P. S. I have begun a tragedy on the subject of swords left in their care when I quitted Venice. Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice; but you There are also several pounds of Manton's best powshan't see it these six years, if you don't acknow-der in a japan case; but unless I felt sure of getting 'edge my packets with more quickness and preci- it away from V. without seizure, I won't have it Bion. Always write, if but a line, by return of post, ventured. I can get it in here, by means of an acwhen any thing arrives, which is not a mere letter. quaintance in the customs, who has offered to get it "Address direct to Ravenna; it saves a week's ashore for me; but should like to be certiorated of time, and much postage." its safety in leaving Venice. I would not lose it for its weight in gold-there is none such in Italy, as I take it to be.

LETTER CCCCXXXIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, April 16, 1820.

"I wrote to you a week or so ago, and hope you are in good plight and spirits. Sir Humphrey Davy is here, and was last night at the cardinal's. As I had been there last Sunday, and yesterday was warm, I did not go, which I should have done, if I had thought of meeting the man of chemistry. He "Post after post arrives without bringing any at Corso time. called this morning, and I shall go in search of him acknowledgment from you of the different packets there is no great conversazione, and only the family I believe to-day, being Monday, (excepting the first) which I have sent within the last two months, all of which ought to be arrived tion sometimes, so that, unless he stays a day or one at the Marchese Cavalli's, where I go as a relalong ere now; and as they were announced in other two, we should hardly meet in public. letters, you ought at least to say whether they are come or not. You are not expected to write fre- there is not a row in all Italy by that time,-the "The theatre is to open in May for the fair, if quent or long letters, as your time is much occu- Spanish business has set them all a constitutioning, pied; but when parcels that have cost some pains and what will be the end no one knows-it is also in the composition, and great trouble in the copying, are sent to you, I should at least be put out of necessary thereunto to have a beginning. "Yours, &c." suspense, by the immediate acknowledgment, per return of post, addressed directly to Ravenna." I "P. S. My benediction to Mrs. Hoppner. How am naturally-knowing what continental posts are is your little boy? Allegra is growing, and has in-anxious to hear that they are arrived: especially creased in good looks and obstinacy.'

as I loath the task of copying so much, that if there was a human being that could copy my blotted MSS., he should have all they can ever bring for his trouble. All I desire is two lines, to say, such a day I received such a packet. There are at least six unacknowledged. This is neither kind nor

courteous.

LETTER CCCCXXXV.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, April 23, 1820.

"I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is THAT brewing in Italy, which will speedily cut off all security of "The proofs don't contain the last stanzas of communication, and set all your Anglo-travellers canto second, but end abruptly with the one hunflying in every direction, with their usual fortitude dred and fifth stanza. in foreign tumults. The Spanish and French af- "I told you long ago that the new cantos* were fairs have set the Italians in a ferment; and no not good, and I also told you a reason. Recollect, wonder they have been too long trampled on. I do not oblige you to publish them; you may supThis will make a sad scene for your exquisite travel- press them, if you like, but I can alter nothing. I ler, but not for the resident, who naturally wishes a have erased the six stanzas about those two impospeople to redress itself. I shall, if permitted by tors, * *(which I suppose will give you

*

the natives, remain to see what will come of it, and great pleasure,) but I can do no more. I can neither perhaps to take a turn with them, like Dugald Dal-recast, nor replace; but I give you leave to put it getty and his horse, in case of business; for I shall all into the fire, if you like, or not to publish, and I think it by far the most interesting spectacle and think that's sufficient.

moment in existence, to see the Italians send the: "I told you that I wrote on with no good-willbarbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I that I had been, not frightened, but hurt by the have lived long enough among them to feel more outcry, and, besides, that when I wrote last Novemfor them as a nation than for any other people in ber. I was ill in body, and in very great distress of existence. But they want union, and they want mind about some private things of my own; but principle; and I doubt their success. However, you would have it: so I sent it to you, and to make it they will try, probably, and if they do, it will be a lighter, cut it in two-but I can't piece it together good cause. No Italian can hate an Austrian more again. I can't cobble: I must either make a spoon than I do unless it be the English, the Austrians or spoil a horn,'-and there's an end; for there's no seem to me the most obnoxious race under the sky. remeid: but I leave you free will to suppress the "But I doubt if any thing be done, it won't be so whole, if you like it. quietly as in Spain. To be sure, revolutions are not to be made with rose water, where there are foreigners as masters.

"Write while you can; for it is but the toss up of a paul that there will not be a row that will somewhat retard the mail.by-and-by.

