1818.]

THE HEIGHT OF THE CARNIVAL.

195

copies, you are hereby implored to obtain Subscribers in the two Universities, and among the learned, and the unlearned who would unlearn their ignorance.-This they (the Convent) request, I request, and do you request.

I sent you Beppo some weeks agone. You had best publish it alone; it has politics and ferocity, and won't do for your Isthmus of a Journal.

Mr. Hobhouse, if the Alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, swimming with my Commentaries and his own coat of Mail in his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and Dover.

It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the estrum and agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met her at the Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth,

B.

686.-To Thomas Moore.

Venice, February 2, 1818.

Your letter of December 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity' is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all. Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart

1. The death of Moore's daughter Barbara. Writing to his mother, September 20, 1817, Moore says, "It's all over, my dearest "mother; our Barbara is gone. She died the day before yester"day; and though her death was easy, it was a dreadful scene to us "both. I can bear such things myself pretty well; but to see and "listen to poor Bessy makes me as bad as she is " (Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 125).

may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs.

I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an il-legitimate since (to say nothing of one before), and I look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach-which I hope I never shall-that desolating period. I have a great love for my little Ada, though perhaps she may torture me like

*

* *

Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. I don't much care what the wretches of the world think of me-all that's past. But I care a good deal what you think of me, and, so say what you like. You know that I am not sullen; and, as to being savage, such things depend on circumstances. However, as to being in good humour in your society, there is no great merit in that, because it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise.

I don't know what Murray may have been saying or quoting. I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers of present Poesy; and said, that I thought-except themall of "us youth" were on a wrong tack. But I never

1. "Having seen by accident the passage in one of his letters to "Mr. Murray, in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the 66 poetical system on which the greater number of his cotemporaries, as well as himself, founded their reputation, I took an opportunity, "in the next letter I wrote to him, of jesting a little on this opinion, "and his motives for it. It was, no doubt (I ventured to say), excel"lent policy in him, who had made sure of his own immortality in this "style of writing, thus to throw overboard all us poor devils who were "embarked with him. He was, in fact, I added, behaving towards us "much in the manner of the Methodist preacher who said to his con"gregation, "You may think, at the Last Day, to get to heaven by laying hold on my skirts; but I'll cheat you all, for I'll wear a 'spencer, I'll wear a spencer!'" (Moore).

1818.]

ADMIRATION AND IMITATION.

197

said that we did not sail well. Our fame will be hurt by admiration and imitation. When I say our, I mean all (Lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans. The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal and can ride. But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manège, and learn to ride the "great horse."

Talking of horses, by the way, I have transported my own, four in number, to the Lido1 (beach in English), a

1. Of Byron's daily rides on the Lido, Hoppner gives the following account (Moore's Life, p. 373):

"Almost immediately after Mr. Hobhouse's departure, Lord "Byron proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido. "One of the long narrow islands which separate the Lagune, in the "midst of which Venice stands, from the Adriatic, is more particu"larly distinguished by this name. At one extremity is a fortifica"tion, which, with the Castle of St. Andrea on an island on the "opposite side, defends the nearest entrance to the city from the In times of peace this fortification is almost dismantled, and "Lord Byron had hired here of the Commandant an unoccupied "stable, where he kept his horses. The distance from the city was "not very considerable; it was much less than to the Terra Firma, "and, as far as it went, the spot was not ineligible for riding.

"sea.

"Every day that the weather would permit, Lord Byron called "for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us out"side of the fort. We rode as far as we could along the seashore, "and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which has been "raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small "fort about half-way between the principal one which I have "already mentioned, and the town or village of Malamocco, which "is near the other extremity of the island, the distance between the "two forts being about three miles.

"On the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller "fort, was a boundary stone, which probably marked some division "of property,-all the side of the island nearest the Lagune being "divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables for the Vene"tian markets. At the foot of this stone Lord Byron repeatedly "told me that I should cause him to be interred, if he should die in "Venice, or its neighbourhood, during my residence there; and he "appeared to think, as he was not a Catholic, that, on the part of "the Government, there could be no obstacle to his interment in an

strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that I not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits.

I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. We are in the agonies of the Carnival's last days, and I must be up all night again, as well as to-morrow. I have had some curious masking adventures this Carnival; but, as they are not yet over, I shall not say on. I will work ✰ the mine of my youth to the last veins of the ore, and then-good night. I have lived, and am content.

Hobhouse went away before the Carnival began, so that he had little or no fun. Besides, it requires some time to be thoroughgoing with the Venetians; but of all this anon, in some other letter. *

*

I must dress for the evening. There is an opera and ridotto, and I know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours,

B.

"unhallowed spot of ground by the seaside. At all events, I was to overcome whatever difficulties might be raised on this account. "I was by no means, he repeatedly told me, to allow his body to "be removed to England, nor permit any of his family to interfere "with his funeral.

66

"Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to me. We were from half to three quarters of an hour "crossing the water, during which his conversation was always "most amusing and interesting. Sometimes he would bring with "him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages "which most struck him. Often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had com"posed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more interesting to me, because I could frequently trace in them some "idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding "day, or some remark, the effect of which he had been evidently "trying upon me. Occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, "making me repeat all I had heard with regard to him, and desiring "that I would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was "said."

1818.]

BELOE'S SEXAGENARIAN.

199

P.S.-I send this without revision, so excuse errors. I delight in the fame and fortune of Lalla, and again congratulate you on your well-merited success.

687.-To John Murray.

Venice, Feb. 20, 1818.

DEAR SIR,-I have to thank Mr. Croker for the arrival, and you for the Continents, of the parcel which came last week, much quicker than any before, owing to Mr. C.'s kind attention, and the official exterior of the bags; and all safe, except much fraction amongst the magnesia, of which only two bottles came entire; but it is all very well, and I am exceedingly obliged to you.

The books I have read, or rather am reading. Pray, who may be the Sexagenarian,' whose gossip is very amusing? Many of his sketches I recognise, particularly Gifford, Mackintosh, Drummond, Dutens, H. Walpole, Mrs. Inchbald, Opie, etc., with the Scotts, Loughborough, and most of the divines and lawyers, besides a few shorter hints of authors, and a few lines about a certain "Noble Author," characterised as Malignant and Sceptical, according to the good old story, "as it was in the

1. The Sexagenarian, or Recollections of a Literary Life, though posthumously published, was printed under the inspection of its author, the Rev. William Beloe (1756-1817), translator of Herodotus, Keeper of the printed books at the British Museum (1803-6), one of the proprietors and editor of the British Critic, and author of Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books (1806-12), etc., etc. Beloe devotes chapters xxxiv.-xxxix. to Porson, incidentally (ch. xxxvii.) defending him from the attacks of Gilbert Wakefield, in his Correspondence with Charles James Fox (pp. 99-101). He also concludes his volumes with a chapter of "Porsoniana." (For Porson, see Letters, vol. i. p. 84, note 2.)

2. "Neither would I have you ask the Noble Author. Him, I "mean, who is certainly possessed of great intellectual powers, and "a peculiar turn for a certain line of poetry; but whose bad passions "so perpetually insinuate themselves in every thing which he writes, "that it is hardly possible to escape the injury of his venom, and