"Next week I shall be obliged to be in Venice to meet Lord Kinnaird and his brother, who are expected in a few days. And this interruption, together with that occasioned by the continued march of the Austrians for the next few days, will not allow me to fix any precise period for availing myself of your kindness, though I should wish to take the earliest opportunity. Perhaps, if absent, you will have the goodness to permit one of your servants to show me 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 yesterday prevented.

"I have the honour to be your obliged," &c.

[Footnote 7: A country-house on the Euganean hills, near Este, which Mr. Hoppner, who was then the English Consul-General at Venice, had for some time occupied, and which Lord Byron afterwards rented of him, but never resided in it.]

[Footnote 8: So great was the demand for horses, on the line of march of the Austrians, that all those belonging to private individuals were put in requisition for their use, and Lord Byron himself received an order to send his for the same purpose. This, however, he positively refused to do, adding, that if an attempt were made to take them by force, he would shoot them through the head in the middle of the road, rather than submit to such an act of tyranny upon a foreigner who was merely a temporary resident in the country. Whether his answer was ever reported to the higher authorities I know not; but his horses were suffered to remain unmolested in his stables.]

* * * * *

LETTER 297. TO MR. MURRAY.

"September 15. 1817.

"I enclose a sheet for correction, if ever you get to another edition. You will observe that the blunder in printing makes it appear as if the Chateau was over St. Gingo, instead of being on the opposite shore of the Lake, over Clarens. So, separate the paragraphs, otherwise my topography will seem as inaccurate as your typography 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 two first 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.

"I have read 'Lalla Rookh,' but not with sufficient attention yet, for I ride about, and lounge, and ponder, and—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 tell you my opinion when I have mastered it: I say of the poem, for I don't like the prose at all; and in the mean time, the 'Fire-worshippers' is the best, and the 'Veiled Prophet' the worst, of the volume.

"With regard to poetry in general[9], I am convinced, the more I think of it, that he and all of us—Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, I,—are all in the wrong, one as much as another; that we are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, or systems, not worth a damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free; and that the present and next generations will finally be of this opinion. I am the more confirmed in this by having lately gone over some of our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this way,—I took Moore's poems and my own and some others, and went over them side by side with Pope's, and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne's man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly. Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject, and * * * is retired upon half-pay, and has done enough, unless he were to do as he did formerly."

[Footnote 9: On this paragraph, in the MS. copy of the above letter, I find the following note, in the handwriting of Mr. Gifford:—

"There is more good sense, and feeling, and judgment in this passage, than in any other I ever read, or Lord Byron wrote."]

* * * * *

LETTER 298. TO MR. MURRAY.

"September 17. 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.

"With regard to the 'Ariosto of the North,' surely their themes, chivalry, war, and love, were as like as can be; and as to the compliment, if you knew what the Italians think of Ariosto, you would not hesitate about that. But as to their 'measures,' you forget that Ariosto's is an octave stanza, and Scott's any thing but a stanza. If you think Scott will dislike it, say so, and I will expunge. I do not call him the 'Scotch Ariosto,' which would be sad provincial eulogy, but the 'Ariosto of the North, meaning of all countries that are not the South. * *

"As I have recently troubled you rather frequently, I will conclude, repeating that I am

"Yours ever," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 299. TO MR. MURRAY.

"October 12. 1817.

"Mr. Kinnaird and his brother, Lord Kinnaird, have been here, and are now gone again. All your missives came, except the tooth-powder, of which I request further supplies, at all convenient opportunities; as also of magnesia and soda-powders, both great luxuries here, and neither to be had good, or indeed hardly at all, of the natives. * * *

"In * *'s Life, I perceive an attack upon the then Committee of D.L. Theatre for acting Bertram, and an attack upon Maturin's Bertram for being acted. Considering all things, this is not very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy autobiographer; and I would answer, if I had not obliged him. Putting my own pains to forward the views of * * out of the question, I know that there was every disposition, on the part of the Sub-Committee, to bring forward any production of his, were it feasible. The play he offered, though poetical, did not appear at all practicable, and Bertram did;—and hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter of his vagabond life.

"As for Bertram, Maturin may defend his own begotten, if he likes it well enough; I leave the Irish clergyman and the new Orator Henley to battle it out between them, satisfied to have done the best I could for both. I may say this to you, who know it.

"Mr. * * may console himself with the fervour,—the almost religious fervour of his and W * *'s disciples, as he calls it. If he means that as any proof of their merits, I will find him as much 'fervour' in behalf of Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcote as ever gathered over his pages or round his fire-side.

"My answer to your proposition about the fourth Canto you will have received, and I await yours;—perhaps we may not agree. I have since written a poem (of 84 octave stanzas), humorous, in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft (whom I take to be Frere), on a Venetian anecdote which amused me:—but till I have your answer, I can say nothing more about it.

