sck relation, I would advise his advice: all the patients be had in Italy are dead-Mr. * *'s son, Mr. Horner, and Lord Guildford, whom he embowelled with great success at Pisa. * * "Remember me to Moore, whom I congratulate. How is Rogers? and what is become of Campbell and all t'other fellows of the Druid order? I got Maturin's Bedlan at last, but no other parcel; I am in fits for the toothpowder, and the magnesia. I want some of Burkitt's Soda powders. Will you tell Mr. Kinnaird that I have written han two letters on pressing business, (about Newstead, &c.) to which I humbly solicit his attendance. I am just returned from a galloo along the banks of the Brentat.nie, sunset. "Yours, "B." LETTER CCCXLIII. TO SIR. MURRAY. you must of the like name a good deal in debt, pray dig him up, and tell him that 'a pound of his fair flesh' or the ducats are required, and that 'if you deny them, fie upon your law "I hear nothing more from you about Mcore's poem. Rogers, or other literary phenomena; but to-morrow, being post-day, will bring perhaps some tidings. I write to you with people taiking Venetian all about, so that 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 Dolo home about eight in the evening, when I passed a party of people in a hired carriage, one of whom, poking his head out of the window, began bawling to me in an inarticulate but insolent manner. I wheeled my horse round, and overtaking, stopped the coach, and said, 'Signor, have you any commands for me?' He replied, impudently as to manner, 'No.' I then asked him what he meant by that unseemly noise, to the discomfiture of the passers-by. He replied by some piece of impertinence, to which I answered by giving him a violent slap in the face. I then dismounted, "La Mira, near Venice, July 1, 1817. (for this passed at the window, I being on horseback still,) Since my former letter, I have been working up my and opening the door, desired him to walk out, or I would impressions into a Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, of which give him anothe.. But the first had settled him except as I have roughened off about rather better than thirty to words, of which he poured forth a profusion in blasphe stanzas, and mean to go on; and probably to make this mies, swearing that he would go to the police and avouch Fytte' the concluding one of the poem, so that you may a battery sans provocation. I said he lied, and was a propose against the autumn to draw out the conscription and, if he did not hold his tongue, should be dragged out for 1818. You must provide moneys, as this new resump- and beaten anew. He then held his tongue. I of course tion bodes you certain disbursements. Somewhere. about told him my name and residence, and defied him to the the end of September or October I propose to be under death, if he were a gentleman, or not a gentleman, and way, (i. e. in the press;) but I have no idea yet of the had the inclination to be genteel in the way of combat. probable length or calibre of the Canto, or what it will be He went to the police, but there having been bystanders good for; but I mean to be as mercenary as possible, an in the road,-particularly a soldier who had seen the example (I do not mean of any individual in particular, and business,-as well as my servant, notwithstanding the least of all any person or persons of our mutual acquaint- oaths of the coachman and five insides besides the plainance,) which I should have followed in my youth, and I tiff, and a good deal of paying on all sides, his complaint might still have been a prosperous gentleman. was dismissed, he having been the aggressor;-and I was subsequently informed that, had I not given him a blow, he might have been had into durance. "No tooth-powder, no letters, no recent tidings of you. "Mr. Lewis is at Venice, and I am going up to stay a week with him there-as it is one of his enthusiasms also to like the city. "I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,' &c. &c. The 'Bridge of Sighs' (i. e. Ponte de'i Sospiri,) is that which divides, or rather joins, the palace of the Doge to the prison of the state. It has two passages: the criminal went by the one to judgment, and returned by the other to death, being strangled in a chamber adjoining, where there was a mechanical process for the purpose. • This is the first stanza of our new Canto; and now for a line of the second: "In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier, "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? "Yours, &c. "P. S. I shall write again by-and-by." LETTER CCCXLIV. TO MR. MURRAY. "La Mira, near Venice, July 8, 1817. "I have got the sketch and extracts from Lalla Rooki -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 oriental tale. The plan, as well as the extracts I have seen, please me very much indeed, and I feel impatient for the whole. "With regard to the critique on 'Manfred,' you have been in such a devil