letter, that even you have not escaped the surgit amari, etc., and that your damned deputy has been gathering such "dew from the still vext Bermoothes"-or rather vexatious. Pray, give me some items of the affair, as you say it is a serious one; and, if it grows more so, you should make a trip over here for a few months, to see how things turn out. I suppose you are a violent admirer of England by your staying so long in it. For my own part, I have passed, between the age of one-andtwenty and thirty, half the intervenient years out of it without regretting any thing, except that I ever returned to it at all, and the gloomy prospect before me of business and parentage obliging me, one day, to return to it again,—at least, for the transaction of affairs, the signing of papers, and inspecting of children.

I have here my natural daughter, by name Allegra,— a pretty little girl enough, and reckoned like papa. Her

Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still vext Bermoothes."

Tempest, act i. sc. 2.

Moore (see Letters, vol. iii. p. 163, note 3) was appointed, in 1803, Registrar to the Admiralty in Bermuda. He visited the islands in the same year, but returned in 1804, leaving a deputy to discharge the duties of the office. The deputy embezzled money, and Moore was liable for claims which were ultimately fixed at 1000 guineas.

2. Allegra was probably at this moment staying with her mother at Este. Jane Clairmont, accompanied by Shelley, came from Lucca to Venice to see her daughter. Venice was reached August 22, and, during the next four months, Shelley's letters contain many references to Byron. We came," writes Shelley to his wife, August 23, 1818 (Prose Works of Shelley, ed. H. Buxton Forman, vol. iv. p. 32), " from Padua hither in a gondola, and the 'gondoliere, among other things, without any hint on my part,

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began talking of Lord Byron. He said he was a giovinotto Ing"lese, with a nome stravagante, who lived very luxuriously, and "spent great sums of money. This man, it seems, was one of Lord "B.'s gondolieri. No sooner had we arrived at the inn, than the "waiter began talking about him-said that he frequented Mrs. "Hoppner's conversazioni very much." The day after his arrival

1818.]

ALLEGRA AND HER MOTHER.

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mamma is English,-but it is a long story, and-there's an end. She is about twenty months old.

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(Sunday, August 23), Shelley "called on Lord Byron; he was "delighted to see me, and our first conversation, of course, con"sisted in the object of our visit" (ibid., p. 34; see also Dowden's Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 226, where for "Lord Byron" is given the disputed nickname "Albè," and the purport of the conversation is added). After their talk, Shelley rode with Byron on the Lido"a bare strand

Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,
Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,

Such as from Earth's embrace the salt-ooze breeds."

(See the opening lines of Julian and Maddalo). As they rode, "our conversation consisted in histories of his wounded feelings, "and questions as to my affairs, and great professions of friendship "and regard for me. He said that, if he had been in England at "the time of the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and "earth to have prevented such a decision. We talked of literary "matters; his fourth canto [of Childe Harold], which he says is "very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas of great energy to "me; and Foliage,' which he quizzes immoderately" (Dowden's Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 227). Byron lent the Shelleys his villa at Este, which he rented from Hoppner, and thither, among the Euganean hills, Allegra was sent for some weeks to her mother. There Shelley penned his portrait of Byron in the Preface to Julian and Maddalo. There also he wrote his "Lines written among the "Euganean Hills," with their allusion to Byron as

"A tempest-cleaving swan

Of the songs of Albion

Driven from his ancestral streams."

At the end of September, and again in October, 1818, Shelley saw Byron. Mrs. Shelley, in her Diary for September 30, makes the entry, "Transcribe Mazeppa'" (Dowden's Life of Shelley, vol. ii. p. 232). Writing to Peacock (October 8), Shelley says, "I saw "Lord Byron, and really hardly knew him again; he is changed "into the liveliest and happiest-looking man I ever met. He read "me the first canto of his Don Juan-a thing in the style of Beppo, "but infinitely better, and dedicated to Southey, in ten or a dozen "stanzas, more like a mixture of wormwood and verdigrease than "satire" (Prose Works of Shelley, vol. iv. p. 39). After October 12, on his third visit to Venice, Shelley saw more of Byron's life. In a letter to Peacock (December 22), he says, "I entirely agree "with what you say about Childe Harold. The spirit in which it is "written is, if insane, the most wicked and mischievous insanity "that ever was given forth. It is a kind of obstinate and self-willed "folly, in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated with him in

I have finished the first canto (a long one, of about 180 octaves) of a poem in the style and manner of Beppo, encouraged by the good success of the same. It is called Don Juan,1 and is meant to be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether it is not-at least, as far as it has yet gone-too free for these very modest days. However, I shall try the experiment, anonymously; and if it don't take, it will be discontinued. It is dedicated to Southey in good, simple, savage verse, upon the Laureat's politics, and the way he got them. But the bore of copying it out is intolerable; and if I had an amanuensis he would be of no use, as my writing is so difficult to decipher.