"Mr. Hobhouse does not return to England in November, as he intended, but will winter here and as he is to convey the poem, or poems,—for there may perhaps be more than the two mentioned, (which, by the way, I shall not perhaps include in the same publication or agreement,) I shall not be able to publish so soon as expected; but I suppose there is no harm in the delay.

"I have signed and sent your former copyrights by Mr. Kinnaird, but not the receipt, because the money is not yet paid. Mr. Kinnaird has a power of attorney to sign for me, and will, when necessary.

"Many thanks for the Edinburgh Review, which is very kind about Manfred, and defends its originality, which I did not know that any body had attacked. I never read, and do not know that I ever saw, the 'Faustus of Marlow,' and had, and have, no dramatic works by me in English, except the recent things you sent me; but I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's Faust (which were, some good, and some bad) last summer;—which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of Manfred, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh (part of which you saw) when I went over first the Dent de Jaman, and then the Wengen or Wengeberg Alp and Sheideck, and made the giro of the Jungfrau, Shreckhorn, &c. &c. shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of Manfred before me as if it was but yesterday, and could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all.

"Of the Prometheus of AEschylus I was passionately fond as a boy (it was one of the Greek plays we read thrice a year at Harrow);—indeed that and the 'Medea' were the only ones, except the 'Seven before Thebes,' which ever much pleased me. As to the 'Faustus of Marlow,' I never read, never saw, nor heard of it—at least, thought of it, except that I think Mr. Gifford mentioned, in a note of his which you sent me, something about the catastrophe; but not as having any thing to do with mine, which may or may not resemble it, for any thing I know.

"The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that I have written;—but I deny Marlow and his progeny, and beg that you will do the same.

"If you can send me the paper in question[10], which the Edinburgh Review mentions, do. The review in the magazine you say was written by Wilson? it had all the air of being a poet's, and was a very good one. The Edinburgh Review I take to be Jeffrey's own by its friendliness. I wonder they thought it worth while to do so, so soon after the former; but it was evidently with a good motive.

"I saw Hoppner the other day, whose country-house at Este I have taken for two years. If you come out next summer, let me know in time. Love to Gifford.

"Yours ever truly.

"Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey, Are all partakers of my pantry.

These two lines are omitted in your letter to the doctor, after—

"All clever men who make their way."

[Footnote 10: A paper in the Edinburgh Magazine, in which it was suggested that the general conception of Manfred, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, had been borrowed from "The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus," of Marlow.]

* * * * *

LETTER 300. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, October 23. 1817.

"Your two letters are before me, and our bargain is so far concluded. How sorry I am to hear that Gifford is unwell! Pray tell me he is better: I hope it is nothing but cold. As you say his illness originates in cold, I trust it will get no further.

"Mr. Whistlecraft has no greater admirer than myself: I have written a story in 89 stanzas, in imitation of him, called Beppo, (the short name for Giuseppe, that is, the Joe of the Italian Joseph,) which I shall throw you into the balance of the fourth Canto, to help you round to your money; but you perhaps had better publish it anonymously; but this we will see to by and by.

"In the Notes to Canto fourth, Mr. Hobhouse has pointed out several errors of Gibbon. You may depend upon H.'s research and accuracy. You may print it in what shape you please.

"With regard to a future large edition, you may print all, or any thing, except 'English Bards,' to the republication of which at no time will I consent. I would not reprint them on any consideration. I don't think them good for much, even in point of poetry; and, as to other things, you are to recollect that I gave up the publication on account of the Hollands, and I do not think that any time or circumstances can neutralise the suppression. Add to which, that, after being on terms with almost all the bards and critics of the day, it would be savage at any time, but worst of all now, to revive this foolish lampoon.

"The review of Manfred came very safely, and I am much pleased with it. It is odd that they should say (that is somebody in a magazine whom the Edinburgh controverts) that it was taken from Marlow's Faust, which I never read nor saw. An American, who came the other day from Germany, told Mr. Hobhouse that Manfred was taken from Goethe's Faust. The devil may take both the Faustuses, German and English—I have taken neither.

"Will you send to Hanson, and say that he has not written since 9th September?—at least I have had no letter since, to my great surprise.

"Will you desire Messrs. Morland to send out whatever additional sums have or may be paid in credit immediately, and always to their Venice correspondents? It is two months ago that they sent me out an additional credit for one thousand pounds. I was very glad of it, but I don't know how the devil it came; for I can only make out 500 of Hanson's payment, and I had thought the other 500 came from you; but it did not, it seems, as, by yours of the 7th instant, you have only just paid the 1230l. balance.

"Mr. Kinnaird is on his way home with the assignments. I can fix no time for the arrival of Canto fourth, which depends on the journey of Mr. Hobhouse home; and I do not think that this will be immediate.

"Yours in great haste and very truly,

"B.

"P.S. Morlands have not yet written to my bankers apprising the payment of your balances: pray desire them to do so.