of a hurry that you have only sent me the half: it breaks off at page 294. Send me the rest; and also page 270, where there is an account of the sup posed origin of this dreadful story,'-in which, by-the-w whatever it may be, the conjecturer is out, and knows no thing of the matter. I had a better origin than he can devise or divine, for the soul of him. If you can convey the enclosed letter to its address, or "You say nothing of Manfred's luck in the world; and discover the person to whom it is directed, you will confer I care not. He is one of the best of my misbegotten, say a favour upon the Venetian creditor of a deceased English-what they will. man. This epistle is a dun to his executor, for house-rent. "I got at last an extract, but no parcels. They will come, The name of the insolvent defunct is, or was, Porter Valter, I suppose, some time or other. I am come up to Venice according to the account of the plaintiff, which I rather for a day or two to bathe, and am just going to take a suspect ought to be Walter Porter, according to our mode swim in the Adriatic; so, good evening-the post waits. of collocation If you are acquainted with any dead man *Yours, &c. "B. LETTERS, 1817. P. S. Pray, was Mantred's speech to the Sun still tum? Port wine, 1 suppose the only port he ever songts retained in Act Third? hope so: it was one of the best or found, since I knew him.” in the thing and better than the Colosseum. I have done fifty-six of Canto Fourth, Childe Harold; so down with your ducats." LETTER CCCXLVI. TO MR. MOORE. "La Mira, Venice, July 10, 1817. "Murray, the Mokanna of booksellers, has contrived to send me extracts from Lalla Rookh by the post. They are taken from some magazine, and contain a short outline and quotations from the first two Poems. I am very much delighted with what is before me, and rest. You have caught the colours as if you had been in very thirsty for the the rainbow, and the tone of the East is perfectly preserved; so that * * * and its author must be somewhat in the back-ground, and learn that it requires something more than to have been upon the haunch of a dromedary to compose a good oriental story. I am glad you have changed the title from 'Persian Tale.' * * * "I suspect you have written a devilish fine composition, and I rejoice in, it from my heart; because 'the Douglas and the Percy both together are confident against a world in arms. I hope you won't be affronted at my looking on us as 'birds of a feather;' though on whatever subject you had written, I should have been very happy in your success. There is a simile of an orange tree's 'flowers and fruits,' which I should have liked better, if I did not believe it to be a reflection on * * * "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.t I it 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 Canto, which mean to be the concluding one. It will probably be about sions of the first or second Cantos. I look upon parts of the same length as the Third, being already of the dimonas very good, that is, if the three former are good, but this we shall see; and at any rate, good or not, it is rather a different style from the last-less metaphysical-which, column as a specimen the other day, i. e. the first stanza. any rate, will be a variety. I sent you the shaft of the So you may be thinking of its arrival towards autumn, whose winds will not be the only ones to be raised, if so be as how that it is ready by that time. at accio, the Grand Canal,) your extracts from Lalla Rookh "I lent Lewis, who is at Venice (in or on the Canallast, and is not much taken with the first, of these perform and Manuel, and, out of contradiction, it may be, he likes the capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as was ever bestrode be ances. Of Manuel I think, with the exception of a few indigestion. the 'Peri' to the 'Silver Veil.' He seems not so much at "Of the extracts I can but judge as extracts, and I prefer home in his versification of the 'Silver Veil,' and a little embarrassed with his horrors; but the conception of the character of the impostor is fine, and the plan of great scope for his genius-and I doubt not that, as a whole, it will be very Arabesque and beautiful. tion, and has not yet been succeeded by any other; so that "Your late epistle is not the most abundant in informaI know nothing of your own concerns, or of any concerns, and as I never hear from any body but yourself who does not tell me something as disagreeable as possible, I should not be sorry to hear from you: and as it is not very with regard to my personal affairs, so arrange it, that I probable,-if I can, by any device or possible arrangement "Last week I had a row on the road (I came up to tell me will be all I shall know or inquire after, as to our shall return soon, or reside ever in England, all that you Venice from my casino, a few miles on the Paduan road, beloved realm of Grub-street, and the black brethren and this blessed day to bathe) with a fellow in a carriage, who blue sisterhood of that extensive suburb of Babylon. Have was impudent to my horse. I gave him a swinging box on "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 Boccacio. * the * car, which sent him to the police, who dismissed his you had no new babe of literature sprung up to replace the complaint, and said, that if I had not thumped him, they dead, the distant, the tired, and the retired? no prose, no would have trounced him for being impertinent. Witnesses verse, no nothing?" 