of them. As to Mr. Davidson, he may be an honest man, but he is not (to my knowledge) a sober one; and I do not approve of his nomination. I see that we must go to law with him at once-there appears little else left for it.

You may show this letter to Mr. Kinnaird or Dr. Lushington: I will stand by what I say as to Lushington's and the Noel people's conduct, and give him satisfaction with the greatest pleasure, though I suspect that his weapons are only libels, in and out of Doctors' Commons.

As to going to the expence of surveying an estate, from which we shall be but too lucky to obtain any rent at all, it seems to me, at present, a kind of insanity, and even a shame to distress the farmers further at such a moment.

I do not know that I need add anything further at present except1

P.S.-Have you anything to add on the Rochdale Coal Suits? When will they be decided? one way or the other?

If you are sure that the Noel trustees are assuming an undue right, let us go to law with them at once.

1013.-To John Murray.

2

Pisa, July 3 1822.

DEAR SIR,-I sent you the revise of Werner last week. As you thought proper to omit the dedication of Sardanapalus to Goëthe, you will please to append it to

1. Here a passage, probably only the signature, has been cut out. 2. For the circumstances of Byron's departure from Montenero, see Appendix III.

Werner, making only the necessary alteration in the title of the work dedicated.

You will please also to deliver to the bearer, Mr. John Hunt, the Vision of Judgement by Quevedo Redivivus, with the preface-I mean the corrected copy of the proofs which you had from the Honble Douglas Kinnaird. Yours ever and truly,

NOEL BYRON.

1014.-To John Murray.

Pisa, July 6th 1822.

DEAR SIR,-I return you the revise: I have softened the part to which Gifford objected, and changed the name of Michael to Raphael, who was an angel of gentler sympathies. By the way, recollect to alter Michael to Raphael in the Scene itself throughout, for I have only had time to do so in the list of the Dramatis Personæ, and scratch out all the pencil marks, to avoid puzzling the

1. John Hunt, brother to Leigh Hunt, and, like him, imprisoned for the libel on the Prince Regent (see Letters, vol. ii. p. 205, note I), was printer, publisher, and part proprietor of The Examiner and The Liberal.

Byron's gift of the Vision of Judgment was probably the result of Shelley's appeal. Leigh Hunt, who arrived about June 29, 1822, at Leghorn, walked out the following day to call on Byron at Montenero (see Appendix III.). He found Byron's plans disturbed, his movements doubtful, and his own arrival untimely. Returning to Leghorn, he took rooms for himself, his wife, and his family at an inn. There, on the evening of July 1, Shelley found him. Shelley's first step was to settle Hunt at Pisa, in the ground floor of the Casa Lanfranchi, where Byron and Countess Guiccioli arrived the same day from Montenero. His second step was to hold Byron to his promise of helping the proposed Review. Writing to Mrs. Shelley, July 4, 1822 (Prose Works, ed. H. Buxton Forman, vol. iv. p. 289), he tells her that Byron had offered Hunt "the "copyright of the Vision of Judgment for his first number. This "offer, if sincere, is more than enough to set up the journal, and, if "sincere, will set everything right."

2. I.e. in Heaven and Earth.

printers. I have given the " Vision of Quevedo Redi"vivus" to John Hunt, which will relieve you from a dilemma. He must publish it at his own risk, as it is at his own desire. Give him the corrected copy which Mr. K had, as it is mitigated partly, and also the preface. Yours ever,

N. B.

1015.-To John Murray.

Pisa, July 8th 1822.

DEAR SIR,-Last week I returned you the packet of proofs. You had, perhaps, better not publish in the same volume the Po and Rimini translation.

