publish, and players who will act when there are thousands of worthy men who can get neither bookseller nor manager for love nor money.

"You never answered me a word about Galignani. If you mean to use the two documents, do; if not, burn them. I do not choose to leave them in any one's possession: suppose some one found them without the letters, what would they think? why, that I had been doing the opposite of what I have done, to wit, referred the whole thing to you an act of civility at least, which required saying, I have received your letter.' I thought that you might have some hold upon those publications by this means; to me it can be no interest one way or the other.*

"The third canto of Don Juan is dull,' but you must really put up with it if the two first and the two following are tolerable, what do you expect? particularly as I neither dispute with you on it as a matter of criticism, nor as a matter of business.

"Besides, what am I to understand? you and Douglas Kinnaird, and others, write to me, that the two first published cantos are among the best that I ever wrote, and are reckoned so; Augusta writes that they are thought ' execrable' (bitter word that for an author-eh, Murray ?) as a composition even, and that she had heard so much against them that she would never read them, and never has. Be that as it may, I can't alter; that is not my forte. If you publish the three new ones without ostentation, they may perhaps succeed.

66

Pray publish the Dante and the Pulci (the Prophecy of Dante, I mean). I look upon the Pulci as my grand performance.t The remainder of the Hints,' where be they? Now, bring them all out about the same time, otherwise the variety' you wot of will be less obvious.

66

"I am in bad. humour: some obstructions in business with those plaguy trustees, who object to an advantageous loan which I was to furnish to a nobleman on mortgage, because his property is in Ireland, have shown me how a man is treated in his absence. Oh, if I do come back, I will make some of those who little dream of it spin or they or I shall go down."

No further step was ever taken in this affair; and the documents, which were of no use whatever, are, I believe, still in Mr. Murray's possession.

The self-will of Lord Byron was in no point more conspicuous than in the aetermination with which he thus persisted in giving the preference to one or two works of his own which, in the eyes of all other persons, were most decided failures. Of this class was the translation from Pulci, so frequently mentioned by him, which appeared afterwards in the Liberal, and which, though thus rescued from the fate of remaining unpublished, must for ever, I fear, submit to the doom of being unread.

"I did not think to have troubled you with the plague and postage of a double letter this time, but I have just read in an Italian paper, That Lord Byron has a tragedy coming out,' &c. &c. &c. and that the Courier and Morning Chronicle, &c. &c. are pulling one another to pieces about it and him, &c.

"Now I do reiterate and desire, that every thing may be done to prevent it from coming out on any theatre, for which it never was designed, and on which (in the present state of the stage of London) it could never succeed. I have sent you my appeal by last post, which you must publish in case of need; and I require you even in your own name (if my honour is dear to you) to declare that such representation would be contrary to my wish and to my judgment. If you do not wish to drive me mad altogether, you will hit upon some way to prevent this

"Yours, &c.

"P. S. I cannot conceive how Harris or Elliston should be so insane as to think of acting Marino Faliero; they might as well act the Prometheus of Eschylus. I speak of course humbly, and with the greatest sense of the distance of time and merit between the two performances; but merely to show the absurdity of the attempt.

"The Italian paper speaks of a party against it;' to be sure there would be a party. Can you imagine, that after having never flattered man, nor beast, nor opinion, nor politics, there would not be a party against a man, who is also a popular writer least a successful? Why, all parties would be a party against."

at

LETTER 408.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 20. 1821.

"If Harris or Elliston persist, after the remonstrance which I desired you and Mr. Kinnaird to make on my behalf, and which I hope will be sufficient but if, I say, they do persist, then I pray you to present in person the enclosed letter to the Lord Chamberlain: I have said in person, because otherwise I shall have neither answer nor knowledge that it has reached its address, owing to the insolence of office.'

"I wish you would speak to Lord Holland, and to all my friends and yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at representation.

"God help me! at this distance, I am treated like a corpse or fool by the few people that I thought I could rely upon; and I

was a fool to think any better of them than of the rest of man

kind.

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Pray write.

Yours, &c.

"P. S. I have nothing more at heart (that is, in literature) than to prevent this drama from going upon the stage: in short, rather than permit it, it must be suppressed altogether, and only forty copies struck off privately for presents to my friends. What curst fools those speculating buffoons must be not to see that it is unfit for their fair- or their booth!"

LETTER 409.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, January 22. 1821.

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Pray get well. I do not like your complaint. So, let me have a line to say you are up and doing again. To-day I am thirty-three years of age.

"Through life's road, &c. &c.*

"Have you heard that the Braziers' Company' have, or mean to present an address at Brandenburgh House,' in armour,' and with all possible variety and splendour of brazen apparel ?