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 he meant. He grinned, and said some foolery, which produced him an immediate slap in the face, to his utter discomfiture. Much blasphemy ensued, and some menace, which I stopped by dismounting and opening the carriage-door, and intimating an intention of mending the road with his immediate remains, if he did not hold his tongue. He held it. "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 -I wish I had hit him harder. LETTER CCCXLVIII. TO MR. MURRAY. Venice, July 20, 1817. fourth and ultimate Canto of Childe Harold. It consists "I write to give you notice that I have completed the It is yet to be copied and polished; and the notes are to of 126 stanzas, and is consequently the longest of the four. come, of which it will require more than the third Canto, as it necessarily treats more of works of art than of nature. What do you bid? eh? you shall have samples, an' it so It shall be sent towards autumn;-and now for our barter. 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 half its value. If you are disposed to do what Mrs. Winifred Jenkins calls 'the handsome thing, I may perhaps * **, ask hira what he means by throw you some odd matters to the lot,-translations, or fell ng me, 'Oh, my friend, inveni portum?"-What 'por-slight originals; there is no saying what may be on the perhaps, give some little gossip in the notes as to the present state of Italian literati and literature, being acquainted with some of their cap-men as well as books—but this depends upon my humour 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 poem in quarto, with spare copies of the last two for the purchasers of the old edition of the first two. There is a hint for you, worthy of the Row; and now, perpend-pronounce. "I have not received a word from you of the fate of Manfred' or 'Tasso, which seems to me odd, whether they have failed or succeeded. the publication of any book, in any language, on my own LETTER CCCL. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Aug. 12, 1817. "I have been very sorry to hear of the death of Madame de Staël, not only because she had been very kind to me at As this is a scrawl of business, and I have lately writ-Copet, but because now I can never requite her. In a ten at length and often on other subjects, I will only add general point of view, she will leave a great gap in society that I am, &c." LETTER CCCXLIX. TO MR. MURRAY. "La Mira, near Venice, Aug. 7, 1817. and literature. "With regard to death, I doubt that we have any right to pity the dead for their own sakes. "The copies of Manfred and Tasso are arrived, thanks to Mr. Croker's cover. You have destroyed the whole effect and moral of the poem by cmitting the last line of Manfred's speaking; and why this was done, I know not. ⚫ Your letter of the 18th, and, what will please you, as it Why you persist in saying nothing of the thing itself, I am did me, the parcel sent by the good-natured aid and abet-equally at a loss to conjecture. If it is for fear of telling ment of Mr. Croker, are arrived.-Messrs. Lewis and me something disagreeable, you are wrong; because Hobhouse are here: the former in the same house, the sooner or later I must know it, and I am not so new nor latter a few hundred yards distant. "You say nothing of Manfred, from which its failure may be inferred; but I think it odd you should not say so at once. I know nothing, and hear absolutely nothing, of any body or any thing in England; and there are no English papers, so that all you say will be news-of any person, or thing or things. I am at present very anxious about Newstead, and sorry that Kinnaird is leaving England at thus minute, though I do not tell him so, and would rather he should have his pleasure, although it may not in this instance tend to my profit. so raw, nor so inexperienced, as not to be able to bear, not the mere paltry, petty disappointments of authorship, ; ut things more serious,—at least, I hope so, and that what you may think irritability is merely mechanical, and only acts like galvanism on a dead body, or the muscular motion. which survives sensation. "If it is that you are out of humour, because I wrote to you a sharp letter, recollect that it was partly from a misconception of your letter, and partly because you did a thing you had no right to do without consulting