Venice. In a few day I go to my villeggiatura, in surely must have had more interest with a corrupt 3 casing near the Brenta, a few miles only on the bench than a distant relation and heir presumptive, main land. I have determined on another year, and somewhat suspected of homicide,) I do not wonder many years of residence, if I can cotapass them. at its failure. As a play, it is impracticable; as Marianna is with me, hardly recovered of the fever, poem, no great things. Who was the Greek that which has been attacking all Italy last winter. I grappled with glory naked?' the Olympic wrest am afraid she is a little hectic; but I hope the best. lers? or Alexander the Great, when he ran stark Ever, &c. naked round the tomb of t'other fellow? or the SparP. S. Thowaldsen has done a bust of me at tan who was fined by the Ephori for fighting withRome for Mr. Hobhouse, which is reckoned very out his armor? or who? And as to 'flaying off life good. He is their best after Canova, and by some like a garment,' helas! that's in Tom Thumb-set king Arthur's soliloquy:

preferred to him.

64

'Life's a mere rag, not worth a prince's wearing;
I'll cast it off.'

"I have had a letter from Mr. Hodges. He is very happy, has got a living, but not a child: if he had stuck to a curacy, babes would have come of course, because he could not have maintained them. And the stage-directions-Staggers among the "Remember me to all friends, &c., &c. bodies; the slain are too numerous, as well as the "An Austrian officer, the other day, being in love blackamoor knights-penitent being one too many: with a Venetian, was ordered, with his regiment, and De Zelos is such a shabby Monmouth-street into Hungary. Distracted between love and duty, villain, without any redeeming quality-Stap my he purchased a deadly drug, which, dividing with vitals! Maturin seems to be declining into Nat. his mistress, both swallowed. The ensuing pains Lee. But let him try again; he has talent, but not were terrific, but the pills were purgative, and not much taste. I 'gin to fear, or to hope, that Sothepoisonous, by the contrivance of the unsentimental by after all is to be the Eschylus of the age, unless The more I apothecary; so that so much suicide was all thrown Mr. Shiel be really worthy his success. Away. You may conceive the previous confusion see of the stage, the less I would wish to have any and the final laughter; but the intention was good thing to do with it; as a proof of which, I hope on all sides."

LETTER CCCXXXIX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, June 8, 1817.

you have received the third act of Manfred, which will at least prove that I wish to steer very clear of the possibility of being put into scenery. I sent it from Rome.

"I returned the proof of Tasso. By-the-way have you never received a translation of St. Paul, which I sent you, not for publication, before I went to Rome?

"I am at present on the Brenta. Opposite is a The present letter will be delivered to you by Spanish marquis, ninety years old; next his casino two Armenian friars, on their way, by England, to is a Frenchman's,-besides the natives; so that, as Madras. They will also convey some copies of the somebody said the other day, we are exactly one of grammar, which I think you agreed to take. If Goldoni's comedies, (La Vedova Scaltra,) where a you can be of any use to them, either among your Spaniard, English, and Frenchman are introduced aval or East Indian acquaintances, I hope you but we are all very good neighbors, Venetians, &c., will so far oblige me, as they and their order have been remarkably attentive and friendly towards me since my arrival at Venice. Their names are Father Sukias Somalian, and Father Sarkis Theodorosian. They speak Italian, aud probably French, or a little English. Repeating earnestly my recommendatory request, believe me very truly yours,

BYRON.

Perhaps you can help them to their passage, or give or get them letters for India."

&c., &c.

"I am just getting on horseback for my evening ride, and a visit to a physician, who has an agreea ble family, of a wife and four unmarried daughters, all under eighteen, who are friends of Signora S* and enemies to nobody. There are, and are to be, besides, conversaziones and I know not what, at a Countess Labbia's and I know not whom. The

weather is mild; the thermometer 110 in the sun this day, and 80 odd in the shade.

"Yours, &c..

"N"

LETTER CCCXL.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, June 14, 1817.

LETTER CCCXLI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, June 17, 1817.