"Yours, &c."

LETTER CCCCXXXIV.

TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, April 18, 1820. "I have caused you to write to Siri and Wilhalm to send with Vincenza, in a boat, the camp-beds and '

"About the Morgante Maggiore, I won't have a line omitted. It may circulate, or it may not; but all the criticism on earth shan't touch a line, unless it be because it is badly translated. Now you say, and I say, and others say, that the translation is a good one; and so it shall go to press as it is. Pulci must answer for his own irreligion: I answer for the translation only.

"Pray let Mr. Hobhouse look to the Italian next time in the proofs: this time, while I am scribbling to you, they are corrected by one who passes for the prettiest woman in Romagna, and even the Marches, as far as Ancona, be the other who she may. "I am glad you like my answer to your inquiries

• Of Don Juan.

about Italian society. It is fit you should like something, and be d―d to you.

LETTER CCCCXXXVI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 8, 1821

"My love to Scott. I shall think higher of knighthood ever after for his being dubbed. Bythe-way, he is the first poet titled for his talent in Britain: it has happened abroad before now; but "From your not having written again, an inten on the continent titles are universal and worthless. tion which your letter of the 7th ultimo indicated, I Why don't you send me Ivanhoe and the Monas- have to presume that the Prophecy of Dante' har tery? I have never written to Sir Walter, for I not been found more worthy than its predecessors know he has a thousand things, and I a thousand in the eyes of your illustrious synod. In that case, nothings to do; but I hope to see him at Abbots- you will be in some perplexity; to and which, I ford before very long, and I will sweat his claret for repeat to you, that you are not to consider yourself him, though Italian abstemiousness has made my as bound or pledged to publish any thing because it brain but a shilpit concern for a Scotch sitting is mine, but always to act according to your own 'inter pocula.' I love Scott, and Moore, and all views, or opinions, or those of your friends; and to the better brethren; but I hate and abhor that pud-be sure that you in no degree offend me by declindle of water-worms whom you have taken into ing the article,' to use a technical phrase. The your troop. "Yours, &c. prose observations on John Wilson's attack, I do

"P. S. You say that one-half is very good: you not intend for publication at this time; and I send are wrong; for, if it were, it would be the finest a copy of verses to Mr. Kinnaird, (they were written poem in existence. Where is the poetry of which last year on crossing the ro,) which must not be I mention this, because it is one-half is good? is it the Eneid? is it Milton's published either.

is it Dryden's? is it any one's except Pope's and probable he may give you a copy. Pray recollect Goldsmith's, of which all is good? and yet these this, as they are mere verses of society, and written last two are the poets your pond poets would ex-upon private feelings and passions. And, more plode. But if one-half of the two new cantos be over, I can't consent to any mutilations or omis sions of Pulci: the original has been ever free from good in your opinion, what the devil would you have more? No-no; no poetry is generally good such in Italy, the capital of Christianity, and the -only by fits and starts-and you are lucky to get a translation may be so in England; though you will sparkle here and there. You might as well want a think it strange that they should have allowed such midnight all stars as rhyme all perfect. freedom for many centuries to the Morgante, while "We are on the verge of a row here. Last night the other day they confiscated the whole transla they have overwritten all the city walls with Uption of the fourth canto of Childe Harold, and have the republic!' and Death to the Pope!' &c., &c. persecuted Leoni, the translator-so he writes me, This would be nothing in London, where the walls and so I could have told him, had he consulted me are privileged. But here it is a different thing: before its publication. This shows how much more they are not used to such fierce political inscriptions, politics interest men in these parts than religion.and the police is all on the alert, and the Cardinal Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate glares pale through all his purple. Childe Harold in a month; and "eight-and-twenty cantos of quizzing monks and knights, and church government, are let loose for centuries. I copy Le

oni's account.

canto del Childe Harold fu confiscata in ogni parte: "Non ignorerà forse che la mia versione del 4° ed io stesso ho dovuto soffrir vessaxioni altrettanto

Ma siccome il divieto

"April 24th, 1820, 8 o'clock, P. M. "The police have been, all noon and after, searching for the inscribers, but have caught none as yet They must have been all night about it, for the 'Live republics-Death to Popes and Priests,' are innumerable, and plastered over all the palaces: ridicole quanto illiberali, ad arte che alcuni versi ours has plenty. There is Down with the Nobili- fossero esclusi dalla censura. ty,' too; they are down enough already, for that non fa d'ordinario che accrescere la curiosità cosi matter. A very heavy rain and wind having come quel carme sull'Italia è ricercato più che mai, e on, I did not go out and skirr the country; but penso di farlo ristampare in Inghilterra senza nulla I shall mount to-morrow, and take a canter among escludere. Sciagurata condizione di questa mis the peasantry, who are a savage, resolute race, al- patria! se patria si può chiamare una terra cosi ways riding with guns in their hands. I wonder avvilita dalla fortuna, dagli uomini, da se medethey don't suspect the serenaders, for they play on the guitar here all night, as in Spain, to their mistresses.