"Ask them about the previous thousand—of which I know 500 came from Hanson's—and make out the other 500—that is, whence it came."

* * * * *

LETTER 301. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, November 15. 1817.

"Mr. Kinnaird has probably returned to England by this time, and will have conveyed to you any tidings you may wish to have of us and ours. I have come back to Venice for the winter. Mr. Hobhouse will probably set off in December, but what day or week I know not. He is my opposite neighbour at present.

"I wrote yesterday in some perplexity, and no very good humour, to Mr. Kinnaird, to inform me about Newstead and the Hansons, of which and whom I hear nothing since his departure from this place, except in a few unintelligible words from an unintelligible woman.

"I am as sorry to hear of Dr. Polidori's accident as one can be for a person for whom one has a dislike, and something of contempt. When he gets well, tell me, and how he gets on in the sick line. Poor fellow! how came he to fix there?

"I fear the Doctor's skill at Norwich Will hardly salt the Doctor's porridge.

Methought he was going to the Brazils to give the Portuguese physic (of which they are fond to desperation) with the Danish consul.

"Your new Canto has expanded to one hundred and sixty-seven stanzas. It will be long, you see; and as for the notes by Hobhouse, I suspect they will be of the heroic size. You must keep Mr. * * in good humour, for he is devilish touchy yet about your Review and all which it inherits, including the editor, the Admiralty, and its bookseller. I used to think that I was a good deal of an author in amour propre and noli me tangere; but these prose fellows are worst, after all, about their little comforts.

"Do you remember my mentioning, some months ago, the Marquis Moncada—a Spaniard of distinction and fourscore years, my summer neighbour at La Mira? Well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love with a Venetian girl of family, and no fortune or character; took her into his mansion; quarrelled with all his former friends for giving him advice (except me who gave him none), and installed her present concubine and future wife and mistress of himself and furniture. At the end of a month, in which she demeaned herself as ill as possible, he found out a correspondence between her and some former keeper, and after nearly strangling, turned her out of the house, to the great scandal of the keeping part of the town, and with a prodigious eclat, which has occupied all the canals and coffee-houses in Venice. He said she wanted to poison him; and she says—God knows what; but between them they have made a great deal of noise. I know a little of both the parties: Moncada seemed a very sensible old man, a character which he has not quite kept up on this occasion; and the woman is rather showy than pretty. For the honour of religion, she was bred in a convent, and for the credit of Great Britain, taught by an Englishwoman.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 302. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, December 3. 1817.

"A Venetian lady, learned and somewhat stricken in years, having, in her intervals of love and devotion, taken upon her to translate the Letters and write the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague,—to which undertaking there are two obstacles, firstly, ignorance of English, and, secondly, a total dearth of information on the subject of her projected biography, has applied to me for facts or falsities upon this promising project. Lady Montague lived the last twenty or more years of her life in or near Venice, I believe; but here they know nothing, and remember nothing, for the story of to-day is succeeded by the scandal of to-morrow; and the wit, and beauty, and gallantry, which might render your countrywoman notorious in her own country, must have been here no great distinction—because the first is in no request, and the two latter are common to all women, or at least the last of them. If you can therefore tell me any thing, or get any thing told, of Lady Wortley Montague, I shall take it as a favour, and will transfer and translate it to the 'Dama' in question. And I pray you besides to send me, by some quick and safe voyager, the edition of her Letters, and the stupid Life, by Dr. Dallaway, published by her proud and foolish family.

"The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home. The Courier's list of some three hundred heirs to the crown (including the house of Wirtemberg, with that * * *, P——, of disreputable memory, whom I remember seeing at various balls during the visit of the Muscovites, &c. in 1814) must be very consolatory to all true lieges, as well as foreigners, except Signor Travis, a rich Jew merchant of this city, who complains grievously of the length of British mourning, which has countermanded all the silks which he was on the point of transmitting, for a year to come. The death of this poor girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty or so, in childbed—of a boy too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she inspired.

"I think, as far as I can recollect, she is the first royal defunct in childbed upon record in our history. I feel sorry in every respect—for the loss of a female reign, and a woman hitherto harmless; and all the lost rejoicings, and addresses, and drunkenness, and disbursements, of John Bull on the occasion.

"The Prince will marry again, after divorcing his wife, and Mr. Southey will write an elegy now, and an ode then; the Quarterly will have an article against the press, and the Edinburgh an article, half and half, about reform and right of divorce; the British will give you Dr. Chalmers's funeral sermon much commended, with a place in the stars for deceased royalty; and the Morning Post will have already yelled forth its 'syllables of dolour.'

"Woe, woe, Nealliny!—the young Nealliny!

"It is some time since I have heard from you: are you in bad humour? I suppose so. I have been so myself, and it is your turn now, and by and by mine will come round again. Yours truly,

"B.

"P.S. Countess Albrizzi, come back from Paris, has brought me a medal of himself, a present from Denon to me, and a likeness of Mr. Rogers (belonging to her), by Denon also."

