I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased. But this is nothing to my publisher, who must judge and act according to popularity.

Therefore let the things take their chance: if they pay, you will pay me in proportion; and if they don't, I must.

The Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take advantage of my absence to abuse me. Further than this, I have no business nor connection with England, nor desire to have, out of my own family and friends, to whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I have lived upon the whole so little in England (about five years since I was one and twenty), that my habits are too continental, and your climate would please me as little as the Society. I saw the Chancellor's report in a French paper. Pray, why don't they prosecute the translation of Lucretius or the original with its

or

"Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor,"1

"Tantum Religio potuit suadere Malorum ? "*

I have only seen one review of the book, and that was in Galignani's magazine, quoted from the Monthly. It was very favourable to the plays, as Compositions.

You must really get something done for Mr. Taaffe's Commentary. What can I say to him?

Yours, ever and truly,

1. Statius, Thebais, iii. 661.

NOEL BYRON.

2. Lucretius, De Rerum Naturâ, i. 102.

987.-To John Hanson.

Pisa, March 22ḍ 1822.

DEAR SIR,-I greatly approve of the steps you have taken as indicated in your various letters, all of which I have reason to think have been received safely. I have written to you about three or four times but do not precisely recollect the number.

You are too sanguine about Dearden and the Rochdale affairs, I doubt. The decision in the Exchequer extinguished any further hopes on that point; for the Chancellor is no friend of mine, and may probably decide according to his feelings.

As to the tolls, you will I presume make the best bargain we can. Press the points you mention of the "Mansion, etc.," on the mind of my Arbitrator.

I regret what you say of the "portrait," etc.,1 as some steps must be taken to prevent the Child's mind from being prejudiced against her father, and I beg of you to inform me what can legally be done to direct her education, so as to prevent her being brought up in a hostile state towards me. I have no wish to pretend to educate her myself, as she is a daughter; but if her mother's friends are to instil hostile feelings into her head, the Chancellor must be called upon to name a proper third person or Guardian to have her properly educated by. Let me hear from you soon.

Yours, ever and truly,

NOEL BYRON.

1. Lady Noel's will was proved at Doctors' Commons, February 22, 1822, by the executors, Dr. Lushington and N. W. R. Colbourne. She left to the trustees a portrait of Byron, described as enclosed in a case at Kirkby Mallory, with directions that it was not to be shown to his daughter Ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; but that, if her mother were still living, it was not to be so delivered without Lady Byron's consent.

P.S. Would not Dearden, think you, come to some terms without going through with the Appeal?

P.S. 2 I am told that there are some erroneous paragraphs on the subject of the Noel business in the papers. I trust that you will cause such to be corrected and my right in the settlement truly stated.

988.-To E. J. Dawkins.1

Pisa, March 27, 1822.

SIR,-I take the liberty of transmitting to you the statements, as delivered to the police, of an extraordinary affair which occurred here on Sunday last. This will not, it is to be hoped, be considered an intrusion, as several British subjects have been insulted and some wounded on the occasion, besides being arrested at the gate of the city without proper authority or reasonable cause.

With regard to the subsequent immediate occurrence of the aggressor's wound, there is little that I can add to the enclosed statements. The testimony of an impartial eye-witness, Dr. Crawford, with whom I had not the honour of a personal acquaintance, will inform you as much as I know myself.

1. Reprinted from the Nineteenth Century for November, 1891. Dawkins was the British Minister at Florence.

2. For the scuffle with Sergeant-major Masi, and the signed statement of Byron, Shelley, Trelawny, and Hay, together with that of Dr. Crawford, see Appendix II. Underneath the counter-statement of Taaffe, Byron has written the following note in his Italian copy of the Rapporto sopra l'accaduto al Nobile Lord Noel Byron ed altri; "Nota bene. This deposition of Mr. John Taaffe, who began the "quarrel and then tried to back out of it for fear of the Pisans, hath "acquired for the said John Taaffe the name and designation of "Falstaffe. He hath since recanted a part of his said statement to "the English Minister, and now admits that he did think himself 66 affronted, etc."

It is proper to add that I conceived the man to have been an officer, as he was well dressed, with scaled epaulettes, and not ill-mounted, and not a serjeant-major (the son of a washerwoman, it is said) as he turns out to be.

When I accosted him a second time, on the Lung' Arno, he called out to me with a menacing gesture, "Are you content?" I (still ignorant of what had passed under the gateway, having ridden through the guard to order my steward to go to the police) answered, "No; I want your name and address." He then held out his hand, which I took, not understanding whether he intended it as a pledge of his hostility or of his repentance, at the same time stating his name.

The rest of the facts appear to have been as within stated, as far as my knowledge goes. Two of my servants (both Italians) are detained on suspicion of having wounded him. Of this I know no more than the enclosed papers vouch, and can only say that, notwithstanding the atrocious aggression (of the particulars of which I was at the moment ignorant), the act was as completely disapproved of by me as it was totally unauthorised, either directly or indirectly.

It neither is nor has been my wish to prevent or evade the fullest investigation of the business; had it been so, it would have been easy to have either left the place myself or to have removed any suspected person from it, the police having taken no steps whatever till this afternoon-three days after the fact.

I have the honour, etc.,

NOEL BYRON.

989.-To John Murray.

Pisa, March 31st 1822.

DEAR SIR, I have to acknowledge the receipt of several books, etc., which I will acknowledge more at length shortly.

I am very much occupied at present with a squabble between some English (myself for one) and some Soldiers of the Guard at the Gate and a dragoon, who wanted to arrest us. Some have been wounded-the dragoon severely, but now recovering. The matter is before the British Minister at Florence, and of course I cannot send an ex parte statement, till I see what he says further. His letter to me has been very handsome and obliging. Yours, ever and truly,

N. B.

990. To the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird (?). Pisa, April 2, 1822.

MY DEAR [DOUGLAS],—I cannot make this a long letter (luckily for you), for I am a good deal occupied about a very unpleasant squabble between some soldiers of the guard at the gate, a drunken brutal dragoon, and some English gentlemen, including myself.

The result was, that they tried to arrest us. I broke through with another. An Englishman was wounded and the dragoon stabbed (by a servant, as is supposed), in a very dangerous way, in the full street, before thousands of people, as he was galloping along, after sabring the unarmed people already in arrest. The fellow is, however, declared out of danger, and the Englishman is also well. This is the sum; but the particular depositions I reserve until I hear again from our minister at Florence