I

"Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my Ode on Waterloo, written in the year 1815, and comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if have not as good a right to the character of 'Vates,' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?

'Crimson tears will follow yet-'

and have not they?

sima.'

"Rose will translate this to you. Has he had his letter? I enclosed it to you months ago.

"This intended piece of publication I shall dis suade him from, or he may chance to see the inside of St. Angelo's. The last sentence of his letter is the common and pathetic sentiment of all his coun

trymen.

"Sir Humphrey Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth ascension of Mount Vesu "I can't pretend to foresee what will happen vius, asked if there was not a similar volcano in among you Englishers at this distance, but I vatici- Ireland? My only notion of an Irish volcano nate a row in Italy; in whilk case, I don't know consisted of the lake of Killarney, which I natu that I won't have a finger in it. I dislike the Aus- rally conceived her to mean; but on second thoughts trians, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; I divined that she alluded to Iceland and to Heels and if they begin, why, I will recommend the-and so it proved, though she sustained her volcan erection of a sconce upon Drumsnab,' like Dugald ic topography for some time with all the amiable Dalgetty."

• See Beppo, stanza lxxvi.

pertinacity of the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and asked me various questions about Sir Humphrey's philosophy, and I explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call

him?' said she. A great chemist,' quoth I. What a great man, and live among great men, but do pray can he do?' repeated the lady. Almost any thing,' recollect your absent friends and authors. said I. Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to "In the first place, your packets; then a letter give me something to dye my eyebrows black. I from Kinnaird, on the most urgent business; anhave tried a thousand things, and the colors all other from Moore, about a communication to Lady come off; and besides, they don't grow; can't he Byron of importance; a fourth from the mother of invent something to make them grow?" All this Allegra; and fifthly, at Ravenna, the Contessa G. with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be is on the eve of being divorced.-But the Italian surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but public are on our side, particularly the women,—and really well educated and clever. But they speak the men also, because they say that he had no busilike children, when first out of their convents; ness to take the business up now after a year of toland, after all, this is better than an English blue-eration. All her relations (who are numerous, high stocking. in rank and powerful) are furious against him for

"I did not tell Sir Humphrey of this last piece of his conduct. I am warned to be on my guard, as he philosophy, not knowing how he might take it.is very capable of employing sicarii-this is Latir Davy was much taken with Ravenna, and the as well as Italian, so you can understand it; but I PRIMITIVE Italianism of the people, who are un- have arms, and don't mind them, thinking that I used to foreigners: but he only staid a day.

"Send me Scott's novels and some news.

"P. S. I have begun and advanced into the second act of a tragedy on the subject of the Doge's conspiracy, (i. e. the story of Marino Faliero ;) but my present feeling is so little encouraging on such matters that I begin to think I have mined my talent out, and proceed in no great phantasy of finding a new vein.

could pepper his ragamuffins, if they don't come unawares, and that if they do, one may as well end that way as another; and it would besides serve you as an advertisement.

Man may escape from rope or gun, &c.,

But he who takes woman, woman, woman,' &c. "Yours." "P. S. I have looked over the press, but heaven "P. S. I sometimes think (if the Italians don't knows how. Think what I have on hand, and the rise) of coming over to England in the autumn post going out to-morrow. Do you remember the after the coronation, (at which I would not appear epitaph on Voltaire ? on account of my family schism,) but as yet can decide nothing. The place must be a great deal changed since I left it, now more than four years

ago.

'Ci-git l'enfant gâtė,' &c.

'Here lies the spoil'd child

Of the world which he spoil'd.'

The original is in Grimm and Diderot, &c., &c., &c

LETTER CCCCXXXVII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 20, 1820.

LETTER CCCCXXXIX.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, May 24, 1820.