* * * * *

LETTER 303. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Venice, December 15. 1817.

"I should have thanked you before, for your favour a few days ago, had I not been in the intention of paying my respects, personally, this evening, from which I am deterred by the recollection that you will probably be at the Count Goess's this evening, which has made me postpone my intrusion.

"I think your Elegy a remarkably good one, not only as a composition, but both the politics and poetry contain a far greater portion of truth and generosity than belongs to the times, or to the professors of these opposite pursuits, which usually agree only in one point, as extremes meet. I do not know whether you wished me to retain the copy, but I shall retain it till you tell me otherwise; and am very much obliged by the perusal.

"My own sentiments on Venice, &c., such as they are, I had already thrown into verse last summer, in the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, now in preparation for the press; and I think much more highly of them, for being in coincidence with yours.

"Believe me yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 304. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 8. 1818.

"My dear Mr. Murray, You're in a damn'd hurry To set up this ultimate Canto; But (if they don't rob us) You'll see Mr. Hobhouse Will bring it safe in his portmanteau.

"For the Journal you hint of, As ready to print off, No doubt you do right to commend it; But as yet I have writ off The devil a bit of Our 'Beppo;'—when copied, I'll send it.

"Then you've * * * Tour,— No great things, so be sure, You could hardly begin with a less work; For the pompous rascallion, Who don't speak Italian Nor French, must have scribbled by guess-work.

"You can make any loss up With 'Spence' and his gossip, A work which must surely succeed; Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft, With the new 'Fytte' of 'Whistlecraft,' Must make people purchase and read.

"Then you've General Gordon, Who girded his sword on, To serve with a Muscovite master, And help him to polish A nation so owlish, They thought shaving their beards a disaster.

"For the man, 'poor and shrewd[11],' With whom you'd conclude A compact without more delay, Perhaps some such pen is Still extant in Venice; But please, sir, to mention your pay."

[Footnote 11: "Vide your letter."]

* * * * *

LETTER 305. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 19. 1818.

"I send you the Story[12] in three other separate covers. It won't do for your Journal, being full of political allusions. Print alone, without name; alter nothing; get a scholar to see that the Italian phrases are correctly published, (your printing, by the way, always makes me ill with its eternal blunders, which are incessant,) and God speed you. Hobhouse left Venice a fortnight ago, saving two days. I have heard nothing of or from him.

"Yours, &c.

"He has the whole of the MSS.; so put up prayers in your back shop, or in the printer's 'Chapel.'"

[Footnote 12: Beppo.]

* * * * *

LETTER 306. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 27. 1818.

"My father—that is, my Armenian father, Padre Pasquali—in the name of all the other fathers of our Convent, sends you the enclosed, greeting.

"Inasmuch as it has pleased the translators of the long-lost and lately-found portions of the text of Eusebius to put forth the enclosed prospectus, of which I send six copies, you are hereby implored to obtain subscribers in the two Universities, and among the learned, and the unlearned who would unlearn their ignorance—This they (the Convent) request, I request, and do you request.

"I sent you Beppo some weeks agone. You must publish it alone; it has politics and ferocity, and won't do for your isthmus of a Journal.

"Mr. Hobhouse, if the Alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, swimming with my commentaries and his own coat of mail in his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and Dover.

"It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the extreme and agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met her at the Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth."

* * * * *

LETTER 307. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, February 2. 1818.

"Your letter of December 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all. Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs.

"I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since (to say nothing of one before[13]), and I look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach—which I hope I never shall—that desolating period. I have a great love for my little Ada, though perhaps she may torture me, like * * *.

"Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. I don't much care what the wretches of the world think of me—all that's past. But I care a good deal what you think of me, and, so, say what you like. You know that I am not sullen; and, as to being savage, such things depend on circumstances. However, as to being in good humour in your society, there is no great merit in that, because it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise.

"I don't know what Murray may have been saying or quoting.[14] I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers of present Poesy; and said, that I thought—except them—all of 'us youth' were on a wrong tack. But I never said that we did not sail well. Our fame will be hurt by admiration and imitation. When I say our, I mean all (Lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans. The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal and can ride. But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manege, and learn to ride the 'great horse.'

"Talking of horses, by the way, I have transported my own, four in number, to the Lido (beach in English), a strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that I not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits.

"I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. We are in the agonies of the Carnival's last days, and I must be up all night again, as well as to-morrow. I have had some curious masking adventures this Carnival; but, as they are not yet over, I shall not say on. I will work the mine of my youth to the last veins of the ore, and then—good night. I have lived, and am content.

"Hobhouse went away before the Carnival began, so that he had little or no fun. Besides, it requires some time to be thoroughgoing with the Venetians; but of all this anon, in some other letter.

"I must dress for the evening. There is an opera and ridotto, and I know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours,

"B.

