that my mind wanted something craggy to break upon;1 and this as the most difficult thing I could discover here for an amusement-I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. I try, and shall go on;-but I answer for nothing, least of all for my intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in the monastery, as well as books; translations also from Greek originals, now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, etc.; besides works of their own people. Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered, with a courage worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday; when fifteen of the twenty succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an Alphabet 2-that must be said for "Edie Ochiltree,' I never 'dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in "my life.' To be sure, I set in zealously for the Armenian and "Arabic ; but I fell in love with some absurd womankind both times "before I had overcome the characters, and at Malta and Venice "left the profitable for-for-(no matter what), notwithstanding "that my master, the Padre Pasquale Aucher (for whom, by the way, I compiled the major part of two Armenian and English grammars) assured me that the terrestrial Paradise was to be "found in Armenia.' I went seeking it—God knows where. Did "I find it? Umph! Now and then-for a minute or two."

66

1. Byron has in mind the advice given (Sept. 7, 1776) by Frederick II., King of Prussia, to Jean-le-Rond d'Alembert, who was lamenting the death (May, 1776) of Mlle. l'Espinasse. The king prescribed as a remedy for his friend's grief, quelque problème bien difficile à résoudre. Byron, as it were, paraphrases the motto which he prefixed to Childe Harold, Canto III., "Afin que cette application vous forçât à penser à autre chose. Il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui-là et le temps."--Lettres du Roi de Prusse et de M. d'Alembert [Euvres du Frédéric II., Roi de Prusse, 1790, tom. xiv. pp. 64, 65].

2. "The Armenians write and read from the left to the right, "and there are 38 letters contained in their Alphabet. . . . The "Armenian characters are divided into two classes, and are written "in 4 different hands" (Johnson's Typographia, vol. ii. pp. 408, 409).

1816.]

JAPANNED BY PREFERMENT.

II

them. But it is so like these fellows, to do by it as they did by their sovereigns-abandon both; to parody the old rhymes, "Take a thing and give a thing"-"Take a "king and give a king." They are the worst of animals, except their conquerors.

I hear that Hodgson is your neighbour, having a living in Derbyshire. You will find him an excellenthearted fellow, as well as one of the cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being over-run with fine feelings about woman and constancy (that small change of Love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal); but, otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I know not which to envy most his neighbourhood-him, or you.

Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many descriptions; and they are most of them like. It is a poetical place; and classical, to us, from Shakespeare and Otway. I have not yet sinned against it in verse, nor do I know that I shall do so, having been tuneless since I crossed the Alps, and feeling, as yet, no renewal of the estro. By the way, I suppose you have seen Glenarvon.3 Madame de Stael lent it me to read from

An Armenian-French Dictionary, by Pasquale Aucher, was published at Venice (two vols. 8vo) in 1812-17.

1. Francis Hodgson was appointed, July 18, 1816, to the living of Bakewell, in Derbyshire (Memoirs of the Rev. F. Hodgson, vol. ii. p. 65).

66

2. "I confess," writes Henry Matthews (Diary of an Invalid, ed. 1835, p. 257), "that I thought more of Shakespeare and 'Otway, Othello and Shylock, Pierre and Jaffier, than of Dandolo "and all his victories." The reference is to Otway's Venice Preserved (1682).

3. For Glenarvon, see Letters, vol. ii. p. 137, note, and vol. iii.

Copet last autumn. It seems to me, that if the authoress had written the truth, and nothing but the truth-the whole truth-the romance would not only have been more romantic, but more entertaining. As for the likeness, the picture can't be good-I did not sit long enough. When you have leisure, let me hear from and of you, believing me,

Ever and truly yours most affectionately,

B.

P.S.-Oh! your poem-is it out? I hope Longman has paid his thousands; but don't you do as H T's father did, who, having made money by a

