LETTER 293. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, August 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 Copet, but because now I can never requite her. In a general point of view, she will leave a great gap in society 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 omitting the last line of Manfred's speaking; and why this was done, I know not. Why you persist in saying nothing of the thing itself, I am equally at a loss to conjecture. If it is for fear of telling me something disagreeable, you are wrong; because sooner or later I must know it, and I am not so new, nor so raw, nor so inexperienced, as not to be able to bear, not the mere paltry, petty disappointments of authorship, but 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 quarters, and from men who would not be scrupulous in saying what they thought, or what was said; and so good morrow to you, good Master Lieutenant.'

"I wrote to you twice about the fourth Canto, which you will answer at your pleasure. Mr. Hobhouse and I have come up for a day to the city; Mr. Lewis is gone to England; and I am

"Yours."

LETTER 294.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"La Mira, near Venice, August 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 him 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 innuendoes. 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 all talk in the style of C ** L**'s novels. "It is not Mr. St. John, but Mr. St. Aubyn, son of Sir John St. Aubyn. Polidori knows him, and introduced him to me. 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 people'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.

6

"You want a civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it

Purges the eyes and moves the bowels,
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With tears, that, in a flux of grief,
Afford hysterical relief

To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses,
Which your catastrophe convulses.

"I like your moral and machinery;
Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery!
Your dialogue is apt and smart;
The play's concoction full of art;
Your hero raves, your heroine cries,
All stab, and every body dies.
In short, your tragedy would be
The very thing to hear and see:

And for a piece of publication,
If I decline on this occasion,
It is not that I am not sensible
To merits in themselves ostensible,
But-and I grieve to speak it — plays
Are drugs, mere drugs, sir — now-a-days.
I had a heavy loss by Manuel,'
Too lucky if it prove not annual, -
And S **, with his Orestes,'

(Which, by the by, the author's best is,)
Has lain so very long on hand
That I despair of all demand.
I've advertised, but see my books,

Or only watch my shopman's looks';
Still Ivan, Ina, and such lumber,
My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber.

"There's Byron too, who once did better,
Has sent me, folded in a letter,
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 dare not venture on another.

I write in haste; excuse each blunder; The coaches through the street so thunder! My room's so full - we've Gifford here

The room's so full of wits and bards,

Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards,
And others, neither bards nor wits : —

My humble tenement admits

All persons in the dress of gent.,
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.
"A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men, who make their way;
They're at this moment in discussion
On
poor De Staël's late dissolution.
Her book, they say, was in advance
Pray Heaven, she tell the truth of France!
"Thus run our time and tongues away.-
But, to return, sir, to your play:
Sorry, sir, but I cannot deal,

Unless 'twere acted by O'Neill.

My hands so full, my head so busy,
I'm almost dead, and always dizzy;

And so, with endless truth and hurry,
Dear Doctor, I am yours,

"JOHN MURRAY.

"P.S. I've done the fourth and last Canto, which amounts to 133 stanzas. I desire you to name a price; if you don't, I will; so I advise you in time. "Yours, &c.

"There will be a good many notes."

Among those minor misrepresentations of which it was Lord Byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was, at this time, taken of his professed distaste to the English, to accuse him of acts of inhospitality, and even rudeness, towards. some of his fellowcountrymen. How far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many grateful testimonies