"Murray, my dear, make my respects to Thomas Campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right in his poets: Firstly, he says Anstey's Bath Guide char- "I wrote to you a few days ago. There is also a acters are taken from Smollett. 'Tis impossible: letter of January last for you at Murray's which -the Guide was published in 1766, and Humphrey will explain to you why I am here. Murray ought Clinker in 1771-dunque, 'tis Smollett who has taken to have forwarded it long ago. I enclose you an from Anstey. Secondly, he does not know to whom epistle from a countrywoman of yours at Paris, Cowper alludes when he says that there was one which has moved my entrails. You will have the who built a church to God, and then blasphemed goodness, perhaps, to inquire into the truth of her his name:' it was Deo erexit Voltaire,' to whom story, and I will help her as far as I can,-though that maniacal Calvinist and coddled poet alludes.- not in the useless way she proposes. Her letter is Thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from evidently unstudied, and so natural, that the orthog Shakspeare, to gild refined gold, to paint the lily,' raphy is also in a state of nature. &c.; for lily he puts rose, and bedevils in more Here is a poor creature, ill and solitary, who words than one the whole quotation. thinks, as a last resource, of translating you or me into French! Was there ever such a notion? It seems to me the consummation of despair. Pray inquire, and let me know, and, if you could draw a bill on me here for a few hundred francs, at your banker's I will duly honor it,-that is, if she is not an impostor. If not, let me know, that I may get something remitted by my banker Longhi, of Bologna, for I have no correspondence, myself, at Paris; but tell her she must not translate;-if she does, it will be the height of ingratitude.

"Now, Tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct for the first is an injustice, (to Antsey), the second an ignorance, and the third a blunder. Tell him all this, and let him take it in good part; for I might have rammed it into a review and rowed him -instead of which, I act like a Christian. "Yours, &c."

LETTER CCCCXXXVIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 20, 1820.

"I had a letter (not of the same kind, but in French and flattery) from a Madame Sophie Gail, of Paris, whom I take to be the spouse of a GalloGreek of that name. Who is she? and what is she? and how came she to take an interest in my poeshie or its author? If you know her, tell her, "First and foremost, you must forward my letter with my compliments, that, as I only read French, to Moore dated 2d January, which I said you might I have not answered her letter; but would have of en, but desired you to forward. Now, you should done so in Italian, if I had not thought it would really not forget these little things, because they do look like an affectation. I have just been scolding mischief among friends. You are an excellent man, my monkey for tearing the seal of her letter, and spoiling a mock book, in which I put rose leaves. I had a civet-cat the other day, too; but it run away

• See Don Juan, canto v., note ix.

after scratching my monkey's check, and I am in to me some remarks, which appear to be Goethe's, search of it still. It was the fiercest beast I ever upon Manfred!-and if I may judge by two notes of saw, and like in the face and manner. admiration (generally put after something ridicu

"I have a world of things to say; but as they are lous by us), and the word 'hypocondrisch,' are any not come to a denouement, I don't care to begin thing but favorable. I shall regret this, for I should their history till it is wound up. After you went I have been proud of Goethe's good word; but I had a fever, but got well again without bark. Sir shan't alter my opinion of him, even though he Humphrey Davy was here the other day, and liked should be savage. Ravenna very much. He will tell you any thing you "Will you excuse this trouble, and do me this may wish to know about the place and your humble favor?-never mind-soften nothing-I am literary servitor. proof-having had good and evil said in most mod ern languages. "Believe me, &c."

LETTER CCCCXLI.

TO MR. MOORE.

“Ravenna, Juse, 1820.

"Your apprehensions (arising from Scott's) were unfounded. There are no damages in this country, but there will probably be a separation between them, as her family, which is a principal one, by its connexions, are very much against him, for the whole of his conduct;-and he is old and obstinate, and she is young and a woman, determined to sacrifice every thing to her affections. I have given her the best advice, viz., to stay with him,-pointing out the state of a separated woman, (for the priests "I have received a Parisian letter from W. W., won't let lovers live openly together, unless the hus-which I prefer answering through you, if that band sanctions it,) and making the most exquisite worthy be still at Paris, and, as he says, an occamoral reflections, but to no purpose. She says, sional visiter of yours. In November last he wrote "I will stay with him, if he will let you remain with to me a well-meaning letter, stating, for some rea me. It is hard that I should be the only woman in Ro- sons of his own, his belief that a reunion might be magna who is not to have her Amico; but, if not, I effected between Lady B. and myself. To this I will not live with him; and as for the consequences, answered as usual; and he sent me a second letter, love,' &c., &c., &c.,-you know how females reason repeating his notions, which letter I have never on such occasions. He says he has let it go on, till he can do so no think of. He now writes as if he believed that he answered, having had a thousand other things to longer. But he wants her to stay and dismiss me; had offended me, by touching on the topic; and I for he doesn't like to pay back her dowry and to wish you to assure him that I am not at all so,make an alimony. Her relations are rather for the but on the contrary, obliged by his good-nature. separation, as they detest him-indeed, so does At the same time acquaint him the thing is impos every body. The populace and the women are, as sible. You know this, as well as I,-and there let usual, all for those who are in the wrong, viz., the it end. lady and her lover. I should have retreated, but honor and an erysipelas which has attacked her, prevent me, to say nothing of love, for I love her most entirely, though not enough to persuade her to sacrifice every thing to a frenzy. I see how it will end; she will be the sixteenth Mrs. Shuffleton.' "My paper is finished, and so must this letter. "Yours ever,