'I write to you from the banks of the Brenta, a ew miles from Venice, where I have colonized for "It gives me great pleasure to hear of Moore's six months to come. Address, as usual, to Venice. success, and the more so that I never doubted that "Three months after date, (17th March,)-like it would be complete. Whatever good you can tell the unnegotiable bill despondingly received by the ine of him and his poem will be most acceptable: I reluctant tailor,-your despatch has arrived, con- feel very anxious indeed to receive it. I hope that taining the extract from Moore's Italy and Mr. Ma- he is as happy in his fame and reward as I wish him turin's bankrupt tragedy. It is the absurd work to be; for I know no one who deserves both moreof a clever man. I think it might have done upon if any so much. the stage if he had made Manuel (by some trickery, "Now to business;

I say unto you,

in a mask or -izor). fight his own battle instead of verily, it is not so; or, as the foreigner said to the employing Molineux as his champion; and, after waiter, after asking him to bring a glass of water, to the defeat of Torrismond, have made him spare the which the man answered, I will, sir,'-' You will! son of his enemy, by some revulsion of feeling, not -G-d d-n,-I say, you mush!' And I will sub incompatible with a character of extravagant and mit this to the decision of any person or persons to distempered emotions. But as it is, what with the be appointed by both, on a fair examination of the Justiza, and the ridiculous conduct of the whole circumstances of this compared with the preceding dram. pers. (for they are all as mad as Manuel, who publications. So, there's for you. There is always some row or other previously to all our publications: it should seem that, on approximating, we can never

• Manuel

quite get over the natural antipathy of author and canto, or what it will be good for; bet I mean to be bookseller, and that more particularly the ferine as mercenary as possible, an examrie (I do mean t nature of the latter must break forth.

any individual in particular, and least of all any person or persons of our mutual acquaintancr which I should have followed in my youth, and i might still have been a prosperous gentleman. * "No tooth-powder, no letters, no recent tidings

"You are out about the third canto: I have not done, nor designed, a line of continuation to that poem. I was too short a time at Rome for it, and have no thought of recommencing

"I cannot well explain to you by letter what I of you. conceive to be the origin of Mrs. Leigh's notion Mr. Lewis is at Venice, and I am going up to about Tales of My Landlord;' but it is some stay a week with him there-as it is one of his ea points of the characters of Sir. E. Manley and thusiasms also to like the city. Burley, as well as one or two of the jocular por

tions, on which it is founded, probably.

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,' &c. &

"If you have received Dr. Polidori, as well as a "The Bridge of Sighs' (i. e. Ponte de'i Sospiri,) parcel of books, and you can be of use to him, be is that which divides, or rather joins, the palace of so. I never was much more disgusted with any the Doge to the prison of the state. It has two human production than with the eternal nonsense, passages: the criminal went by the one to judg and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill humor, and ment, and returned by the other to death, being vanity of that young person; but he has some strangled in a chamber adjoining, where there was talent, and is a man of honor, and has dispositions a mechanical process for the purpose. of amendment, in which he has been aided by a This is the first stanza of our new canto; and little subsequent experience, and may turn out well. now for a line of the second: Therefore use your government interest for him, for he is improved and improvable.

"Yours, &c."

LETTER CCCXLII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"In Venice, Tasso's echors are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier,
Her palaces, &c., &c.

"You know that formerly the gondoliers sung
always, and Tasso's Gierusalemme was their ballad.
Venice is built on seventy-two islands.
"There! there's a brick of your new Babel! and
now, sirrah! what say you to the sample?
"P. S. I shall write again by-and-by."

LETTER CCCXLIV.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Yours, &c.

"La Mira, near Venice, July 8, 1817.

"La Mira, near Venice, June 18, 1817. "Enclosed is a letter to Dr. Holland from Pindemonte. Not knowing the doctor's address, I am desired to inquire, and perhaps, being a literary man, you will know or discover his haunt near some populous churchyard. I have written to you a scolding letter-I believe, upon a misapprehended passage in your letter-but never mind: it will do for next time, and you will surely deserve it. Talking of doctors reminds me once more to recommend to you one who will not recommend himself,-the Doctor Polidori. If you can help him to a pub- If you can convey the enclosed letter to its adlisher, do; or, if you have any sick relation, I dress, or discover the person to whom it is directed, would advise his advice: all the patients he had in you will confer a favor upon the Venetian crehtor Italy are dead-Mr.'s son, Mr. Horner, and of a deceased Englishman. This epistle is a dun ta Lord Guildford, whom he embowelled with great his executor, for house-rent. The name of the insuccess at Pisa. solvent defunct is, or was, Porter Valter, according "Remember me to Moore, whom I congratulate. to the account of the plaintiff, which I rather How is Rogers? and what is become of Campbell suspect ought to be Walter Porter, according and all t'other fellows of the Druid order? got our mode of collocation. If you are acquainted with Maturin's Bedlam at last, but no other parcel; any dead man of the like name a good deal in debt, am in fits for the tooth-powder, and the magnesia. pray dig him up, and tell him that a pound af has I want some of Burkitt's Soda powers. Will you fair flesh' or the ducats are required, and that if tell Mr. Kinnaird that I have written him two let-you deny them, fie upon your law!' ters on pressing business, (about Newstead, &c.,) to "I hear nothing more from you about Moore's which I humbly solicit his attendance. I am just returned from a gallop along the banks of the Brenta-time sunset. "Yours, "B."