"vain on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone "arises. For its real root is very different from its apparent one. "Nothing can be less sublime than the true source of these expres"sions of contempt and desperation. The fact is, that first, the "Italian women with whom he associates are perhaps the most con"temptible of all who exist under the moon-the most ignorant, the "most disgusting, the most bigoted; Countesses smell so strongly of "garlic, that an ordinary Englishman cannot approach them. Well, "L. B. is familiar with the lowest sort of these women, the people "his gondolieri pick up in the streets. He associates with wretches "who seem almost to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man, "and who do not scruple to avow practices, which are not only not "named, but I believe seldom even conceived in England. He "says he disapproves, but he endures. He is heartily and deeply "discontented with himself; and contemplating in the distorted "mirror of his own thoughts the nature and the habits of man, what "can he behold but objects of contempt and despair? But that he "is a great poet, I think the address to Ocean proves. And he has "a certain degree of candour while you talk to him, but unfortu"nately it does not outlast your departure. No, I do not doubt, "and for his sake, I ought to hope, that his present career must end "soon in some violent circumstance" (ibid., pp. 60, 61).

1. The poem was sent to England under the care of Lord Lauderdale. "Lord Lauderdale," writes Joseph Jekyll to Lady G. Sloane Stanley, December 28, 1818 (Letters of Joseph Jekyll, p. 75), "has "brought over a spick-and-span new poem of Lord Byron's from "Venice, sealed up, so the Scottish bearer, no great critic in works "of genius, knows nothing of its merits. But Murray the book"seller has volunteered a great price for it. He says the poet is "grown fat and cheerful, and comes to England next spring."

My poem's Epic, and is meant to be

Divided in twelve books, each book containing, With love and war, a heavy gale at sea

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A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigningNew characters, etc., etc.

The above are two stanzas, which I send you as a brick of my Babel, and by which you can judge of the texture of the structure.

In writing the Life of Sheridan, never mind the angry lies of the humbug Whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him. Don't forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name-R. B. Sheridan, 1765,- -as an honour to the walls. Remember

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upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was.

What did Parr1 mean by "haughtiness and coldness ? ”

1. Samuel Parr (1747-1825) was assistant-master at Harrow (1767-71) when Sheridan was there at school, and to consult him, Moore, then at work on his life of Sheridan, visited Bath in August, 1818. "Dr. Parr entered in full wig and apron (which he wears as "Prebendary of St. Paul's, and not unwilling, of course, to look "like a bishop). . . . A powerful old man both in body and mind. "Though it was then morning, he drank two glasses and a half of "wine; and over that, when he was going away, a tumbler of the "Spa" (Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 145). Moore goes on to give an account of Parr (ibid., pp. 146-149) and his conversation: "The "doctor was glorious, often very eloquent, always odd." He speaks of the "thickness of his utterance," and his editor, Lord John Russell, adds the following note: "Lord Holland used to say that it was "most unfortunate for a man so full of learning and information as "Dr. Parr, that he could not easily communicate his knowledge; "for when he spoke, nobody could make out what he said, and "when he wrote, nobody could read his handwriting."

As a teacher (1767-98), Parr was a fine scholar, and in some points held modern ideas on education, though he was also a merciless flogger. He gradually gave up teaching as he rose in the Church and became a wealthy man. In his parish he was an active clergyman, friendly to Dissenters, tolerant to Roman Catholics, bitter

I listened to him with admiring ignorance, and respectful silence. What more could a talker for fame have ?—they don't like to be answered. It was at Payne Knight's I met him, where he gave me more Greek than I could carry away. But I certainly meant to (and did) treat him with the most respectful deference.

I wish you a good night, with a Venetian benediction, "Benedetto te, e la terra che ti fara!"-" May you be "blessed, and the earth which you will make !”—is it not pretty? You would think it still prettier if you had heard it, as I did two hours ago, from the lips of a Venetian girl, with large black eyes, a face like Faustina's, and the figure of a Juno-tall and energetic as a Pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark hair streaming in the moonlight-one of those women who may be made any thing. I am sure if I put a poniard into the hand of this one, she would plunge it where I told her, and into me, if I offended her. I like this kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to any woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder that I don't in that case. *** I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl,-any thing, but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me.1 towards Evangelicals. His Whig principles, friendship for Bentham and Priestley, and views on the French Revolution, excluded him from a bishopric; but his political friends, among whom his thickset frame, heavy features, bushy eyebrows, full wig, and pipe, were familiar, solaced him by calling him a Whig Johnson. His literary quarrels made a stir in his day, but none of his works have survived. Rough-mannered, pedantic, and pompous, Parr was a learned, genial, kindly-natured, generous man, who made hosts of friends, among them some of the most distinguished persons of the day, and he lives through them rather than through his writings.

I. "I had one only fount of quiet left,

And that they poison'd! My pure household gods
Were shiver'd on my hearth."

Marino Faliero, act iii. sc. 2.