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I have received a very handsome and flattering note from Count D'Orsay. He must excuse my apparent rudeness and real ignorance in replying to it in English, through the medium of your kind interpretation. I would not on any account deprive him of a production, of which I really think more than I have even said, though you are good enough not to be dissatisfied even with that; but whenever it is completed, it would give me the greatest pleasure to have a copy—but how to keep it secret? literary secrets are like others. By changing the names, or at least omitting several, and altering the circumstances indicative of the writer's real station or situation, the author would render it a most amusing publication. His countrymen have not been treated, either in a literary or personal point of view, with such deference in English recent works as to lay him under any very great national obligation of forbearance; and really the remarks are so true and piquants, that I cannot bring myself to wish their suppression; though, as Dangle says, "He is my friend," many of these personages" were my friends," but much such friends as Dangle and his allies.

I return you Dr. Parr's letter 2-I have met him at Payne Knight's and elsewhere, and he did me the honour once to be a patron of mine, although a great friend of the other branch of the House of Atreus, and the Greek teacher (I believe) of my moral Clytemnestra-I say moral, because it is true, and is so useful to the virtuous, that it enables them to do any thing without the aid of an Ægistheus.

1. The Critic, act i. sc. I.

He was

2. For Dr. Parr, see Letters, vol. iv. p. 261, note 1. brought into contact with Payne Knight over "Faddle " in 1799 (Johnstone's Works of Samuel Parr, vol. i. pp. 618-622).

I beg my compliments to Lady B., Miss P., and your Alfred. I think, since his Majesty of the same name, there has not been such a learned surveyor of our Saxon society.

Ever yours most truly,

N. B.

April 9, 1823.

P.S.-I salute Miledi, Mademoiselle Mama, and the illustrious Chevalier Count D'Orsay; who, I hope, will continue his history of "his own times." There are some strange coincidences between a part of his remarks and a certain work of mine, now in MS. in England, (I do not mean the hermetically sealed Memoirs, but a continuation of certain cantos of a certain poem,) especially in what a man may do in London with impunity while he is " à la mode"; which I think it well to state, that he may not suspect me of taking advantage of his confidence. The observations are very general.

1069.-To John Hunt.3

April 9th 1823.

SIR,-I add a few lines to what I wrote last week to request that you will have the goodness to mention to Mr. K that it is essential for me to have the remaining Cantos in proof immediately, that I may correct the

1. Miss Mary Anne Power, Lady Blessington's youngest sister, married (1832) the Baron de St. Marsault.

2. See Don Juan, Canto XII. stanza 23

". . . O my gentle Juan!

Thou art in London-in that pleasant place,

Where every kind of mischief's daily brewing

Which can await warm youth in its wild race," etc.

3. Printed in facsimile for subscribers to the Literary Guardian for June 16, 1832, vol. ii. p. 160.

press; as also those of "the Island," a poem in four Cantos now received in London. The number of unpublished Cos of D[on] Л[uan] (including the 15th lately sent) is ten in all, forming three series (?), or even three vols with only nine-allowing three for each.

Yours, in great haste,

N. B.

P.S.-I open my letter (so do not calumniate the post) to say that I have just seen a young man, late Clerk to Galignani of Paris, who tells me that of all my works D. Juan is the most popular, and sells doubly in proportion, especially amongst the women who send for it the more that it is abused.

Now what is the motive of Mr. K's delay or demur, I cannot tell. He must be taken in by some plot or circulating lie of the bookselling Leviathan, to disgust me, or to appall him. I do not know who may be or who should be the publisher; but I should see little difficulty in finding one. As to the reviewers, leave me to fight with them. I have "bobbit it weel" with them once, and "Gin it be na weel bobbit-weel bobbit-weel bobbit— "Gin it be na weel bobbit-we'll bobbit." 1

1070. To the Earl of Blessington.

April 14, 1823.

I am truly sorry that I cannot accompany you in your ride this morning, owing to a violent pain in my face, arising from a wart to which I by medical advice applied a caustic. Whether I put too much, I do not know; but the consequence is, that not only I have been put to some pain, but the peccant part and its immediate 1. "If it wasna weel bobbit," etc.-Heart of Midlothian, chap.

environ are as black as if the printer's devil had marked me for an author. As I do not wish to frighten your horses, or their riders, I shall postpone waiting upon you until six o'clock, when I hope to have subsided into a more christian-like resemblance to my fellow-creatures. My infliction has partially extended even to my fingers; for on trying to get the black from off my upper lip at least, I have only transferred a portion thereof to my right hand, and neither lemon-juice nor eau de Cologne, nor any other eau, have been able as yet to redeem it also from a more inky appearance than is either proper or pleasant. But "out, damn'd spot"-you may have perceived something of the kind yesterday; for on my return, I saw that during my visit it had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished; and I could not help laughing at the figure I must have cut before you. At any rate, I shall be with you at six, with the advantage of twilight.

Ever most truly, etc.

Eleven o'clock.

P.S.-I wrote the above at three this morning. I regret to say that the whole of the skin of about an inch square above my upper lip has come off, so that I cannot even shave or masticate, and I am equally unfit to appear at your table, and to partake of its hospitality. Will you therefore pardon me, and not mistake this rueful excuse for a "make-believe," as you will soon recognise whenever I have the pleasure of meeting you again, and I will call the moment I am, in the nursery phrase, "fit to be seen." Tell Lady B., with my compliments, that I am rummaging my papers for a MS. worthy of her acceptation. I have just seen the younger Count Gamba; and as I cannot prevail on his infinite modesty to take the field

VOL. VI.

without me, I must take this piece of diffidence on myself also, and beg your indulgence for both.

1071. To the Earl of Blessington.

April 14th, 1823.

MY DEAR LORD,-I was not in the way when your note came. I have only time to thank you, and to send the Galignani's. My face is better in fact, but worse in appearance, with a very scurvy aspect; but I expect it to be well in a day or two. I will subscribe to the Improving Society.

Yours in haste, but ever,

NOEL BYRON.

1072. To the Count D'Orsay.

April 22, 1823.

My dear Count D'Orsay (if you will permit me to address you so familiarly), you should be content with writing in your own language, like Grammont,1 and succeeding in London as nobody has succeeded since the days of Charles the Second and the records of Antonio Hamilton, without deviating into our barbarous language, -which you understand and write, however, much better than it deserves.

My "approbation," as you are pleased to term it, was very sincere, but perhaps not very impartial; for, though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen-at least, such as they now are. And, besides the seduction of talent and wit in your work, I fear that to me there

1. Anthony Hamilton (1646-1720) wrote the Mémoires de la Vie du Comte de Grammont, contenant particulièrement L'Histoire Amoureuse de la Cour d'Angleterre sous le Règne de Charles II., the first edition of which was published at Cologne in 1713.

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