hands of a third person, with copies of several of of reference to Hobhouse's travels, in canto second my own; so that I have no kind of memorial what- and you will put as motto to the whole ever of her, but these two words,-and her actions. I have torn the leaves containing the part of the tale out of the book, and enclose them with this sheet. * * * * * * * 'Difficile est proprie communia dicere.'-Horace. A few days ago I sent you all I know of Polidori's Vampire. He may do, say, or write what he "What do you mean? First, you seem hurt by pleases, but I wish he would not attribute to me his my letter, and then, in your next, you talk of its own compositions. If he has any thing of mine in power,' and so forth. This is a d-d blind story, his possession, the manuscript will put it beyond Jack; but never mind, go on.' You may be sure I controversy; but I scarcely think that any one who said nothing on purpose to plague you, but if you knows me would believe the thing in the Magazine will put me in a frenzy, I will never call you Jack to be mine, even if they saw it in my own hieroagain.' I remember nothing of the epistle at glyphics. present. "I write to you in the agonies of a sirocco, which "What do you mean by Polidori's Diary? Why, annihilates me; and I have been fool enough to I defy him to say any thing about me, but he is do four things since dinner, which are as well omitwelcome. I have nothing to reproach me with on ted in very hot weather: firstly, ****; secondly, his score, and I am much mistaken if that is not to play at billiards from ten to twelve, under the his own opinion. But why publish the name of the influence of lighted lamps, that doubled the heat: two girls? and in such a manner ?what a blun- thirdly, to go afterward into a red-hot conversazione dering piece of exculpation: He asked Pictet, &c., of the Countess Benzoni's; and fourthly, to begin to dinner, and of course was left to entertain them. this letter at three in the morning: but being begun. I went into society solely to present him, (as I told it must be finished. him,) that he might return into good company if he chose; it was the best thing for his youth and circumstances: for myself, I had done with society, "P. S. I petition for tooth-brushes, powder, magand, having presented him, withdrew to my own nesia, Macassar oil, (or Russia,) the sashes, and Sir way of life.' It is true that I returned without NI. Wraxall's Memoirs of his Own Times. I want, entering Lady Dalrymple Hamilton's, because I saw besides, a bull-dog, a terrier, and two Newfoundland it full. It is true that Mrs. Hervey (she writes dogs; and I want (is it Buck s?) a life of Richard novels) fainted at my entrance into Copet, and then Third, advertised by Longman, long, long, long ago; came back again. On her fainting, the Duchesse de I asked for it at least three years since. See LongBroglie exclaimed, This is too much at sixty-five man's advertisement." years of age! I never gave the 'English' an opportunity of avoiding me, but I trust that if ever I do, they will seize it. With regard to Mazeppa and the Ode, you may join or separate them, as you please, from the two cantos. "Ever very truly and affectionately yours, LETTER CCCXCI. TO MR. HOPPNER. "B. "A journey in an Italian June is a conscription; "Don't suppose I want to put you out of humor. I have a great respect for your good and gentlemanly qualities, and return your personal friendship towards me; and although I think you a little spoiled by villainous company,'-wits, persons of humor about town, authors, and fashionables, to- and if I was not the most constant of men, I should gether with your 'I am just going to call at Carlton now be swimming from the Lido, instead of smokHouse, are you walking that way?'-I say, not-ing in the dust of Padua. Should there be letters withstanding pictures, taste, Shakspeare, and the look at my house and (not lands, but) waters, and from England, let them wait my return. And do musical glasses,' you deserve and possess the esteem of those whose esteem is worth having, and of none more (however useless it may be) than yours very truly, &c. "P. S. Make my respects to Mr. Gifford. I am perfectly aware that 'Don Juan' must set us all by the ears, but that is my concern, and my beginning. There will be the ‘Edinburgh' and all, too, against it, so that, like 'Rob Roy,' I shall have my hands full." scold;-and deal out the moneys to Edgecombe* and put queer questions to him--and turn up your with an air of reluctance and a shake of the head nose when he answers. I have received no proofs by the last post, and settled like a sausage, and shall be broiled like one, shall probably have quitted Venice before the arrival if this weather continues. Will Will you thank Menof the next. There wanted a few stanzas to the galdo on my part for the Ferrara acquaintance, termination of canto first in the last proof: the next which was a very agreeable one. I stayed two days will, I presume, contain them, and the whole or a at Ferrara, and was much pleased with the Count portion of canto second; but it will be idle to wait Mosti, and the little the shortness of the time perfor farther answers from me, as I have directed that mitted me to see of his family. I went to his conmy letters wait for my return, (perhaps in a month, versazione, which is very far superior to any thing and probably so;) therefore do not wait for farther of the kind at Venice-the