me. "I have, however, heard good of Manfred from two other "If I understand rightly, you have paid into Morland's quarters, and from men who would not be scrupulous in 1500 pounds: as the agreement in the paper is two thou-saying what they thought, or what was said; and so sand guineas, there will remain therefore six hundred 'good-morrow to you, good Master Lieutenant.' pounds, and not five hundred, the odd hundred being the "I wrote to you twice about the 4th Canto, which you extra to make up the specie. Six hundred and thirty will answer at your pleasure. Mr. Hobhouse and I have pounds will bring it to the like for Manfred and Tasso, come up for a day to the city; Mr. Lewis is gone to Eng. making a total of twelve hundred and thirty, I believe, for land; and I am I am not a good calculator. I do not wish to press you, but I tell you fairly that it will be a convenience to me to have it paid as soon as it can be made convenient to yourself. "The new and last Canto is 130 stanzas in length; and may be made more or less. I have fixed no price, even in idea, and have no notion of what it may be good for. There are no metaphysics in it; at least, I think not. Mr. Hobhouse has promised me a copy of Tasso's Will, for notes; and I have some curious things to say about Ferand Parisina's story, and perhaps a farthing candle's worth of light upon the present state of Italian literature. I shall hardly be ready by October; but that don't matter. I have all to copy and correct, and the notes to write. rara, "I do not know whether Scott will like it; but I have alled him the Ariosto of the North' in my text. If he should not, say so in time. "Lewis, Hobhouse, and I went the other day to the circumcision of a sucking Shylock. I have seen three men's heads and a child's foreskin cut off in Italy. The ceremonies are very moving, but too long for detail in this weather. *An Italian translation of 'Glenarvon' came lately to be printed at Venice. The censor (Sr. Petrotini) refused to sanction the publication till he had seen me on the subject. I told him that I did not recognise the slightest relation Setween that book and myself; but that, whatever opinions might be upon that subject, I would never prevent or oppose Canto IV stauza 40th. LETTER CCCLI. TO MK. MURKAY. Yours "La Mira, near Venice, Aug. 21, 1817. "I take you at your word about Mr. Hanson, and will feel obliged if you will go to him, and request Mr. Davies also to visit him by my desire, and repeat that I trust that neither Mr. Kinnaird's absence nor mine will prevent his taking all proper steps to accelerate and promote the sale of Newstead and Rochdale, upon which the whole of my future personal comfort depends. It is impossible for me to express how much any delays upon these points would inconvenience me; and I do not know a greater obligation that can be conferred upon me than the pressing these things upon Hanson, and making hin act according to my wishes. I wish you would speak out, at least to me, and tell me what you allude to by your cold way of mentioning him. All mysteries at such a distance are not merely tormenting but mischievous, and may be prejudicial to my interests; so pray expound, that I may consult with Mr. Kinnaird when he arrives; and remember that I prefer the most disagreeable certainties to hints and inuendoes. The devil take every body; I never can get any person to be explicit about any thing or any body, and my whole life is passed in conjectures of what people mean: you ail tat in the style of Caroline Lamb's novels. "It is not Mr. St. John, but Mr. St. Aubyn, son of Sir John St. Aubyn. Polidori knows him, and introduced hun to me. LETTERS, 1817. He is of Oxford, and has got my parcel. The doctor will ferret him out, or ought. The parcel contains many letters, some of Madame de Staël's, and other peoale's, besides MSS., &c. By, if I find the gentleman, and he don't find the parcel, I will say something he won't like to hear. "You want a 'civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it Dear Doctor, I have read your play, To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses, "I like your moral and machinery; All stab, and every body dies, In short, your tragedy would be To merits in themselves ostensible, Or only watch my shopman's looks ; Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber, My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber. A sort of it's no more a drama Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama; So alter'd since last year his pen is, I think he's lost his wits at Venice. In short, sir, what with one and t' other, I write in haste; excuse each blunder; Or if you only would but tell in a Short compass what-but, to resume: An I was saying, sir, the room The room's so full of wits and bards, My humble tenement admits "A party dines with me to-day, LETTER CCCLII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Your letter