1821.] PRIESTLY INSOLENCE. 209 But, as Squire Sullen says, "My head aches consumedly : I have been a day without continuing the log, because I could not find a blank book. At length I recollected this. 3 Rode, etc.-wrote down an additional stanza for the 5th canto of D[on] J[uan] which I had composed in bed this morning. Visited 'Amica. We are invited, on the night of the Veglione (next Dominica) with the Marchesa Clelia Cavalli and the Countess Spinelli Rasponi. I promised to go. Last night there was a row at the ball, of which I am a socio. The Vice-legate had the imprudent insolence to introduce three of his servants in masque -without tickets, too! and in spite of remonstrances. The consequence was, that the young men of the ball took it up, and were near throwing the Vice-legate out of the window. His servants, seeing the scene, withdrew, and he after them. His reverence Monsignore ought to know, that these are not times for the predominance of priests over decorum. Two minutes more, two steps further, and the whole city would have been in arms, and the government driven out of it. 66 1. In Farquhar's Beaux' Stratagem, act v. sc. 4, Sullen says, "How, my writings! My head aches consumedly-Well, gentlemen, you shall have her Fortune, but I can't talk. If you have a "mind, Sir Charles, to be merry, and celebrate my sister's wedding, "and my Divorce, you may command my house-but my head "aches consumedly-Scrub, bring me a dram." 2. "In another paper-book" (Moore). 3. Stanza clviii.— "Thus in the East they are extremely strict, And wedlock and a padlock mean the same," etc. VOL. V. P Such is the spirit of the day, and these fellows appear not to perceive it. As far as the simple fact went, the young men were right, servants being prohibited always at these festivals. Yesterday wrote two notes on the " Bowles and Pope" controversy, and sent them off to Murray by the post. The old woman whom I relieved in the forest (she is ninety-four years of age) brought me two bunches of violets. Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus. I was much pleased with the present. An English woman would have presented a pair of worsted stockings, at least, in the month of February. Both excellent things; but the former are more elegant. The present, at this season, reminds one of Gray's stanza, omitted from his elegy :— "Here scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; And little footsteps lightly print the ground." As fine a stanza as any in his elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart to omit it." Last night I suffered horribly-from an indigestion, I believe. I never sup-that is, never at home. But, last 1. Byron quotes from Abraham Cowley's Epitaphium vivi Auctoris; the last stanza runs as follows : "Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas, Herbisque odoratis corona Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem." 2. The stanza originally preceded the "Epitaph," and followed the lines Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." This stanza 66 was printed in some of the first editions, but after"wards omitted, because he [Gray] thought (and in my own opinion "very justly) that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The "lines, however, are in themselves exquisitely fine, and demand "preservation" (The Works of Thomas Gray, 1814, ed. Mason and Mathias, vol. i. p. 127). 1821.] THE SOUL AND BODY. 211 night, I was prevailed upon by the Countess Gamba's persuasion, and the strenuous example of her brother, to swallow, at supper, a quantity of boiled cockles, and to dilute them, not reluctantly, with some Imola wine. When I came home, apprehensive of the consequences, I swallowed three or four glasses of spirits, which men (the venders) call brandy, rum, or hollands, but which gods would entitle spirits of wine, coloured or sugared. All was pretty well till I got to bed, when I became somewhat swollen, and considerably vertiginous. I got out, and mixing some soda-powders, drank them off. This brought on temporary relief. I returned to bed; but grew sick and sorry once and again. Took more sodawater. At last I fell into a dreary sleep. Woke, and was ill all day, till I had galloped a few miles. Querywas it the cockles, or what I took to correct them, that caused the commotion? I think both. I remarked in my illness the complete inertion, inaction, and destruction of my chief mental faculties. I tried to rouse them, and yet could not—and this is the Soul!!! I should believe that it was married to the body, if they did not sympathise so much with each other. If the one rose, when the other fell, it would be a sign that they longed for the natural state of divorce. But as it is, they seem to draw together like post-horses. Let us hope the best-it is the grand possession. CHAPTER XXII. THE PALAZZO GUICCIOLI, RAVENNA, JANUARY- REPRESENTATION OF MARINO FALIERO-COLLAPSE OF REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN ITALY-LETTERS AGAINST BOWLES'S CRITICISM OF POPE-EXILE OF THE GAMBAS-DEATH OF KEATS-SARDANAPALUS, THE TWO FOSCARI, AND CAIN-SHELLEY'S VISIT TO BYRON AT RAVENNA "THE IRISH AVATAR"-THE VISION OF judgment. 858.-To Thomas Moore. Ravenna, January 2, 1821. YOUR entering into my project for the Memoir, is pleasant to me. But I doubt (contrary to me my dear Made Mac F**, whom I always loved, and always shall-not only because I really did feel attached to her personally, but because she and about a dozen others of that sex were all who stuck by me in the grand conflict of 1815)—but I doubt, I say, whether the Memoir could appear in my lifetime; and, indeed, I had rather it did not; for a man always looks dead after his Life has appeared, and I should certes not survive the appearance of mine. The first part I cannot consent to alter, even 1. Probably Madame de Flahault, née Mercer (see Letters, vol. iii. p. 253, note 1). 1821.] MADAME DE STAËL. 213 although Madame de S[tael]'s opinion of B. C. and my remarks upon Lady C.'s beauty (which is surely great, and I suppose that I have said so-at least, I ought) should go down to our grandchildren in unsophisticated nakedness. As to Madame de S[tael], I am by no means bound to be her beadsman-she was always more civil to me in person than during my absence. Our dear defunct friend, Monk Lewis, who was too great a bore ever to lie, assured me upon his tiresome word of honour, that at Florence, the said Madame de S[tael] was open-mouthed against me; and when asked, in Switzerland, why she had changed her opinion, replied, with laudable sincerity, that I had named her in a sonnet with Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.1 and that she could not help it through decency. Now, I have not forgotten this, but I have been generous, -as mine acquaintance, the late Captain Whitby, of the navy, used to say to his seamen (when "married to the "gunner's daughter")-"two dozen and let you off easy." The "two dozen" were with the cat-o'-nine tails;-the "let you off easy was rather his own opinion than that of the patient. My acquaintance with these terms and practices arises from my having been much conversant with ships of war and naval heroes in the year of my voyages in the Mediterranean. Whitby was in the gallant action off Lissa in 1811. He was brave, but a disciplinarian. I. 2 "Rousseau-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and De Stael, Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore," etc. Sonnet to Lake Leman, written at Diodati, July, 1816. 2. The combined French and Italian squadron, under Dubourdieu, consisting of six frigates and five smaller armed vessels, sailed from Ancona, with 500 troops on board, to fortify and garrison the island of Lissa on the Dalmatian Coast. On March 13, 1811, they were defeated off Lissa by an English squadron of three frigates and one |