"P.S. I send this without revision, so excuse errors. I delight in the fame and fortune of Lalla, and again congratulate you on your well-merited success."

[Footnote 13: This possibly may have been the subject of the Poem given in p. 152. of the first volume.]

[Footnote 14: Having seen by accident the passage in one of his letters to Mr. Murray, in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the poetical system on which the greater number of his contemporaries, as well as himself, founded their reputation, I took an opportunity, in the next letter I wrote to him, of jesting a little on this opinion, and his motives for it. It was, no doubt (I ventured to say), excellent policy in him, who had made sure of his own immortality in this style of writing, thus to throw overboard all us poor devils, who were embarked with him. He was, in fact, I added, behaving towards us much in the manner of the methodist preacher who said to his congregation—"You may think, at the Last Day, to get to heaven by laying hold on my skirts; but I'll cheat you all, for I'll wear a spencer, I'll wear a spencer!"]

* * * * *

Of his daily rides on the Lido, which he mentions in this letter, the following account, by a gentleman who lived a good deal with him at Venice, will be found not a little interesting:—

"Almost immediately after Mr. Hobhouse's departure, Lord Byron proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido. One of the long narrow islands which separate the Lagune, in the midst of which Venice stands, from the Adriatic, is more particularly distinguished by this name. At one extremity is a fortification, which, with the Castle of St. Andrea on an island on the opposite side, defends the nearest entrance to the city from the sea. In times of peace this fortification is almost dismantled, and Lord Byron had hired here of the Commandant an unoccupied stable, where he kept his horses. The distance from the city was not very considerable; it was much less than to the Terra Firma, and, as far as it went, the spot was not ineligible for riding.

"Every day that the weather would permit, Lord Byron called for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us outside of the fort. We rode as far as we could along the sea-shore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which has been raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small fort about half way between the principal one which I have already mentioned, and the town or village of Malamocco, which is near the other extremity of the island,—the distance between the two forts being about three miles.

"On the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller fort, was a boundary stone which probably marked some division of property,—all the side of the island nearest the Lagune being divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables for the Venetian markets. At the foot of this stone Lord Byron repeatedly told me that I should cause him to be interred, if he should die in Venice, or its neighbourhood, during my residence there; and he appeared to think, as he was not a Catholic, that, on the part of the government, there could be no obstacle to his interment in an unhallowed spot of ground by the sea-side. At all events, I was to overcome whatever difficulties might be raised on this account. I was, by no means, he repeatedly told me, to allow his body to be removed to England, nor permit any of his family to interfere with his funeral.

"Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to me. We were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. Often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more interesting to me, because I could frequently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some remark, the effect of which he had been evidently trying upon me. Occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all I had heard with regard to him, and desiring that I would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said."

* * * * *

LETTER 308. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Feb. 20. 1818.

"I have to thank Mr. Croker for the arrival, and you for the contents, of the parcel which came last week, much quicker than any before, owing to Mr. Croker's kind attention and the official exterior of the bags; and all safe, except much friction amongst the magnesia, of which only two bottles came entire; but it is all very well, and I am exceedingly obliged to you.

"The books I have read, or rather am reading. Pray, who may be the Sexagenarian, whose gossip is very amusing? Many of his sketches I recognise, particularly Gifford, Mackintosh, Drummond, Dutens, H. Walpole, Mrs. Inchbald, Opie, &c., with the Scotts, Loughborough, and most of the divines and lawyers, besides a few shorter hints of authors, and a few lines about a certain 'noble author,' characterised as malignant and sceptical, according to the good old story, 'as it was in the beginning, is now, but not always shall be:' do you know such a person, Master Murray? eh?—And pray, of the booksellers, which be you? the dry, the dirty, the honest, the opulent, the finical, the splendid, or the coxcomb bookseller? Stap my vitals, but the author grows scurrilous in his grand climacteric!

"I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties, but not frequently; and I never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for in the hall he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's, so that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in public,—commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private party of undergraduates, many of them fresh men and strangers, take up a poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Porson's that of Silenus. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went, which were only at William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) rooms. I saw him once go away in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the 'Cobbler of Messina,' insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit, pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this man's intoxication.

"I perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very savage. I cannot judge, as I never saw him sober, except in hall or combination-room; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to see him. Of his drunken deportment, I can be sure, because I saw it.

"With the Reviews I have been much entertained. It requires to be as far from England as I am to relish a periodical paper properly: it is like soda-water in an Italian summer. But what cruel work you make with Lady * * * *! You should recollect that she is a woman; though, to be sure, they are now and then very provoking; still, as authoresses, they can do no great harm; and I think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us Jacobin gentlemen for you to work upon.

"I heard from Moore lately, and was sorry to be made aware of his domestic loss. Thus it is—'medio de fonte leporum'—in the acme of his fame and his happiness comes a drawback as usual.