autumn last. He asks me if I have heard of my "I believe that I showed you his epistle in laureate' at Paris,*-somebody who has written a most sanguinary Epitre' against me; but whether in French, or Dutch, or on what score, I know not, and he don't say,-except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best thing in the fellow's volume. If there is any thing of the kind that I ought to know, you will doubtless tell me. I suppose it to be something of the usual sort;-he says, he don't remember the author's name.

"I wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your leisure.

"B. P. S. I regret that you have not completed the Italian Fudges. Pray, how come you to be still in Paris? Murray has four or five things of mine in hand-the new Don Juan, which his back-shop synod don't admire;-a translation of the first canto of "The separation business still continues, and all Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, excellent;-a short the world are implicated, including priests and car ditto from Dante, not so much approved;-the dinals. The public opinion is furious against him, Prophecy of Dante, very grand and worthy, &c., because he ought to have cut the matter short at &c., &c.;-a furious prose answer to Blackwood's first, and not waited twelve months to begin. Observations on Don Juan, with a savage Defence He has been trying at evidence, but can get none of Pope-likely to make a row. The opinions sufficient; for what would make fifty divorces in above I quote from Murray and his Utican senate; England won't do here-there must be the most de -you will form your own, when you see the things. cided proofs. "You will have no great chance of seeing me, for I begin to think I must finish in Italy. But, if you come my way, you shall have a tureen of macaroni. Pray tell me about yourself and your intents.

66

"It is the first cause of the kind attempted in Ravenna for these two hundred years; for, though they often separate, they assign a different motive. You know that the continental incontinent are more delicate than the English, and don't like proclaiming their coronation in a court, even when no

My trustees are going to lend Earl Blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a Dub-body doubts it. lin mortgage. Only think of my becoming an Irish

absentee.

LETTER CCCCXL.

TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, May 25, 1820.

"All her relations are furious against him. The father has challenged him-a superfluous valor, for he don't fight, though suspected of two assassina tions-one of the famous Monzoni of Forli. Warn ing was given me not to take such long rides in the Pine Forest without being on my guard; so I take my stiletto and a pair of pistols in my pocket during my daily rides.

"Iwon't stir from this place till the matter is settled one way or the other. She is as femininely firm as possible; and the opinion is so much against "A German named Ruppsecht has sent me, him, that the advocates decline to undertake his heaven knows why, several Deutsche Gazettes, of cause, because they say that he is either a fool or a all which I understand neither word nor letter. I have sent you the enclosed to beg you to translate

Mr. Lamartine.

rogue-fool, if he did not discover the liaison till Music assists my memory through the ear, not now; and rogue, if he did know it, and waited, for through the eye; I mean, that her quavers perplex some bad end, to divulge it. In short, there has me uon paper, but they are a help when heard. been nothing like it since the days of Guido di Po- And thus I was glad to see the words without their lenta's family, in these parts. borrowed robes;-to my mind they look none the worse for their nudity.

"If the man has me taken off, like Polonius, say he made a good end'-for a melodrame. The prin- "The biographer has made a botch of your lifecipal security is, that he has not the courage to calling your father a venerable old gentleman,' spend twenty scudi-the average price of a clean- and prattling of Addison,' and dowager counthanded bravo-otherwise there is no want of op- esses.' If that dammed fellow was to write my life, Fortunity, for I ride about the woods every evening, I would certainly take his. And then at the Dubwith one servant, and sometimes an acquaintance, lin dinner, you have made a speech,' (do you rewho latterly looks a little queer in solitary bits of collect, at Douglas K.'s. 'Sir, he made me bushes. speech?') too complimentary to the living poets,' and somewhat redolent of universal praise. I am but too well off in it, but

"Good-by.-Write to yours ever, &c."

