insult to their parricide
by sucking the blood of the parent of English real poetry-
poetry without fault-and then spurning the bosom which
fed them."

LETTER CCCLXXXVII.

TO THE EDITOX OF GALIGNANI'S MESSENGER.
"Venice, April 27, 1819.

"Venice, April 6, 1819. "The Second Canto of Don Juan was sent, on Saturday last, by post, in four packets, two of four, and two of three sheets each, containing in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. But I will permit no curtailments, except those mentioned about Castlereagh and * *. You sha 'n't make canticles of my cantos. The poem will please, if it is lively; if it is "In various numbers of your journal, I have seen menstupid, it will fail: but I will have none of your damned tioned a work entitled 'the Vampire,' with the addition of cutting and slashing. If you please, you may publish my name as that of the author. I am not the author, and anonymously; it will, perhaps, be better; but I will battle never heard of the work in question until now. In a more my way against them all, like a porcupine.

*

*

*

"SIR,

recent paper I perceive a formal annunciation of 'the "So you and Mr. Foscolo, &c. want me to undertake Vampire,' with the addition of an account of my 'residence what you call a 'great work? an Epic Poem, I suppose, in the Island of Mitylene,' an island which I have occaor some such pyramid. I'll try no such thing; I hate sionally sailed by in the course of travelling some years tasks. And then 'seven or eight years! God send us all go through the Levant-and where I should have no well this day three months, let alone years. If one's years Neither of these performances are mine, and I presume objection to reside, but where I have never yet resided. can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man that it is neither unjust nor ungracious to request that you had better be a ditcher. And works, too!-is Childe Harold nothing? You have so many divine' poems, is it will favour me by contradicting the advertisement to which nothing to have written a human one? without any of your the real writer, whoever he may be, of his honours; and if I allude. If the book is clever, it would be hase to deprive worn-out machinery. Why, man, I could have houghts of the Four Cantos of that noern into twenty, had spun the I wanted to book-make, and its passion into as many modern tragedies. Since you want length, you shall have enough of Juan, for I'll make Fifty Cantos.f

In the printed version "a wretched picture." * See Don Juan, Canto XII. stanza 55.

stupid, I desire the responsibility of nobody's dulness but my own. You will excuse the trouble I give you, the imputation is of no great importance, and as long as it was confined to surmises and reports, I should have received it, as I have received many others, in silence.

Childe Harold Canto III auza 113.

But the

formality of a public advertisement, of a book I never wrote, into St. Gingo where the inhabitants came down and and a residence where I never resided, is a little too much; embraced the boatmen on their escape, the wind ha ring particularly as I have no notion of the contents of the one, been high enough to tear up some huge trees from the nor the incidents of the other. I have besides, a personal | Alps above us, as we saw next day.

dislike to 'Vampi es,' and the little acquaintance I have "And yet the same Shelley, who was as cool as it was with them would by no means induce me to divulge their possible to be in such circumstances, (of which I am no secrets. Yo: lid me a much less injury by your para- judge myself, as the chance of swimming naturally gives graphs about my devotion' and abandonment of society self-possession when near shore,) certainly had the fit of for the sake of religion,' which appeared in your Messenger fantasy which Polidori describes, though not exactly as h: during last Lent, all of which are not founded on fact, but describes it. you see I do not contradict them, because they are merely personal, whereas the others in some degree concern the reader. You will oblige me by complying with my request of contradiction-I assure you that I know nothing of the work or works in question, and have the honour to be (as the correspondents to Magazines say) 'your constant reader,' and very. "Obt. humble servt.

"BYRON."

TO MR. MURRAY.

"The story of the agreement to write the ghost-books is true; but the ladies are not sisters.

*

*

*

*

*
Mary Godwin (now Mrs. Shelley) wrote Frankenstein,
which you have reviewed, thinking it Shelley's. Methinks
it is a wonderful book for a girl of nineteen, not nineteen
indeed, at that time. I enclose you the beginning of mine,*
by which you will see how far it resembles Mr. Colburn's
publication. If you choose to publish it, you may, stating
why, and with such explanatory proem as you pleaso. I
never went on with it, as you will perceive by the date.
I began it in an old account-book of Miss Milbanke's,
which I kept because it contained the word 'Household,'
written by her twice on the inside blank page of the co-
vers, being the only two scraps I have in the world in her
writing, except her name to the Deed of Separation. Her
letters I sent back, except those of the quarrelling corre-
spondence, and those, being documents, are placed in the
hands of a third person, with copies of several of my
own; so that I have no kind of memorial whatever of
her, but these two. words,-and her actions. I have torn
the leaves containing the part of the Tale out of the
book, and enclose them with this sheet.