women almost all young advice from me. You may as well talk to the wind, several pretty-and the men courteous and cleanly. and better-for it will at least convey your accents The lady of the mansion, who is young, lately mara little farther than they would otherwise have gone; whereas I shall neither echo nor acquiesce in your 'exquisite reasons.' You may omit the note * A clerk of the English Consulate whom he at this time employed to control his accounts. LETTER CCCXCIII. TO MR. MURRAY. ried, and with child, appeared very pretty by candlelight, (I did not see her by day,) pleasing in her manners, and very lady-like, or thorough-bred, as we call it in England,-a kind of thing which reminds one of a racer, an antelope, or an Italian "Bologna, June 7, 1819. greyhound. She seems very fond of her husband, "Tell Mr. Hobhouse that I wrote to him a few who is amiable and accomplished; he has been in days ago from Ferrara. It will therefore be idle in England two or three times, and is young. The him or you to wait for any farther answers or returns sister, a Countess somebody-I forget what--(they of proofs from Venice, as I have directed that no are both Maffei by birth, and Veronese of course)- English letters be sent after me. The publication is a lady of more display; she sings and plays di- can be proceeded in without, and I am already sick vinely; but I thought she was a d-d long time of your remarks, to which I think not the least atabout it. Her likeness to Madame Flahant (Miss tention ought to be paid. Mercer that was) is something quite extraordinary. "Tell Mr. Hobhouse, that since I wrote to him, "I had but a bird's-eye view of these people, and I had availed myself of my Ferrara letters, and shall not probably see them again; but I am very found the society much younger and better there much obliged to Mengaldo for letting me see them than at Venice. I am very much pleased with the at all. Whenever I meet with any thing agreeable little the shortness of my stay permitted me to see in this world, it surprises me so much, and pleases of the Gonfaloniere Count Mosti, and his family me so much, (when my passions are not interested and friends in general. one way or the other,) that I go on wondering for a "I have been picture-gazing this morning at the week to come. I feel, too, in great admiration of famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are the Cardinal Legate's red stockings. superlative. I afterward went to the beautiful cem"I found, too, such a pretty epitaph in the Cer-etery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, betosa cemetery, or rather two: one was the other, • Martial Luigi Implora pace; Lucretia Picini Implora eterna quiete.' sides the superb burial-ground, an original of a custode, who reminded one of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, labeled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said, 'This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty-one of my best friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they gave it me. I put it in lime, and then boiled it. That was all but it appears to me that these two Here it is, teeth and all, in excellent preservation. and three words comprise and compress all that can He was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. be said on the subject, and then, in Italian, they Wherever he went he brought joy; and whenever are absolute music. They contain doubt, hope, and any one was melancholy, the sight of him was humility; nothing can be more pathetic than the enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so 'implora' and the modesty of the request;-they actively, you might have taken him for a dancerhave had enough of life-they want nothing but he joked-he laughed-oh! he was such a Frate as rest-they implore it, and 'eterna quiete.' It is like I never saw before, nor ever shall again!' found her hair complete, and as yellow Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased than the more splendid monuments at a Greek inscription in some good old heathen 'city "He told me that he had himself planted all the of the dead.' Pray, if I am shovelled into the Lido cypresses in the cemetery; that he had the greatest churchyard in your time, let me have the implora attachment to them and to his dead people; that pace,' and nothing else, for my epitaph. I never since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand permet with any, ancient or modern, that pleased me a sons. In showing some older monuments, there tenth part so much. was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by "In about a day or two after you receive this let- Bernini. She was a princess Barlorini, dead two ter, I will thank you to desire Edgecombe to pre- centuries ago: he said, that on opening her grave, pare for my return. I shall go back to Venice before they had I village on the Brenta. I shall stay but a few days as gold.' in Bologna. I am just going out to see sights, but me more shall not present my introductory letters for a day Bologna; for instanceor two, till I have run over again the place and pictures; nor perhaps at all, if I find that I have books and sights enough to do without the inhabitants. After that, I shall return to Venice, where you may expect me about the eleventh, or perhaps sooner. Pray make my thanks acceptable to Mengaldo; my respects to the Consuless, and to Mr. Scott. "I hope my daughter is well. Ever