*

LETTER CCCXLIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Verice, July 1, 1817.

poem, Rogers, or other literary phenomena; butt morrow being post-day, will bring perhaps some tidings. I write to you with people talking Ven → tian all about, so that you must not expect this letter to be all English.

"The other day, I had a squabble on the highway, as follows: I was riding pretty quickly from Doin home about eight in the evening, when I passed party of people in a hired carriage, one of whom, poking his head out of the window, began hal ing to me in an inarticulate but insolent manner. I wheeled my horse round, and overtaking, stopped "Since my former letter, I have been working up the coach, and said, Signor, have you any commy impressions into a fourth canto of Childe Har-mands for me?' He replied, impudently as to ma rold, of which I have roughened off about rather ner, No.' I then asked him what he meant better than thirty stanzas, and mean to go on; and that unseemly noise, to the discomfiture of the probably to make this 'Fytte' the concluding one passers-by. He replied by some piece of imperti of the poem, so that you may propose against the nence, to which I answered by giving him a violent autumn to draw out the conscription for 1818. You slap in the face. I then dismounted, (for this must provide moneys, as this new resumption passed at the window, I being on horseback still bodes you certain disbursements. Somewhere and opening the door, desired him to walk out, or I about the end of September or October I propose to would give him another. But the first had settled be under way, (i. e. in the press ;) but I have no him except as to words, of which he poured forth idea yet of the probable length or calibre f the a profusion in blasphemics. swearing that he wak

go the police and avoach a battery sans provocation. something more than to have been upon the haunch I said he lied, and was a , and if he did not hold of a dromedary to compose a good oriental story. 1 his tongue, should be dragged out and beaten anew. am glad you have changed the title from 'Persian He then held his tongue. I of course told him Tale.'

my name and residence, and defied him to the "I suspect you have written a devilish fine comdeath, if he were a gentleman, or not a gentleman, position, and I rejoice in it from my heart; because and had the inclination to be genteel in the way of the Douglas and the Percy both together are con combat. He went to the police, but there having fident against a world in arms.' I hope you won't been bystanders in the road,-particularly a soldier be affronted at my looking on us as birds of a who had seen the business, as well as my servant, feather;' though on whatever subject you had writ notwithstanding the oaths of the coachman and ten, I should have been very happy in your success. five insides besides the plaintiff, and a good deal of "There is a simile of an orange tree's 'flowere paying on all sides, his complaint was dismissed, and fruits,' which I should have liked better, if I he having been the aggressor;-and I was subse- did not believe it to be a reflection on quently informed that, had I not given him a blow, he might have been had into durance.

"So set down this, that in Aleppo once' I 'beat a Venetian; but I assure you that he deserved it, for I am a quiet man, like Candide, though with somewhat of his fortune in being forced to forego my natural meekness every now and then.

"Yours, &c.

LETTER CCCXLV.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"B."

"Venice, July 9, 1817.

"I have got the sketch and extracts from Lalla Rookh-which I humbly suspect will knock up and show young gentlemen that something more than having been across a camel's hump is necessary to write a good oriential tale. The plan, as well as the extracts I have seen, please me very much indeed, and I feel impatient for the whole.

"Do you remember Thurlow's poem to Sam, When Rogers, and that d-d supper of Rancliffe's, that ought to have been a dinner? Ah, Master Shallow, we have heard the chimes at midnight' But

"My boat is on the shore,† &c.

"This should have been written fifteen moons ago-the first stanza was. I am just come out from an hour's swim in the Adriatic; and I write to you with a black-eyed Venetian girl before me, reading

Boccaccio.