I have consigned a letter to Mr. John Hunt for the Vision of Judgement, which you will hand over to him. Also the Pulci, original and Italian, and any prose tracts of mine; for Mr. Leigh Hunt' is arrived here, and

1. Leigh Hunt (Autobiography, vol. iii. pp. 22–25) describes his life with Byron at Pisa

"Our manner of life was this. Lord Byron, who used to sit up "at night, writing Don Juan (which he did under the influence of "gin and water), rose late in the morning. He breakfasted; read; "lounged about, singing an air, generally out of Rossini; then took a bath, and was dressed; and coming downstairs, was heard, still "singing, in the court-yard, out of which the garden ascended, by a "few steps, at the back of the house. The servants, at the same "time, brought out two or three chairs. My study, a little room in "a corner, with an orange tree at the window, looked upon this "court-yard. I was generally at my writing when he came down, "and either acknowledged his presence by getting up and saying "something from the window, or he called out 'Leontius!' (a "name into which Shelley had pleasantly converted that of 'Leigh "Hunt') and came up to the window with some jest, or other "challenge to conversation. His dress, as at Monte Nero, was a "nankin jacket, with white waistcoat and trousers, and a cap, either "velvet or linen, with a shade to it. In his hand was a tobacco"box, from which he helped himself occasionally to what he "thought a preservative from getting too fat. Perhaps also he "supposed it good for the teeth. We then lounged about, or sat "and talked, Madame Guiccioli, with her sleek tresses, descending

thinks of commencing a periodical work, to which I shall contribute. I do not propose to you to be the publisher, because I know that you are unfriends; but all things in your care, except the volume now in the press, and the MSS. purchased of Mr. Moore, can be given for this purpose, according as they are wanted; and I expect that you will show fair play, though with no very good will on your part.

With regard to what you say about your "want of "memory," I can only remark, that you inserted the note to Marino Faliero against my positive revocation, and that you omitted the dedication of Sardanapalus to Goethe (place it before the volume now in the press), both of which were things not very agreeable to me, and which I could wish to be avoided in future, as they might be with a very little care, or a simple Memorandum in your pocket book.

It is not impossible that I may have three or four cantos of D. Juan1 ready by autumn, or a little later, as I obtained a permission from my Dictatress to continue it,-provided always it was to be more guarded and decorous and sentimental in the continuation than in the commencement. How far these Conditions have been fulfilled may be seen, perhaps, by and bye; but the Embargo was only taken off upon these stipulations. You can answer at your leisure.

Yours ever,

N. B.

"after her toilet to join us. . . . In the evening we sometimes rode

...

"or drove out, generally into the country... The state of my "wife's health would not suffer her to quit her apartment."

1. Cantos VI., VII., VIII., were published by John Hunt in July, 1823, with a Preface which Byron has dated Pisa, July, 1822.' Cantos IX., X., XI., were published, also by John Hunt, in August, 1823.

1016.-To Thomas Moore.

Pisa, July 12, 1822.

I have written to you lately, but not in answer to your last letter of about a fortnight ago. I wish to know (and request an answer to that point) what became of the stanzas to Wellington1 (intended to open a canto of Don Juan with) which I sent you several months ago. If they have fallen into Murray's hands, he and the Tories will suppress them, as those lines rate that hero at his real value. Pray be explicit on this, as I have no other copy, having sent you the original; and if you have them, let me have that again, or a copy correct. * * * *

I subscribed at Leghorn two hundred Tuscan crowns to your Irishism committee: it is about a thousand francs, more or less. As Sir C[harles] S[tuart], who receives thirteen thousand a year of the public money, could not afford more than a thousand livres out of his enormous salary, it would have appeared ostentatious in a private individual to pretend to surpass him; and therefore I have sent but the above sum, as you will see by the enclosed receipt.2

Leigh Hunt is here, after a voyage of eight months, during which he has, I presume, made the Periplus of

1. See Don Juan, Canto IX.

2. On June 10, 1822, a committee was formed at Paris, His Excellency Sir Charles Stuart being in the chair, to raise funds for the distressed Irish peasantry. An appeal, signed by Lord Sligo, was afterwards sent to "Natives of the United Kingdom resident "abroad." To this appeal Byron responded, as he states above. The following is the receipt :

"Received from Mr. Henry Dunn the sum of two hundred "Tuscan crowns (for account of the Right Honourable Lord Noel "Byron), for the purpose of assisting the Irish Poor.

"THOMAS HALL. "Leghorn, 9th July, 1822. Tuscan crowns, 200."

The Rev. T. Hall, described as "Chaplain to the British "Factory" at Leghorn, undertook the collection at Leghorn.