"Mr. Hoppner, whom I saw this morning, has been made the father of a very fine boy[15].—Mother and child doing very well indeed. By this time Hobhouse should be with you, and also certain packets, letters, &c. of mine, sent since his departure.—I am not at all well in health within this last eight days. My remembrances to Gifford and all friends.

"Yours, &c.

"B.

"P.S. In the course of a month or two, Hanson will have probably to send off a clerk with conveyances to sign (Newstead being sold in November last for ninety-four thousand five hundred pounds), in which case I supplicate supplies of articles as usual, for which, desire Mr. Kinnaird to settle from funds in their bank, and deduct from my account with him.

"P.S. To-morrow night I am going to see 'Otello,' an opera from our 'Othello,' and one of Rossini's best, it is said. It will be curious to see in Venice the Venetian story itself represented, besides to discover what they will make of Shakspeare in music."

[Footnote 15: On the birth of this child, who was christened John William Rizzo, Lord Byron wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remarkable than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan:—

"His father's sense, his mother's grace In him, I hope, will always fit so; With (still to keep him in good case) The health and appetite of Rizzo."

The original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were printed, in a small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the seminary of Padua.]

* * * * *

LETTER 309. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Venice, February 28. 1818.

"My dear Sir,

"Our friend, il Conte M., threw me into a cold sweat last night, by telling me of a menaced version of Manfred (in Venetian, I hope, to complete the thing) by some Italian, who had sent it to you for correction, which is the reason why I take the liberty of troubling you on the subject. If you have any means of communication with the man, would you permit me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain or think to obtain for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire[16], and promise not to undertake any other of that or any other of my things: I will send his money immediately on this condition.

"As I did not write to the Italians, nor for the Italians, nor of the Italians, (except in a poem not yet published, where I have said all the good I know or do not know of them, and none of the harm,) I confess I wish that they would let me alone, and not drag me into their arena as one of the gladiators, in a silly contest which I neither understand nor have ever interfered with, having kept clear of all their literary parties, both here and at Milan, and elsewhere.—I came into Italy to feel the climate and be quiet, if possible. Mossi's translation I would have prevented, if I had known it, or could have done so; and I trust that I shall yet be in time to stop this new gentleman, of whom I heard yesterday for the first time. He will only hurt himself, and do no good to his party, for in party the whole thing originates. Our modes of thinking and writing are so unutterably different, that I can conceive no greater absurdity than attempting to make any approach between the English and Italian poetry of the present day. I like the people very much, and their literature very much, but I am not the least ambitious of being the subject of their discussions literary and personal (which appear to be pretty much the same thing, as is the case in most countries); and if you can aid me in impeding this publication, you will add to much kindness already received from you by yours Ever and truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S. How is the son, and mamma? Well, I dare say."

[Footnote 16: Having ascertained that the utmost this translator could expect to make by his manuscript was two hundred francs, Lord Byron offered him that sum, if he would desist from publishing. The Italian, however, held out for more; nor could he be brought to terms, till it was intimated to him pretty plainly from Lord Byron that, should the publication be persisted in, he would horsewhip him the very first time they met. Being but little inclined to suffer martyrdom in the cause, the translator accepted the two hundred francs, and delivered up his manuscript, entering at the same time into a written engagement never to translate any other of the noble poet's works.

Of the qualifications of this person as a translator of English poetry, some idea may be formed from the difficulty he found himself under respecting the meaning of a line in the Incantation in Manfred,—"And the wisp on the morass,"—which he requested of Mr. Hoppner to expound to him, not having been able to find in the dictionaries to which he had access any other signification of the word "wisp" than "a bundle of straw."]

* * * * *

LETTER 310. TO MR. ROGERS.

"Venice, March 3. 1828.

"I have not, as you say, 'taken to wife the Adriatic.' I heard of Moore's loss from himself in a letter which was delayed upon the road three months. I was sincerely sorry for it, but in such cases what are words?

"The villa you speak of is one at Este, which Mr. Hoppner (Consul-general here) has transferred to me. I have taken it for two years as a place of Villeggiatura. The situation is very beautiful, indeed, among the Euganean hills, and the house very fair. The vines are luxuriant to a great degree, and all the fruits of the earth abundant. It is close to the old castle of the Estes, or Guelphs, and within a few miles of Arqua, which I have visited twice, and hope to visit often.

"Last summer (except an excursion to Rome) I passed upon the Brenta. In Venice I winter, transporting my horses to the Lido, bordering the Adriatic (where the fort is), so that I get a gallop of some miles daily along the strip of beach which reaches to Malamocco, when in health; but within these few weeks I have been unwell. At present I am getting better. The Carnival was short, but a good one. I don't go out much, except during the time of masques; but there are one or two conversazioni, where I go regularly, just to keep up the system; as I had letters to their givers; and they are particular on such points; and now and then, though very rarely, to the Governor's.