yours, and truly. "P. S. I went over the Ariosto MS., &c., &c., again at Ferrara, with the castle, and cell, and house, &c., &c. • Martini Luigi 'Lucretia Picini Implora eterna quiete.' Can anything be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought; the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore! There is all the helplessness, and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave-implora pace." I hope whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in "One of the Ferrarese asked me if I knew 'Lord the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within Byron,' an acquaintance of his now at Naples. I the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, told him 'No' which was true both ways; for I and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think knew not an impostor, and, in the other, no one Blunderbuss Hall.' I am sure my bones would not of pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or knows himself. He stared when told that was 'the real Simon Pure.' Another asked me if I had rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the not translated Tasso.' You see what fame is! how earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed, could I suppose that feel, but I am always the lighter and the better any of my friends would be base enough to convey looked on when I have got rid of mine; it sits on my carcass back to your soil.-I would not even feed me like armor on the Lord Mayor's champion; and your worms, if I could help it. So, as Shakspeare says of Mowbray, the ban accurate! how boundless! I don't know how others I got rid of all the husk of literature, and the attend-ished Duke of Norfolk, who died at Venice, (sec ant babble, by answering, that I had not translated Richard 2d,) that he, after fighting Tasso, but a namsesake had; and by the blessing of Heaven, I looked so little like a poet, that every body believed me." 'Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens, And toil'd with works of war, retired himself To Italy, and there, at Venice, gave Under whose colors he had fought so long. or) in a coach and six horses. The fact appears to be, that he is completely governed by her-for that matter, so am I. The people here don't know what to make of us, as he had the character of jealousy He is the "Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your with all his wives-this is the third. late, and Mr. Hobhouse's, sheets of Juan. Don't richest of the Ravennese, by their own account, bu wait for farther answers from me, but address yours is not popular among them. to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own movements; I may return there in a few days, or * LETTER CCCXCV. TO MR. MURRAY. not for some time. All this depends on circum- Now do, pray, send off Augustine, and carriage and stances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well. My daugh- cattle, to Bologna, without fail or delay, or Ỉ shall ter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her loose my remaining shred of senses. Don't forget hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her this. My coming, going, and every thing depend temper and her ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like upon HER entirely, just as Mrs. Hoppner (to whom mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that I remit my reverences) said in the true spirit of fecase, a manageable young lady. male prophecy. "I have never heard any thing of Ada, the little "You are but a shabby fellow not to have writElectra of my Mycena. * But ten before. "And I am truly yours, &c." there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. I have at least seen Romilly* shivered, who was one of my assassins. When that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms-when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them-when, he was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my household gods†-did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event-a severe, domestic, but an expected and common calamity-would lay his carcass in a cross road, or stamp his name in a Verdict of Lunacy! Did he (who in his sexa- but I trust that you will not have waited for farther **) reflect or consider what my feel- alterations-I will make none. You ask me to genary ings must have been, when wife, and child, and spare Romilly-ask the worms. His dust can suffer sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to be nothing from the truth being spoken-and if it my sacrifice on his legal altar-and this at a moment could, how did he behave to me? You may talk to when my health was declining, my fortune embar- the wind, which will carry the sound-and to the rassed, and my mind had been shaken by many kinds caves, which will echo you-but not to me, on the of disappointment-while I was yet young, and subject of a who wronged me-whether might have reformed what might be wrong in my dead or alive. conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my "I have no time to return you the proofs-pubaffairs! But he is in his and grave, *lish without them. I am glad you think the poesy What a long letter I have scribbled! good; and as to 'thinking of the effect,' think yɔu of the sale, and leave me to pluck the porcupines who may point their quills at you. "Yours, &c. "P. S. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine." * LETTER CCCXCIV. TO MR. HOPPNER. * "Ravenna, June 20, 1819. * "Ravenna, June 29, 1819. "The letters have been forwarded from Venice, * "I have been here (at Ravenna) these four weeks, having left Venice a month ago;-I came to see my 'Amica,' the Countess Guiccioli, who has been, and still continues, very unwell. * * She is only twenty years old, but not of a strong constitution. She has a perpetual cough, and an intermittent fever, but bears up most gallantly in every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third wife) is the richest noble of Ravenna, and almost of Romagna; he is also not the youngest, being upwards of threescore, but in good preservation. All this "I wrote to you from Padua, and from Bologna, will appear strange to you, who do not understand and since from Ravenna. I find my situation very the meridian morality, nor our way of life in such agreeable, but want my horses very much, there be- respects, and I cannot at present expound the difing good riding in the environs. I can fix no time ference;—but you would find it much the same in for my return to Venice-it may be soon or late-or these parts. At Faenza there is Lord **** with not at all-it all depends on the Donna, whom I an opera girl; and at the inn in the same town is a found very seriously in bed with a cough and spit- Neapolitan Prince, who serves the wife of the Gonting blood, &c., all of which has subsided. * faloniere of that city. I am on duty here-so you see Cosi fan tutti e tutte.' ever. * I found all the people here firmly persuaded that "I have my horses here, saddle as well as carshe would never recover;-they were inistaken, how-riage, and ride or drive every day in the forest the Pineta, the scene of Boccaccio's novel, and DryMy letters were useful as far as I employed den's fable of Honoria, &c., &c.; and I see my them, and I like both the place and people, though Dama every day ******; but I feel seriously I don't trouble the latter more than I can help.- uneasy about her health, which seems very precaShe manages very wellrious. In losing her, I should lose a being who has run great risks on my account, and whom I have but if I come away with a stiletto in my gizzard every reason to love-but I must not think this possome fine afternoon, I shall not be astonished. I shall not be astonished. Isible. I do not know what I should do if she died, can't make him out at all-he visits me frequently, but I ought to blow my brains out-and I hope that and takes me out (like Whittington, the Lord May-I should. Her husband is a very polite personage, * * • Sir Samuel Romilly. He committed suicide. † See Letter ccclxxviii. The Countess Guiccioli. but I wish he would not carry me out in his coach and six like Whittington and his cat. "You ask me if I mean to continue Don Juan, &c. How should I know? What encouragement do you give me, all of you, with your nonsensical prudery?-publish me two cantos, and then you will see. I desired Mr. Kinnaird to speak to you on a little matter of business; either he has not spoken, or you have not answered. You are a pretty pair, but I will be even with you both. I perceive that Mr. Hobhouse has been challenged by Major Cartwright. Is the Major 'so cunning of fence?" why did not they fight?-they ought. "Yours, &c." LETTER CCCXCVI. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Ravenna, July 2, 1819. LETTER CCCXCVII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, August 1, 1819. '[Address your answer to Venice, however.] "Don't be alarmed. You will see me defend my self gayly-that is, if I happen to be in spirits; and by spirits, I don't mean your meaning of the word, but the spirit of a bull-dog when pinched, or a bull when pinned; it is then that they make best sport: and as my sensations under an attack are probably a happy compound of the united energies of these amiable animals, you may perhaps see what Marrall calls 'rare sport,' and some good tossing and goring, in the course of the controversy. But I must be in the right cue first, and I doubt I am almost too far off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. And then I have effeminated and enervated myself with love and the summer in these last two months. Thanks for your letter and for Madame's. I will answer it directly. Will you recollect whether I did not consign to you one or two receipts of Madame Mocenigo's for house-rent-(I am not sure "I wrote to Mr. Hobhouse the other day, and of this, but think I did-if not, they will be in my foretold that Juan would either fall entirely or sucdrawers)—and will you desire Mr. Dorville* to have ceed completely; there will be no medium. Apthe goodness to see if Edgecombe has receipts to all pearances are not favorable; but as you write the rayments hitherto made by him on my account, and day after publication, it can hardly be decided what that there are no debts at Venice? On your answer, opinion will predominate. You seem in a fright, I shall send order of farther remittance to carry on and doubtless with cause. Come what may, I never my household expenses, as my present return to will flatter the million's canting in any shape. CirVenice is very problematical; and it may happen cumstances may or may not have placed me at -but I can say nothing positive-every thing with times in a situation to lead the public opinion, but me being indecisive and undecided, except the dis- the public opinion never lead, nor even shall lead, gust which Venice excites when fairly compared