Wit

"Last week I had a row on the road (I came up to Venice from my casino, a few miles on the Paduan road, this blessed day to bathe) with a fellow in a carriage, who was impudent to my horse. I gave him a swinging box on the ear, which sent him to the police, who dismissed his complaint, and said, that if I had not thumped him, they would have trounced him for being impertinent. nesses had seen the transaction. He first shouted in an unseemly way, to frighten my palfrey. I wheeled round, rode up to the window, and asked him what "With regard to the critique on Manfred,' you he meant. He grinned, and said some foolery have been in such a devil of a hurry that you have which produced him an immediate slap in the face only sent me the half: it breaks off at page 294. to his utter discomfiture. Much blasphemy ensued, Send me the rest; and also page 270, where there and some menace, which I stopped by dismounting is an account of the supposed origin of this dread- and opening the carriage-door, and intimating an ful story,'-in which, by the way, whatever it may intention of mending the road with his immediate be, the conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of remains, if he did not hold his tongue. He held it. the matter. I had a better origin than he can devise or divine, for the soul of him.

"You say nothing of Manfred's luck in the world; and I care not. He is one of the best of my misbegotten, say what they will.

"I got at last an extract, but no parcels. They will come, I suppose, some time or other. I am come up to Venice for a day or two to bathe, and am just going to take a swim in the Adriatic; so, good evening-the post waits. "Yours, &c.

"B.

"The fellow went sneakingly to the police: but a soldier, who had seen the matter, and thought me right, went and counter-oathed him; so that he had to retire-and cheap too:-I wish I had hit him harder.

"Monk Lewis is here- how pleasant!' He is a very good fellow, and very much yours. So is Sam so is every body-and among the number, Yours ever,

B.

"P. S. What think you of Manfred? "P. S. Pray was Manfred's speech to the sun "If ever you see * *, ask him what he means still retained in act third? I hope so: it is one of by telling me, Oh, my friend, inveni portum ?’– the best in the thing and better than the Colosseum. What portum?" Port wine, I suppose the only I have done fifty-six of canto fourth, Childe port he ever sought or found, since I knew him." Harold; so down with your ducats."

LETTER CCCXLVI.

TO MR. MOORE.

"La Mira, Venice, July 10, 1817.

LETTER CCCXLVII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, July 15, 1817. "I have finished (that is, written-the file comes afterward) ninety and eight stanzas of the fourth Murray, the Mokanna of booksellers, has con- canto, which I mean to be the concluding one. It trived to send me extracts from Lalla Rookh by the will probably be about the same length as the third, post. They are taken from some magazine, and being already of the dimensions of the first or contain a short outline and quotations from the first second cantos. I look upon parts of it as very two poetas. I am very much delighted with what

Is before me, and very thirsty for the rest. You good, that is, if the three former are good, but thi have caught the colors as if you had been in the rainbow, and the tone of the East is perfectly pre served; so hat and its author must be some what in the back-ground, and learn that it requires

we shall see; and at any rate, good or not, it is There is a hint for you, worthy of the row; ai rather a different style from the last-less meta- now, perpend-pronounce.

physical-which at any rate, will be a variety. I "I have not received a word from you of the fate sent the shaft of the column as a specimen the of Manfred or Tasso,' which seems to me odd, other day, i. e. the first stanza. So you may be whether they have failed or succeeded.

you

thinking of its arrival towards autumn, whose "As this is a scrawl of business, and I have late winds will not be the only ones to be raised, if so be ly written at length and often on other subjects I as how that it is ready by that time. will only add that

"I lent Lewis, who is at Venice (in or on the Canalaccio, the Grand Canal), your extracts from Lalla Rookh and Manuel, and, out of contradiction, | it may be, he likes the last, and is not much taken with the first, of these performances. Of Manuel I think, with the exception of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode by indigestion.

am, &c."

LETTER CCCXLIX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, Aug. 7, 1817.

"Of the extracts I can but judge as extracts, "Your letter of the 18th, and, what will piesse and I prefer the Peri' to the Silver Veil.' He seems not so much at home in his versification of you, as it did me, that parcel sent by the goodthe Silver Veil,' and a little embarrassed with his natured aid and abetment of Mr. Croker, are ar horrors; but the conception of the character of the rived.-Messrs. Lewis and. Hobhouse are here: the impostor is fine, and the plan of great scope for his former in the same house, the latter a few hundred yards distant. genius, and I doubt not that, as a whole, it will be very Arabesque and beautiful.