p. 338, note 2. Mrs. Leigh, in a letter to Hodgson, June 10, 1816,

says

"I suppose you have heard of Lady C. L.'s extraordinary pro"duction,-Glenarvon, a novel. The hero and heroine you may 66 guess; the former painted in the most atrocious colours. If you "have not, pray read it. You foretold mischief in that quarter, and "much has occurred, if only that I hear this horrid book is supposed "and believed a true delineation of his character, and the letters "true copies of originals, etc., etc., etc.! I can't think of her with "christian charity, so I won't dwell upon the subject. But pray "read it. I had a letter from Lady B. the other day. She is at "Kirkby, and I fear her health is very indifferent. The Bulletins "of the poor child's health by B.'s desire pass thro' me, and I'm "very sorry for it, and that I ever had any concern in this most "wretched business. I can't however explain all my reasons at this "distance, and must console myself by the consciousness of having "done my duty, and to the best of my judgement all I could for the "happiness of both. Have you by chance, dear Mr. H., some "letters I wrote you in answer to some of yours, and in favour of "Lady B. and her family? If you have, may I request you not yet "to destroy them, and to tell me fairly when next you write, if you ever heard me say one word that could detract from her merits, or "make you think me partial to his side of the question. Whatever "ideas these questions may suggest, at present keep them to yourself." 1. Richard Twiss (1747-1821) was the uncle of Horace Twiss, whose father, Francis Twiss, compiled a Complete Verbal Index to the Plays of Shakespeare (1805-7). Richard Twiss published his Travels through Portugal and Spain in 1775. In Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson (April 7, 1775), a remark of Johnson's is quoted: “I "have been reading Twiss's Travels in Spain, which are just come "out. They are as good as the first book of travels that you will

1816.]

ROMEO AND JULIET.

13

quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant; when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet (and be damned to it) and ruined him. My last letter to you (from Verona) was enclosed to Murray-have you got it? Direct to me here, poste restante. There are no English here at present. There were several in Switzerland-some women; but, except Lady Dalrymple Hamilton,1 most of them as ugly as virtue at least, those I saw.

616.-To John Murray.

Venice, November 25, 1816.

DEAR SIR,—It is some months since I have heard from or of you—I think, not since I left Diodati. From Milan I wrote once or twice; but have been here some little time, and intend to pass the winter without removing. I was much pleased with the Lago di Garda, and with Verona, particularly the amphitheatre, and a sarcophagus in a Convent garden, which they show as Juliet's: they insist on the truth of her history. Since my arrival at Venice, the lady of the Austrian governor 2 told me that between Verona and Vicenza there are still ruins of the castle of the Montecchi, and a chapel once appertaining to the Capulets. Romeo seems to have been of Vicenza by the tradition; but I was a good deal surprised to find so firm a faith in Bandello's novel, which seems really to have been founded on a fact.3

"take up. They are as good as those of Keysler or Blainville; "nay, as Addison's, if you except the learning." According to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1821 (vol. i. p. 284), Richard Twiss "ruined an ample hereditary fortune" by a "speculation of making "paper from straw."

1. Jane, eldest daughter of Adam, first Viscount Duncan, married, May 19, 1800, Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton, Bart. (1774-1834). 2. Countess Goetz. Probably the ruined castle at Montecchio, between Vicenza and Recoaro, is referred to.

3. See Letters, vol. iii. p. 386, note 1.

Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I expected much. It is one of those places which I know before I see them, and has always haunted me the most after the East. I like the gloomy gaiety of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. I do not even dislike the evident decay of the city, though I regret the singularity of its vanished costume; however, there is much left still; the Carnival, too, is coming.

St. Mark's, and indeed Venice, is most alive at night. The theatres are not open till nine, and the society is proportionably late. All this is to my taste; but most of your countrymen miss and regret the rattle of hackney coaches, without which they can't sleep.

I have got remarkably good apartments in a private house: I see something of the inhabitants (having had a good many letters to some of them); I have got my gondola; I read a little, and luckily could speak Italian (more fluently though than accurately) long ago. I am studying, out of curiosity, the Venetian dialect, which is very naïve, and soft, and peculiar, though not at all classical; I go out frequently, and am in very good

contentment.

The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame the Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I know) is,

1. Isabella Teotochi, Countess Albrizzi (? 1761-1836), was a native of Corfu, where her father, Antonio Teotochi, was the head of an ancient Greek family. She married, April 10, 1776, Carlo Antonio, a Venetian nobleman, and, settling in Venice, opened her salon, which became famous among men of letters. In 1778 her eldest son, Giambattista Marin, was born. From her first husband

she was divorced by proceedings which ended at Padua in July, 1795. Nine months later, March 28, 1796, she married Giuseppe Albrizzi, by whom she had a son, Giuseppino Albrizzi, born in 1800. The most distinguished men of the day were her friends (see Alcune lettere d'illustri Italiani ad Isabella Teotochi, Firenze, 1856). Many of them are commemorated in her Ritratti, scritti da Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, a series of line portraits, with descriptive letterHer portrait of Byron was included in the 1826 edition.

press.