LETTER CCCCXLII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, June 7, 1820.

"You have not sent me any poetical or personal news of yourself. Why don't you complete an Italian Tour of the Fudges? I have just been turning over Little, which I knew by heart in 1803, being then in my fifteenth summer. Heigho! I believe all the mischief I have ever done, or sung, has been owing to that confounded book of yours.

"In my last I told you of a cargo of 'Poeshie,' which I had sent to M. at his own impatient desire; and, now he has got it, he don't like it, and demurs. Perhaps he is right. I have no great opinion of any of my last shipment, except a translation from Pulci, which is word for word, and verse

for verse.

Enclosed is something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of the greatest man of Germany perhaps of Europe-upon one of the great men of your advertisements (all famous hands,' as Jacob Tonson used to say of his ragamuffins)-in short, a critique of Goethe's upon Manfred. There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian one; keep them all in your archives, for the opinions of "I am in the third act of a tragedy; but whether such as Goethe, whether favorable or not, are al- it will be finished or not, I know not: I have, at ways interesting-and this is more so, as favorable. this present, too many passions of my own on hand His Faust I never read, for I don't know German; to do justice to those of the dead. Besides the but Matthew Monk Lewis in 1816, at Coligny, vexations mentioned in my last, I have incurred a translated most of it to me vive voce, and I was quarrel with the Pope's carabiniers, or gensnaturally much struck with it; but it was the d'armerie, who have petitioned the cardinal against Steinbach and the Jungfrau, and something else, my liveries, as resembling too nearly their own lousy much more than Faustus, that made me write Man- uniform. They particularly object to the epaulettes, fred. The first scene, however, and that of Faus- which all the world with us have upon gala days. tus, are very similar. Acknowledge this letter. My liveries are of the colors conforming to my "Yours ever. arms, and have been the family hue ever since the Pray year 1066.

"P. S. I have received Ivanhoe;-good.

send me some tooth-powder and tincture of myrrh, "I have sent a trenchant reply, as you may supby Waite, &c., Ricciardetto should have been trans- pose; and have given to understand that, if any lated literally, or not at all. As to puffing Whistle-soldados of that respectable corps insult my sercraft, it won't do. I'll tell you why some day or vants, I will do likewise by their gallant comother. Cornwall's a poet, but spoiled by the de- manders; and I have directed my ragamuffins, six testable schools of the day. Mrs. Hemans is a in number, who are tolerably savage, to defend poet also, but too stiltified and apostrophic,-and themselves, in case of agression: and, on holydays quite wrong. Men died calmly before the Chris- and gaudy days, I shall arm the whole set, including tian era, and since, without Christianity-witness myself, in case of accidents or treachery. I used the Romans, and lately, Thistlewood, Sandt, and to play pretty well at the broadsword, once upon a Lovel-men who ought to have been weighed down time, at Angelo's; but I should like the pistol, our with their crimes, even had they believed. A death-national buccaneer weapon, better, though I am bed is a matter of nerves and constitution, and not out of practice at present. However, I can wink of religion. Voltaire was frightened, Frederick of and hold out mine iron.' It makes me think (the Prussia not: Christians the same, according to whole thing does) of Romeo and Juliet-'now, their strength rather than their creed. What does Gregory, remember thy smashing blow.' H** H I mean by his stanza? which is octave, got drunk, or gone mad.-He ought to have his ears boxed with Thor's hammer for rhyming so fantastically."

"All these feuds, however, with the cavalier for his wife, and the troopers for my liveries, are very tiresome to a quiet man, who does his best to please all the world, and longs for fellowship and goodwill. Pray write. "I am yours, &c."

LETTER CCCCXLIII.

TO MR. MOORE.

LETTER CCCCXLIV.

"Ravenna, June 9, 1820.

"Galignani has just sent me the Paris edition of your works, (which I wrote to order,) and I am glad

TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, July 13, 1820.

"To remove or increase your Irish anxiety about to see my old friends with a French face. I have my being in a whisp,' I answer your letter forthbeen skimming and dipping, in and over them, like with; premising that as I am a Will of the wisp,' I a swallow, and as pleased as one. It is the first may chance to flit out of it. But, first, a word on time that I had seen the melodies without music; the Memoir;-I have no objection, nay, I would and I don't know how, but I can't read in a music- rather that one correct copy was taken and depos book-the crotchets confound the words in my head, though I recollect them perfectly when sung.

• An Irish phrase for Leing in a scrape.