"It is a very good place for women. I like the dialect and their manner very much. There is a naivete about them which is very winning, and the romance of the place is a mighty adjunct; the bel sangue is not, however, now amongst the dame or higher orders; but all under i fazzioli, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads);—the vesta zendale, or old national female costume, is no more. The city, however, is decaying daily, and does not gain in population. However, I prefer it to any other in Italy; and here have I pitched my staff, and here do I purpose to reside for the remainder of my life, unless events, connected with business not to be transacted out of England, compel me to return for that purpose; otherwise I have few regrets, and no desires to visit it again for its own sake. I shall probably be obliged to do so, to sign papers for my affairs, and a proxy for the Whigs, and to see Mr. Waite, for I can't find a good dentist here, and every two or three years one ought to consult one. About seeing my children I must take my chance. One I shall have sent here; and I shall be very happy to see the legitimate one, when God pleases, which he perhaps will some day or other. As for my mathematical * * *, I am as well without her.

"Your account of your visit to Fonthill is very striking: could you beg of him for me a copy in MS. of the remaining Tales?[17] I think I deserve them, as a strenuous and public admirer of the first one. I will return it when read, and make no ill use of the copy, if granted. Murray would send me out any thing safely. If ever I return to England, I should like very much to see the author, with his permission. In the mean time, you could not oblige me more than by obtaining me the perusal I request, in French or English,—all's one for that, though I prefer Italian to either. I have a French copy of Vathek which I bought at Lausanne. I can read French with great pleasure and facility, though I neither speak nor write it. Now Italian I can speak with some fluency, and write sufficiently for my purposes, but I don't like their modern prose at all; it is very heavy, and so different from Machiavelli.

"They say Francis is Junius;—I think it looks like it. I remember meeting him at Earl Grey's at dinner. Has not he lately married a young woman; and was not he Madame Talleyrand's cavaliere servente in India years ago?

"I read my death in the papers, which was not true. I see they are marrying the remaining singleness of the royal family. They have brought out Fazio with great and deserved success at Covent Garden: that's a good sign. I tried, during the directory, to have it done at Drury Lane, but was overruled. If you think of coming into this country, you will let me know perhaps beforehand. I suppose Moore won't move. Rose is here. I saw him the other night at Madame Albrizzi's; he talks of returning in May. My love to the Hollands.

"Ever, &c.

"P.S. They have been crucifying Othello into an opera (Otello, by Rossini): the music good, but lugubrious; but as for the words, all the real scenes with Iago cut out, and the greatest nonsense instead; the handkerchief turned into a billet-doux, and the first singer would not black his face, for some exquisite reasons assigned in the preface. Singing, dresses, and music, very good."

[Footnote 17: A continuation of Vathek, by the author of that very striking and powerful production. The "Tales" of which this unpublished sequel consists are, I understand, those supposed to have been related by the Princes in the Hall of Eblis.]

* * * * *

LETTER 311. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, March 16. 1818.

"My dear Tom,

"Since my last, which I hope that you have received, I have had a letter from our friend Samuel. He talks of Italy this summer—won't you come with him? I don't know whether you would like our Italian way of life or not.

"They are an odd people. The other day I was telling a girl, 'You must not come to-morrow, because Margueritta is coming at such a time,'—(they are both about five feet ten inches high, with great black eyes and fine figures—fit to breed gladiators from—and I had some difficulty to prevent a battle upon a rencontre once before,)—'unless you promise to be friends, and'—the answer was an interruption, by a declaration of war against the other, which she said would be a 'Guerra di Candia.' Is it not odd, that the lower order of Venetians should still allude proverbially to that famous contest, so glorious and so fatal to the Republic?

"They have singular expressions, like all the Italians. For example, 'Viscere'—as we would say, 'My love,' or 'My heart,' as an expression of tenderness. Also, 'I would go for you into the midst of a hundred knives.'—'Mazza ben,' excessive attachment,—literally, 'I wish you well even to killing.' Then they say (instead of our way, 'Do you think I would do you so much harm?') 'Do you think I would assassinate you in such a manner?'—'Tempo perfido,' bad weather; 'Strade perfide,' bad roads,—with a thousand other allusions and metaphors, taken from the state of society and habits in the middle ages.

"I am not so sure about mazza, whether it don't mean massa, i.e. a great deal, a mass, instead of the interpretation I have given it. But of the other phrases I am sure.

"Three o' th' clock—I must 'to bed, to bed, to bed,' as mother S * * (that tragical friend of the mathematical * * *) says.

"Have you ever seen—I forget what or whom—no matter. They tell me Lady Melbourne is very unwell. I shall be so sorry. She was my greatest friend, of the feminine gender:—when I say 'friend,' I mean not mistress, for that's the antipode. Tell me all about you and every body—how Sam is—how you like your neighbours, the Marquis and Marchesa, &c. &c.

"Ever," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 312. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, March 25. 1818.

"I have your letter, with the account of 'Beppo,' for which I sent you four new stanzas a fortnight ago, in case you print, or reprint.