of the 15th has conveyed with its contents "Sept. 4, 1817. the impression of a seal, to which the 'Saracen's Head' is a seraph, and the 'Bull and Mouth' a delicate device. I knew that calumny had sufficiently blackened ine of later days, but not that it had given the features as well as complexion of a negro. Poor Augusta is not less, but rather more, shocked than myself, and says, 'people seem to have lost their recollection strangely' when they engraved such a 'blackamoor.' Pray do n't seal (at least to me) with such a caricature of the human numskull altogether; and if you don't break the seal-cutter's head, at least crack his libel (or likeness, if it should be a likeness) of mine. "Mr. Kinnaird is not yet arrived, but expected. He has lost by the way all the tooth-powder, as a letter from Spa informs me. "By Mr. Rose I received safely, though tardily, magne sia and tooth-powder, and * * * Why do you send me such trash-worse than trash, the Sublime of Mediocrity? Thanks for Lalla, however, which is good and thanks for the Edinburgh and Quarterly, both very amusing and well-written. Paris in 1815, &c.-good. Modern Greece-good for nothing; written by some one who has never been there, and not being able to manage the Spenser stanza, has invented a thing of its own, consisting of two elegiac stanzas, a heroic line, and an Alexandrine, twisted on a string. Besides, why 'modern? You may say modern Greeks, but surely Greece itself is rather more ancient than ever it was.-Now for business. The "You offer 1500 guineas for the new Canto: I won't take it. I ask two thousand five hundred guineas for it which: you will either give or not, as you think proper. I' concludes the poem, and consists of 144 stanzas. notes are numerous, and chiefly written by Mr. Hobhouse, whose researches have been indefatigable, and who, I will venture to say, has more real knowledge of Rome and its environs than any Englishman who has been there since Gibbon. By-the-way, to prevent any mistakes, I think it necessary to state the fact that he, Mr. Hobhouse, has no interest whatever in the price or profit to be derived from the copyright of either poem or notes directly or indirectly; so that you are not to suppose that it is by, for, or through him, that I require more for this Canto than the preceding. -No: but if Mr. Eustace was to have had two thousand for a Poem on Education; if Mr. Moore is to have three thousand for Lalla, &c.; if Mr. Campbell is to have three thousand for his prose on poetry-I do n't mean to disparage these genuemen in their labours-but I ask the aforesaid price for mine. You will tell me that their productions are considerably longer: very true, and when they shorten them, I will lengthen mine, and ask less. You shall submit the MS. to Mr. Gifford, and any other two gentlemen to be named by you (Mr. Frere, or Mr. Croker, or whomever you please, except such fellows as your ✶ ✶s and ** s) and if they pronounce this Canto to be inferior as a whole to the preceding, I will not appeal from their award, but burn the manuscript, and leave things as they are. "Yours very truly. "P. S. In answer to a former letter, I sent you a short statement of what I thought the state of our present copyright account, viz. six hundred pounds still (or lately) due on Childe Harold, and six hundred guineas, Manfred and Tasso, making a total of twelve hundred and thirty pounds If we agree about the new poem, I shall take the liberty to reserve the choice of the manner in which it should be published, viz. a quarto, certes.” * ⚫ By Mrs. Hemans. in time. LETTER CCCLII. TO MR. HOPPNER. Poem, for I do n't like the prose at all, at all: and in the meantime, the 'Fire-worshippers' is the best, and the Veiled Prophet' the worst, of the volume. "La Mira, Sept. 12, 1817. "With regard to poetry in general,* I am convinced I set out yesterday morning with the intention of paying the more I think of 1, that he and all of us-Scott, Sou my respects, and availing myself of your permission to walk over the premises. On arriving at Padua, I found they, Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, I,-are all in the wrong, one as much as another; that we are upon a wrong that the march of the A strian troops had engrossed so revolutionary poetical system, or systerns, not wort!, a ury horses, that those I could procure were hardly able damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe to crawl; and their weakness, together with the prospect are free; and that the present and next generations will of finding none at all at the post-house of Monselice, and finally be of this opinion. I am the more confirmed in Consequently either not arriving that day at Este, or so this by having lately gone over some of our classics, par late as to be unable to return home the same evening, in- ticularly Pope, whom I tried in this way:-I† took Moore's duced me to turn aside in a second visit to Arqua, instead