But if they are, are their coats and waistcoats also seen? I do not disbelieve that we may be two by some unconscious process, to a certain sign; but which of these two I happen at present to be, I leave you to decide. I only hope that t'other me behaves like a Gemman.

I wish you would get Peel asked how far I am accurate in my recollection of what he told me; for I don't like to say such things without authority.

I am not sure that I was not spoken with; but this also you can ascertain. I have written to you such lots

that I stop.

Yours,

B.

P.S.-Send me the proofs of the "Hints from H., etc."

P.S. Last year (in June, 1819), I met at Count Mosti's, at Ferrara, an Italian who asked me "if I knew "Lord Byron ?" I told him no (no one knows himself, you know): "then," says he, "I do; I met him at "Naples the other day." I pulled out my card and asked him if that was the way he spelt his name: and he answered, yes. I suspect that it was a blackguard Navy Surgeon, named Bury or Berry, who attended a young travelling Madman about, named Graham, and passed himself for a Lord at the Posthouses: he was a vulgar dog-quite of the Cockpit order—and a precious representative I must have had of him, if it was even so; but I don't know. He passed himself off as a Gentleman, and squired about a Countess Zinnani (of this place), then at Venice, an ugly battered woman, of bad morals even for Italy.

1820.]

GENUINE ENGLISH, RIGHT VENETIAN.

89

835.-To John Murray.

Ravenna, 8bre 8°, 1820.

DEAR MORAY,-Foscolo's letter is exactly the thing wanted; ist, because he is a man of Genius; and, next, because he is an Italian, and therefore the best Judge of Italics. Besides,

"He's more an antique Roman than a Dane;"

that is, he has more of the antient Greek than of the modern Italian. Though, "somewhat," as Dugald Dalgetty says, "too wild and salvage" (like "Ronald of "the Mist"), 2 'tis a wonderful man; and my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him-and they are good Judges of men and of Italian humanity.

"Here are in all two worthy voices gained."

Gifford says it is good "sterling genuine English," and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian. Shakespeare and Otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being dead from one to two centuries, and having been both born blackguards (which ARE such attractions to the Gentle living reader): let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly have-that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the local Spirit of it. I claim no

more.

I know what F. means about Calendaro's spitting at Bertram: that's national-the objection, I mean.

1.

"Horatio.

Never believe it :

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane."
Hamlet, act v. sc. 2.

2. Legend of Montrose, chap. xiii.

3. "Coriolanus. A match, sir.-There is in all two worthy "voices begged; I have your alms: adieu.”—Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 3.

4. "Calendaro (spitting at him). I die and scorn thee!"Marino Faliero, act v. sc. I.

The Italians and French, with those "flags of Abomina"tion," their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else—in your face almost, and therefore object to it on the Stage as too familiar. But we who spit nowhere-but in a man's face when we grow savage -are not likely to feel this. Remember Massinger, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach

"Lord! thus I spit at thee and thy Counsel !"

Besides, Calendaro does not spit in Bertram's face he spits at him, as I have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when they are in a rage. Again, he does not in fact despise Bertram, though he affects it-as we all do, when angry with one we think our inferior: he is angry at not being allowed to die in his own way (although not afraid of death); and recollect, that he suspected and hated Bertram from the first. Israel Bertuccio, on the other hand, is a cooler and more concentrated fellow : he acts upon principle and impulse; Calendaro upon impulse and example.

So there's argument for you.

The Doge repeats ;-true, but it is from engrossing passion, and because he sees different persons, and is always obliged to recur to the cause uppermost in his mind. His speeches are long;-true, but I wrote for the Closet, and on the French and Italian model rather than yours, which I think not very highly of, for all your old dramatists, who are long enough too, God knows : look into any of them.

I wish you, too, to nothing to the reader.

recollect one thing which is I never wrote nor copied an entire Scene of that play, without being obliged to break off

I. "Sir Giles Overreach" says to "Lord Lovel," in A New Way to pay Old Debts, act v. sc. I, "Lord! thus I spit at thee, and at thy "counsel."

1820.]

THREE FRIENDS IN NEED.

91

-to break a commandment, to obey a woman's, and to forget God's. Remember the drain of this upon a man's heart and brain, to say nothing of his immortal soul. Fact, I assure you. The Lady always apologized for the interruption; but you know the answer a man must make when and while he can. It happened to be the only hour I had in the four and twenty for composition, or reading, and I was obliged to divide even it. Such are the defined duties of a Cavalier' Servente or Cavalier Schiavo.

I return you F[oscolo]'s letter, because it alludes also to his private affairs. I am sorry to see such a man in straits, because I know what they are, or what they were. I never met but three men who would have held out a finger to me one was yourself, the other W Bankes, and the third a Nobleman long ago dead. But of these the first was the only one who offered it while I really wanted it; the second from good will-but I was not in need of Bankes's aid, and would not have accepted it if I had (though I love and esteem him); and the third

1

So you see that I have seen some strange things in my time. As for your own offer, it was in 1815, when I was in actual uncertainty of five pounds. I rejected it; but I have not forgotten it, although you probably have.

You are to publish when and how you please; but I thought you and Mr. Hobhouse had decided not to print the whole of " Blackwood" as being partly unproducible : do as ye please after consulting Hobhouse about it.

P.S.-Foscolo's Ricciarda was lent, with the leaves uncut, to some Italians now in Villeggiatura, so that I

1. The paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original, Byron having carefully erased three lines of writing.

have had no opportunity of hearing their opinion, or of reading it. They seized on it as Foscolo's, and on account of the beauty of the paper and printing, directly. If I find it takes, I will reprint it here. The Italians think as highly of Foscolo as they can of any man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of anything but extracts from French newspapers and the Lugano Gazette.

We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in pursuit, only waiting for the first faller on, to do unutterable things. They are a great world in Chaos, or Angels in Hell, which you please; but out of Chaos came Paradise, and out of hell-I don't know what; but the Devil went in there, and he was a fine fellow once, you know.

You need never favour me with any periodical publications, excepting the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and an occasional Blackwood, or now and then a Monthly Review; for the rest I do not feel curiosity enough to look beyond their covers.

To be sure I took in the British Roberts finely; he fell precisely into the glaring trap laid for him: it was inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to think us serious with him.

Recollect, that if you put my name to Don Juan in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my Guardian right of my daughter in Chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody; such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen. Let me know your notions.