me. I will not set on a degraded throne; so pray with any other city in this part of Italy. When I put Messrs. ** or * *, or Tom Moore, or *** upon say Venice, I mean the Venetians-the city itself is it; they will all of them be transported with their superb as its history-but the people are what coronation. I never thought them till they taught me to think So. * "P. S. The Countess Guiccioli is much better "The best way will be to leave Allegra with An- than she was. I sent you, before leaving Venice, tonio's spouse till I can decide something about her the real original sketch which gave rise to the and myself-but I thought you would have had an 'Vampire,' &c. answer from Mrs. Vr.t-You have had bore enough with me and mine already. "Lgreatly fear that the Guiccioli is going into a consumption, to which her constitution tends. Thus it is with every thing and every body for whom I feel any thing like a real attachment;- War, death, or discord, doth lay seige to them.' I never even could keep alive a dog that I liked or that liked me. Her symptoms are obstinate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c., &c., and there are latent causes of an eruption in the skin, which she foolishly repelled into the system two years ago; but I have made them send her case to Aglietti; and have begged him to come-if only for a day or two -to consult upon her state. * "Believe me, &c. Did you get it? "Talking of blunders reminds me of IrelandIreland of Moore. What is this I see in Galignani about 'Bermuda-agent-deputy-appeal-attachment,' &c.? What is the matter? Is it any thing in which his friends can be of use to him? Pray inform me. If it would not bore Mr. Dorville, I wish he would "Of Don Juan I hear nothing farther from you; keep an eye on Edgecombe and on my other raga-***, but the papers don't seem so fierce as the muffins. I might have more to say, but I am ab- letter you sent me seemed to anticipate, by their sorbed about La Gui. and her illness. I cannot tell extracts at least in Galignani's Messenger. I never you the effect it has upon me. saw such a set of fellows as you are! And then "The horses came, &c., &c., and I have been gal- the pains taken to exculpate the modest publisherloping through the pine forest daily. he remonstrated, forsooth! I will write a preface that shall exculpate you and * * *, &c., completely "P. S. My benediction on Mrs. Hoppner, a on that point; but, at the same time, I will cut you pleasant journey among the Bernese tyrants, and up like gourds. You have no more soul than the safe return. You ought to bring back a platonic Count de Caylus (who assured his friends, on his Bernese for my reformation. If any thing happens death-bed, that he had none, and that he must to my present Amica, I have done with the passion know better than they whether he had one or no), for ever-it is my last love. As to libertinism, I and no more blood than a water-melon! And I see have sickened myself of that, as was natural in the there hath been asterisks, and what Perry used to way I went on, and I have at least derived that ad- call 'domned cutting and slashing '-but, never slashing'-but, vantage from vice, to love in the better sense of the word. This will be my last adventurer-I can hope no more to inspire attachment, and I trust never again to feel it." The vice-consul of Mr. Hoppner. † An English lady, who proposed taking charge of Allegra. See his lines, page 576. "I write in haste. To-morrow I set off for Bologna. I write to you with thunder, lightning, &c., and all the winds of heaven whistling through my hair, and the racket of preparation to boot. My mistress dear, who hath fed my heart upon smiles • See Letter ccclxxxiv. and wine' for the last two months, set off with her due respect to the public; but if continued, it must husband for Bologna this morning, and it seems be in my own way. You might as well made Hamthat I follow him at three to-morrow morning. I let (or Diggory)act mad' in a strait waistcoat as cannot tell how our romance will end, but it hath trammel my buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon; gone on hitherto most erotically. Such perils and their gestures and my thoughts would only be pitia escapes! Juan's are as child's play in comparison. bly absurd and ludicrously constrained. Why, man, The fools think that all my poeshie is always allu- the soul of such writing is its license; at least the sive to my own adventures: I have had at one time liberty of that license, if one likes-not that one or another better and more* extraordinary and perilous and pleasant than these, every day of the week, if I might tell them; but that must never be. "I hope Mrs. M. has accouched. "Yours ever." LETTER CCCXCIX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Bologna, August 12, 1819. should abuse it. It is like trial by jury and peerage and the habeas corpus-a very fine thing, but chiefly in the reversion; because no one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his possession of the privilege. "But a truce with these reflections. You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?