"You say nothing of Manfred, from which its Your late epistle is not the most abundant in should not say so at once. I know nothing and failure may be inferred; but I think it odd you information, and has not yet been succeeded by any hear absolutely nothing, of any body or any this other; so that I know nothing of your own concerns, in England; and there are no English papers, * or of any concerns, and as I never hear from any body that all you say will be news-of any person, or but yourself who does not tell me something as disagreeable as possible, I should not be sorry to hear thing, or things. I am at present very anxious from you: and as it is not very probable, if I can, England at this minute, though I do not tell him about Newstead, and sorry that Kinnaird is leaving by any device or possible arrangement with regard to my personal affairs, so arrange it, that I shall so, and would rather he should have his pleasure. return soon, or reside ever in England, all that you profit. although it may not in this instance tend to my tell me will be all I shall know or inquire after, as to our beloved realm of Grub street, and the black land's 15007: as the agreement in the paper D "If I understand rightly, you have paid into Mo brethren and blue sisterhood of that extensive suburb of Babylon. Have you had no new babe of six hundred pounds, and not five hundred, the l two thousand guineas, there will remain therefor literature sprung up to replace the dead, the dis-hundred being the extra to make up the specie. Si tant, the tired, and the retired? no prose, no verse, hundred and thirty pounds will bring it to the like no nothing?"

LETTER CCCXLVIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, July 20, 1817.

for Manfred and Tasso, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty, I believe, for I am not a good calculator. I do not wish to press you, but I tel you fairly that it will be a convenience to me to bate it paid as soon as it can be made convenient t yourself.

"The new and last canto is one hundred and thirry stanzas in length; and may be made more or less. have fixed no price, even in idea, and have no not ◄ of what it may be good for. There are no metaphiss 'I write to give you notice that I have completed ised me a copy of Tasso's Will, for notes; and I have in it; at least, I think not. Mr. Hobhouse has prosathe fourth and ultimate canto of Childe Harold. It consists of one hundred and twenty-six stanzas, and isina's story, and perhaps a farthing-candle's worth some curious things to say about Ferrara, and P is consequently the longest of the four. It is yet of light upon the present state of Italian literature. to be copied and polished; and the notes are to I shall hardly be ready by October; but that don't come, of which it will require more than the third canto, as it necessarily treats more of works of art than of nature. It shall be sent towards autumn; -and now for our barter. What do you bid? eh? you shall have samples, an' it so please you: but I wish to know what I am to expect (as the saying is) in these hard times, when poetry does not let for the circumcision of a sucking Shylock. I have sten "Lewis, Hobhouse, and I went the other day to half its value. If you are disposed to do what Mrs. three men's heads and a child's foreskin cut off is Winifred Jenkins calls the handsome thing,' I may Italy. The ceremonies are very moving, but 1.0 perhaps throw you some odd matters to the lot,-long for detail in this weather.

matter. I have all to copy and correct, and the notes to write.

"I do not know whether Scott will like it; but I have called him the Ariosto of the North' in my text. If he should not, say so in time.

transiations, or slight originals; there is no saying "An Italian translation of Glenarvon' came what may be on the anvil between this and the book-lately to be printed at Venice. The censor ing season. Recollect that it is the last canto, and Petrotini) refused to sanction the publication til be completes the work; whether as good as the others, had seen me on the subject. I told him that 1 d I cannot judge, in course-least of all as yet, but it not recognize the slightest relation between tì .! shall be as little worse as I can help. I may per- book and myself; but that, whatever opinions might haps, give some little gossip in the notes as to the be upon that subject, I would never prevent or op present state of Italian literati and literature, being pose the publication of any book, in any langues acquainted with some of their capi-men as well as books; but this depends upon my humor at the time. So, now, pronounce: I say nothing.

"When you have got the whole four cantos, I think you might venture on an edition of the whole roem in quarto, with spare copies of the last two for the purchasers of the old edition of the first two.

his inclination) to permit the poor translator to pub on my own private account; and desired lum (against lish his labors. It is going forward in consequence You may say this, with my compliments, to the su

thor.

• Cento iv.. stana xi.

Yours."

"It is not Mr. St. John, but Mr. St. Aubyn, son "P. S. I've done the fourth and last canto, which of Sir John St. Aubyn. Polidori knows him, and amounts to one hundred and thirty-three stanzas introduced him to me. He is of Oxford, and has I desire you to name a price; if you don't, I got my parcel. The doctor will ferret him out, or will; so I advise you in time. ought. The parcel contains many letters, some of "There will be a good many notes."