"What do you mean by Polidori's Diary? Why, I defy him to say any thing about me but he is welcome. I have nothing to reproach me with on his score, and I am much mistaken if that is not his own opinion. But why publish the name of the two girls? and in such a manner?-what

"The story of Shelley's agitation is true.f I can't tell a blundering piece of exculpation! He asked Pictet, &c. to dinner, and of course was left to entertain them. I went what seized him for he don't want courage. He was once into society solely to present him, (as I told him,) that he with me in a gale of wind, in a small boat, right under the might return into good company if he chose; it was the ocks between Meillerie and St. Gingo. We were five in best thing for his youth and circumstances: for myself, I the boat—a servant, two boatmen, and ourselves. The had done with society, and, having presented him, with sail was mismanaged, and the boat was filling fast. He drew to my own way of life. It is true that I returned can't swim. I stripped off my coat, made him strip off without entering Lady Dalrymple Hamilton's, because 1 his, and take hold of an oar, telling him that I thought (being myself an expert swimmer) I could save him, if he

would not struggle when I took hold of him-unless we

saw it full. It is true that Mrs. Hervey (she writes novels) fainted at my entrance into Copet, and then came back

again. On her fainting, the Duchesse de Broglie ex got smashed against the rocks, which were high and sharp, claimed, This is too much at sixty-five years of age !—] with an awkward surf on them at that minute. We were then about a hundred yards from shore, and the boat in but I trust that if ever I do, they will seize it. With renever gave the English' an opportunity of avoiding me peril. He answered me, with the greatest coolness, ' 'that he had no notion of being saved, and that I would have enough to do to save myself,and begged not to trouble me.' Luckily, the boat righted, and, bailing, we got round a point

By Doctor Polidori,

This story, as given in the Preface to the "Vampire," is as follows:It appears, that one evening Lord B. Mr. P. B. Shelley, two larties, at the gentleman before alluded to, after naving perused a German work led Phantasmagoria, began relating ghost stories, when his lordship having recited the beginning of Christabel, then unpublished, the whole runk so strong a hold of Mr. Shelley's mind, that he suddenly started up, and ran out of the room. The physicias and Lord Byron followed, and aiscovered him leaning against a mantel-piece, with cold drops of perrefresh him, upon inquiring into the cause of his alarm, they found that bild imagination having pictured to him the bosom of one of the ladies with eyes. (which was reported of a lady in the neighbourhood, where he lived,) he was obliged to leave the room in order to destroy the im pression."

apiration trickling down his face. After having given him something to

gard to Mazeppa and the Ode, you may join or separate them, as you please, from the two Cantos.

"Don't suppose I want to put you out of humour. 1 have a great respect for your good and gentlemanly quali ties, and return your personal friendship towards me; and although I think you a little spoiled by villainous company,'-wits, persons of honour about town, authors, and fashionables, together with your I am just going to call at Carlton House, are you walking that way ?-I sav, notwithstanding pictures, taste, Shakspeare, and the musi cal glasses,' you deserve and possess the esteem of those whose esteem is worth having, and of none more how ever useless it may be, than yours very truly, &0.

• See Fruerit, page 278.

That was all; but it appears to me that these two and three words comprise and compress all that can be said on "P. S. I petition for tooth-brushes, powder, magnesia, the subject, and then, in Italian, they are absolute music. Macassar oil, (or Russia,) the sashes, and Sir Nl. Wrax-They contain doubt, hope, and humility; nothing can be all's Memoirs of his Own Times. I want, besides, a bulldog, a terrier, and two Newfoundland dogs; and I want (is it Buck's?) a life of Richard 3d, advertised by. Longman, long, long, long ago; I asked for it at least three vears since. See Longman's advertisements."