-a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what I meant. And as to the indecency, do pray, read in Boswell what Johnson, the sullen moralist, says of Prior and Paulo Purgante. "Will you get a favor done for me? You can, by He wants no "I do not know how far I may be able to reply to your letter, for I am not very well to-day. Last your government friends, Croker, Canning, or my night I went to the representation of Alfieri's old schoolfellow Peel, and I can't. Here it is. Mirra, the last two acts of which threw me into Will you ask them to appoint (without salary or convulsions. I do not mean by that word a lady's emolument) a noble Italian (whom I will name hysterics, but the agony of reluctant tears, and the afterward) consul or vice-consul for Ravenna? He choking shudder, which I do not often undergo for is a man of very large property-noble too; but fiction. This is but the second time for any thing he wishes to have a British protection in case of under reality: the first was on seeing Kean's Sir Giles changes. Ravenna is near the sea. Overreach. The worst was, that the 'Dama,' in emolument whatever That his office might be usewhose box I was, went off in the same way, I really ful, I know; as I lately sent off from Ravenna to believe more from fright than any other sympathy Trieste a poor devil of an English sailor, who had at least with the players: but she had been ill and remained there sick, sorry, and pennyless (having I have been ill, and we are all languid and pathetic been set ashore in 1814), from the want of any this morning, with great expenditure of sal volatile. accredited agent able or willing to help him homeBut, to return to your letter of the 23d of July. wards. Will you get this done? If you do, I will "You are right, Gifford is right, Crabbe is right, then send his name and condition, subject of course Hobhouse is right-you are all right, and I am all to rejection, if not approved when known. wrong; but do, pray, let me have that pleasure. Cut me up root and branch; quarter me in the Quarterly; send round my disjecti membra poetæ,' like those of the Levite's concubine; make me if you will a spectacle to men and angels; but don't ask me to alter, for I won't:-I am obstinate and lazy-and there's the truth. "I know that in the Levant you make consuls and vice-consuls, perpetually, of foreigners. This man is a patrician, and has twelve thousand a year His motive is a British protection in case of new invasions. Don't you think Croker would do it for us? To be sure, my interest is rare!! but perhaps a brother wit in the tory line might do a good turn But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend at the request of so harmless and long absent a Perry, who objects to the quick succession of fun whig, particularly as there is no salary or burthen and gravity, as if in that case the gravity did not of any sort to be annexed to the office. (in intention, at least) heighten the fun. His met- "I can assure you, I should look upon it as a aphor is, that we are never scorched and drenched great obligation; but, alas! that very circumstance at the same time.' Blessings on his experience! may, very probably, operate to the contrary-inAsk him these questions 'bout scorching and deed, it ought; but I have, at least, been an honest drenching.' Did he never play at cricket, or walk and an open enemy. Among your many splendid a mile in hot weather? Did he never spill a dish government connxions, could not you, think you, of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charm- get our Bibulus made a consul? or make me one, er, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? that I may make him my vice. You may be asDid he never swim in the sea at noonday with the sured that, in case of accidents in Italy, he would sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam be no feeble adjunct-as you would think, if you of ocean could not cool? Did he never draw his knew his patrimony. valet's? * * * * foot out of too hot water, d-ning his eyes and his "What is all this about Tom Moore? but why do I ask? since the state of my own affairs would not Was he ever in a Turkish bath-that marble para- permit me to be of use to him, though they are dise of sherbet and **? Was he ever in a cauldron greatly improved since 1816, and may, with some of boiling oil, like St. John? or in the sulphureous more luck and a little prudence, become quite clear. waves of h-1? (where he ought to be for his 'scorch-It seems his claimants are American merchants! ing and drenching at the same time.') Did he There goes Nemesis! Moore abused America. It never tumble into a river or lake, fishing, and sit is always thus in the long run:-Time, the avenger. in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank after- You have seen every trampler down, in turn, from ward, scorched and drenched,' like a true sports- Bonaparte to the simplest individuals. You saw 'Oh for breath to utter!'-but make him how some were avenged even upon my insignifimy compliments; he is a clever fellow for all that- cance, and how in turn *** paid for his atrocity. a very clever fellow. It is an odd world; but the watch has its mainspring, after all. man ? "You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny: I have no plan; I had no plan; but I had or have materials; though if, like Tony Lumpkin, I am to be snubbed so when I am in spirits,' the poem will be nought, and the poet turn serious again. If it don't take, I will leave it off where it is, with all * Don Juan, canto xiv., stanza ci. "So the prince has been repealing Lord Edward Fitzgerald's forfeiture? Ecco un' sonetto! "To be the father of the fatherless, &c.* "There, you dogs! there's a sonnet for you: you * See Poems, page 572. |