'Jeffrey's also, which I wish you to tell him, with my ' remembrances-not that I suppose it is of any conse quence to him, or ever could have been, whether I ' am pleased or not, but simply in my private relation ' to him, as his well-wisher, and it may be one day as 'his acquaintance. I wish you would also add, what you know, that I was not, and, indeed, am not even now, the misanthropical and gloomy gentleman he 'takes me for, but a facetious companion, well to do 'with those with whom I am intimate, and as loqua'cious and laughing as if I were a much cleverer ' fellow.

'I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral** clove down my fame. However, nor that, nor more than that, has yet extinguished my spirit, which always rises with the rebound.

'At Venice we are in Lent, and I have not lately 'moved out of doors, my feverishness requiring quiet, and-by way of being more quiet-here is the 'Signora Marianna just come in and seated at my 'elbow.

you seen

Have ***'s book of poesy? and, if you have seen it, are you not delighted with it? And have you-I really cannot go on: There is a pair of great 'black eyes looking over my shoulder, like the angel leaning over St. Matthew's, in the old frontispieces 'to the Evangelists, so that I must turn and answer 'them instead of you. Ever, &c.'

'Venice, March 25th, 1817. I have at last learned, in default of your own writing (or not writing-which should it be? for I

am not very clear as to the application of the word default) from Murray, two particulars of (or belonging 'to) you; one, that you are removing to Hornsey, 'which is, I presume, to be nearer London; and the 'other, that your Poem is announced by the name of 'Lalla Rookh. I am glad of it,—first, that we are to have it at last, and next, I like a tough title myself— witness the Giaour and Childe Harold, which choked ' half the Blues at starting. Besides, it is the tail " of Alcibiades's dog,-not that I suppose you want 'either dog or tail. Talking of tail, I wish you had not 'called it a "Persian Tale*." Say a "Poem " or ""Romance," but not "Tale." I am very sorry that 'I called some of my own things "Tales," because I think that they are something better. Besides, we ' have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and Turkish, and Assyrian Tales. But, after all, this is frivolous in me; you won't, however, mind my nonsense.

you can.

Really and truly, I want you to make a great hit, 'if only out of self-love, because we happen to be old cronies; and I have no doubt you will-I am sure' But you are, I'll be sworn, in a devil of a pucker; and I am not at your elbow, and Rogers is. 'I envy him; which is not fair, because he does not envy anybody. Mind you send to me—that is, make 'Murray send-the moment you are forth.

'I have been very ill with a slow fever, which at last took to flying, and became as quick as need

He had been misinformed on this point,-the work in question having been, from the first, entitled an "Oriental Romance.' Â much worse mistake (because wilful, and with no very charitable design) was that of certain persons, who would have it that the Poem was meant to be Epic!-Even Mr. D'Israeli has, for the sake of a theory, given in to this very gratuitous assumption: The Anacreontic poet (he says). ' remains only Anacreontic in his Epic.'

be*. But, at length, after a week of half-delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headache, horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water, and refusing to see any physician, I recovered. It is an 'epidemic of the place, which is annual, and visits 'strangers. Here follow some versicles, which I made 'one sleepless night.

'I look'd at Wordsworth's milk-white "Rylstone Doe:"

• Hillo!

' &c. &c. &c.'

I have not the least idea where I am going, nor 'what I am to do. I wished to have gone to Rome; but at present it is pestilent with English,-a parcel "of staring boobies, who go about gaping and wishing 'to be at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a 'fool who travels now in France or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept home again. In two or three years the first rush will be over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable.

'I stayed at Venice chiefly because it is not one of their "dens of thieves;" and here they but pause • and pass. In Switzerland it was really noxious.

In a note to Mr. Murray, subjoined to some corrections for Manfred, he says, Since I wrote to you last, the slow fever I wot of thought proper to mend its pace, and became similar to one which I caught ⚫ some years ago in the marshes of Elis, in the Morea.'

'Luckily, I was early, and had got the prettiest place on all the Lake before they were quickened into ' motion with the rest of the reptiles. But they crossed 'me everywhere. I met a family of children and 'old women half-way up the Wengen Alp (by the Jungfrau) upon mules, some of them too old and others too young to be the least aware of what they

saw.

By the way, I think the Jungfrau, and all that region of Alps, which I traversed in Septembergoing to the very top of the Wengen, which is not 'the highest (the Jungfrau itself is inaccessible) but 'the best point of view-much finer than Mont-Blanc ' and Chamouni, or the Simplon. I kept a journal of the whole for my sister Augusta, part of which she copied and let Murray see.

'I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of introducing the Alpine scenery in description; and this I 'sent lately to Murray. Almost all the dram. pers. are spirits, ghosts, or magicians, and the scene is in the Alps and the other world, so you may suppose what a Bedlam tragedy it must be: make him show 'it you. I sent him all three acts piecemeal, by the post, and suppose they have arrived.

'I have now written to you at least six letters, or letterets, and all I have received in return is a note ' about the length you used to write from Bury-street 'to St. James's-street, when we used to dine with 'Rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parties, and hear poor Sheridan now and then. Do you remember one night he was so tipsy that I was forced to put ' his cocked hat on for him,-for he could not,—and I 'let him down at Brookes's, much as he must since have been let down into his grave. Heigh ho! I