poems and my own and some others, and went over them of proceeding onwards; and even thus I hardly got back side by side with Pope's, and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable Next week I shall be obliged to be in Venice to meet distance in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagi. Lord Kinnaird and his brother, who are expected in a few days. And this interruption, together with that occasioned nation, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne's man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon by the continued march of the Austrians for the next few it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now among us; and days, will not allow me to fix any precise period for avail- if I had to begin ag in, I would mould myself accordingly. ing myself of your kindness, though I should wish to take Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracti the earliest opportunity. Perhaps, if absent, you will have cable subject, and Rogers is retired upon half-pay, and the goodness to permit one of your servants to show me has done enough, unless he were to do as he did formerly.” the grounds and house, or as much of either as may be convenient; at any rate, I shall take the first occasion possible to go over, and regret very much that I was on yesterday pented. "I have the honour to be your obliged, &c." LETTER CCCLV. TO MR. MURRAY. *Sept. 17, 1817 LETTER CCCLIV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Sept. 15, 1817. "Mr. Hobhouse purposes being in England in November; he will bring the Fourth Canto with him, notes and all: the text contains one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is long for that measure. 1 enclose a sheet for correction, if ever you get to an other edition. You will observe that the blunder in printing makes it appear as if the Chateau was over St. Gingo, "With regard to the 'Ariosto of the North, surely their instead of being on the opposite shore of the Lake, over themes, chivalry, war, and love, were as like as can be; Clarens. So, separate the paragraphs, otherwise my and as to the compliment, if you knew what the Italians topography will seem as inaccurate as your typography think of Ariosto, you would not hesitate about that. Eu on this occasion. The other day I wrote to convey my proposition with regard to the fourth and concluding Canto. I have gone over and extended it to one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is almost as long as the first two were originally, and longer by itself than any of the smaller poems except the 'Corsair. Mr. Hobhouse has made some very valuable and accurate notes, of considerable length, and you may be sure that I will do for the text all that I can to finish with decency. I look upon Childe Harold as my best; and as I begun, I think of concluding with it. But I make no resolutions on that head, as I broke my former intention with regard to the 'Corsair.' However, I fear that I shall never do better; and yet, not being thirty years of age, for some moons to come, one ought to be progressive, as far as intellect goes, for many a good year. But I have had a devilish deal of tear and wear of mind and body in my time, besides having published too often and much already. God grant me some judgment to do what may be most fitting in that and every thing else, for I doubt my own exceedingly. as to their 'measures,' you forget that Ariosto's is an oc- natives. "Yours ever. &c." LETTER CCCLVI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Oct. 12, 1817. "Mr. Kinnaird and his brother, Lord Kinnaird, have been here, and are now gone again. All your massives came, except the tooth-powder, of which I request farther supplies, at all convenient opportunities; as also of mag"I have read 'Lalla Rookh,' but not with sufficient at-nesia and soda-powders, both great luxuries here, and tention yet, for I ride about, and lounge, and ponder, and neither to be had good, or indeed hardly at all, of the -two or three other things; so that my reading is very desultory, and not so attentive as it used to be. I am very glad to hear of its popularity, for Moore is a very noble fellow in all respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad feelings which success-good or evil-sometimes engenders in the men of rhyme. Of the Poem itself, I will ted you my opinion when I have mastered it: I say of the On this paragraph, in the MS. copy of the above letter, I find the following note, in the bandwriting of Mr. Gifford: "There is more good • A country-house on the Euganean hills, near Este, which Mr. Hopp-sense, and feeling, and judgment in this passage, than in any other I ever ser, who was then the English consul-general at Venice, had for some read, or Lord Byron wrote."-Moore. time occupied, and which Lord Byron after ward rented of him, but never vealed in it. † See letters for Bowles and Blackwood. 1 See Letter 346. |