"The Braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass

An address, and present it 1.iemselves all in brass

A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry,

They'll find where they're going much more than they carry.

There's an Ode for you, is it not? - worthy

"Of ****, the grand metaquizzical poet,

A man of vast merit, though few people know it;
The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mestri)
in great part, to my passion for pastry.

I owe,

"Mestri and Fusina are the trajects, or common ferries,' to Venice; but it was from Fusina that you and I embarked, though the wicked necessity of rhyming' has made me press Mestri into the voyage.

"So, you have had a book dedicated to you? I am glad of it, and shall be very happy to see the volume.

"I am in a peck of troubles about a tragedy of mine, which is fit only for the (*****) closet, and which it seems that the managers, assuming a right over published poetry, are determined to enact, whether I will or no, with their own alterations by Mr. Dibdin, I presume. I have written to Mr. Murray, to the Lord Chamberlain, and to others, to interfere and preserve me from such an exhibition. I want neither the impertinence of their *Already given in his Journal.

hisses, nor the insolence of their applause. I write only for the reader, and care for nothing but the silent approbation of those who close one's book with good humour and quiet contentinent. "Now, if you would also write to our friend Perry, to beg of him to mediate with Harris and Elliston to forbear this intent, you will greatly oblige me. The play is quite unfit for the stage, as a single glance will show them, and, I hope, has shown them; and, if it were ever so fit, I will never have any thing to do willingly with the theatres.

"Yours ever, in haste" &c.

LETTER 410.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 27. 1821.

"I differ from you about the Dante, which I think should be published with the tragedy, But do as you please: you must be the best judge of your own craft. I agree with you about the title. The play may be good or bad, but I flatter myself that it is original as a picture of that kind of passion, which to my mind. is so natural, that I am convinced that I should have done precisely what the Doge did on those provocations.

"I am glad of Foscolo's approbation.

"Excuse haste. I believe I mentioned to you that I forget what it was; but no matter.

"Thanks for your compliments of the year. I hope that it will be pleasanter than the last. I speak with reference to England only, as far as regards myself, where I had every kind of disappointment-lost an important lawsuit and the trustees of Lady Byron refusing to allow of an advantageous loan to be made from my property to Lord Blessington, &c. &c. by way of closing the four seasons. These, and a hundred other such things, made a year of bitter business for me in England. Luckily, things were a little pleasanter for me here, else I should have taken the liberty of Hannibal's ring.

Pray thank Gifford for all his goodnesses. The winter is as cold here as Parry's polarities. I must now take a canter in the forest; my horses are waiting.

Yours ever and truly."

LETTER 411.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, February 2. 1821.

"Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter, but do not admit the excuses, except in courtesy ; as when a man

treads on your toes and begs your pardon, the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there be a corn upon it. How ever, I shall scold you presently.

"In the last speech of the Doge, there occurs (I think, from memory) the phrase

"And Thou who makest and unmakest suns ;'

change this to

"And Thou who kindlest and who quenchest suns :'

that is to say, if the verse runs equally well, and Mr. Gifford thinks the expression improved. Pray have the bounty to attend to this. You are grown quite a minister of state. Mind if some of these days you are not thrown out. ** will not be always a Tory, though Johnson says the first Whig was the devil.

"You have learnt one secret from Mr. Galignani's (somewhat tardily acknowledged) correspondence: this is, that an English author may dispose of his exclusive copyright in France · - a fact of some consequence (in time of peace), in the case of a popular writer. Now I tell you what you shall do, and take no advantage of you, though you were scurvy enough never to acknowledge my letter for three months. Offer Galignani the refusal of the copyright in France if he refuses, appoint any bookseller in France you please, and I will sign any assignment you please, and it shall never cost you a sou on my account.

"Recollect that I will have nothing to do as it may secure the copyright to yourself. gain but with the English booksellers, and I of that country.

with it, except as far I will have no bardesire no interest out

"Now, that's fair and open, and a little handsomer than your dodging silence, to see what would come of it. You are an excellent fellow, mio caro Moray, but there is still a little leaven of Fleet Street about you now and then a crumb of the

old loaf. You have no right to act suspiciously with me, for I have given you no reason. I shall always be frank with you ; as, for instance, whenever you talk with the votaries of Apollo arithmetically, it should be in guineas, not pounds to poets, as well as physicians, and bidders at auctions.

"I shall say no more at this present, save that I

am,

"Yours, &c.

"P. S. If you will venture, as you say, to Ravenna this year, I will exercise the rites of hospitality while you live, and bury you handsomely (though not in holy ground), if you get shot or slashed in a creagh or splore,' which are rather frequent here of late among the native parties. But perhaps your visit may be anticipated; I may probably come to your country; in which