"Croker's is a good guess; but the style is not English, it is Italian;—Berni is the original of all. Whistlecraft was my immediate model! Rose's 'Animali' I never saw till a few days ago,—they are excellent. But (as I said above) Berni is the father of that kind of writing, which, I think, suits our language, too, very well;—we shall see by the experiment. If it does, I shall send you a volume in a year or two, for I know the Italian way of life well, and in time may know it yet better; and as for the verse and the passions, I have them still in tolerable vigour.

"If you think that it will do you and the work, or works, any good, you may put my name to it; but first consult the knowing ones. It will, at any rate, show them that I can write cheerfully, and repel the charge of monotony and mannerism.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 313. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 11. 1818.

"Will you send me by letter, packet, or parcel, half a dozen of the coloured prints from Holmes's miniature (the latter done shortly before I left your country, and the prints about a year ago); I shall be obliged to you, as some people here have asked me for the like. It is a picture of my upright self done for Scrope B. Davies, Esq.[18]

"Why have you not sent me an answer, and list of subscribers to the translation of the Armenian Eusebius? of which I sent you printed copies of the prospectus (in French) two moons ago. Have you had the letter?—I shall send you another:—you must not neglect my Armenians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh, tooth-brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal demands.

"Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times, Patron and publisher of rhymes, For thee the bard up Pindus climbs, My Murray.

"To thee, with hope and terror dumb, The unfledged MS. authors come; Thou printest all—and sellest some— My Murray.

"Upon thy table's baize so green The last new Quarterly is seen, But where is thy new Magazine, My Murray?

"Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine The works thou deemest most divine— The 'Art of Cookery,' and mine, My Murray.

"Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons to thy mill bring grist! And then thou hast the 'Navy List,' My Murray.

"And Heaven forbid I should conclude Without 'the Board of Longitude,' Although this narrow paper would, My Murray!"

[Footnote 18: There follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gaiety and humour, that it is with some reluctance I suppress them. They might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not have deliberately inflicted it;—from a pen like his, touches may be wounds, and without being actually intended as such.]

* * * * *

LETTER 314. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 12. 1818.

"This letter will be delivered by Signor Gioe. Bata. Missiaglia, proprietor of the Apollo library, and the principal publisher and bookseller now in Venice. He sets out for London with a view to business and correspondence with the English booksellers: and it is in the hope that it may be for your mutual advantage that I furnish him with this letter of introduction to you. If you can be of use to him, either by recommendation to others, or by any personal attention on your own part, you will oblige him and gratify me. You may also perhaps both be able to derive advantage, or establish some mode of literary communication, pleasing to the public, and beneficial to one another.

"At any rate, be civil to him for my sake, as well as for the honour and glory of publishers and authors now and to come for evermore.

"With him I also consign a great number of MS. letters written in English, French, and Italian, by various English established in Italy during the last century:—the names of the writers, Lord Hervey, Lady M.W. Montague, (hers are but few—some billets-doux in French to Algarotti, and one letter in English, Italian, and all sorts of jargon, to the same,) Gray, the poet (one letter), Mason (two or three), Garrick, Lord Chatham, David Hume, and many of lesser note,—all addressed to Count Algarotti. Out of these, I think, with discretion, an amusing miscellaneous volume of letters might be extracted, provided some good editor were disposed to undertake the selection, and preface, and a few notes, &c.

"The proprietor of these is a friend of mine, Dr. Aglietti,—a great name in Italy,—and if you are disposed to publish, it will be for his benefit, and it is to and for him that you will name a price, if you take upon you the work. I would edite it myself, but am too far off, and too lazy to undertake it; but I wish that it could be done. The letters of Lord Hervey, in Mr. Rose's[19] opinion and mine, are good; and the short French love letters certainly are Lady M.W. Montague's—the French not good, but the sentiments beautiful. Gray's letter good; and Mason's tolerable. The whole correspondence must be well weeded; but this being done, a small and pretty popular volume might be made of it.—There are many ministers' letters—Gray, the ambassador at Naples, Horace Mann, and others of the same kind of animal.

"I thought of a preface, defending Lord Hervey against Pope's attack, but Pope—quoad Pope, the poet—against all the world, in the unjustifiable attempts begun by Warton and carried on at this day by the new school of critics and scribblers, who think themselves poets because they do not write like Pope. I have no patience with such cursed humbug and bad taste; your whole generation are not worth a Canto of the Rape of the Lock, or the Essay on Man, or the Dunciad, or 'any thing that is his.'—But it is three in the matin, and I must go to bed. Yours alway," &c.

[Footnote 19: Among Lord Byron's papers, I find some verses addressed to him, about this time, by Mr. W. Rose, with the following note annexed to them:—"These verses were sent to me by W.S. Rose, from Abaro, in the spring of 1818. They are good and true; and Rose is a fine fellow, and one of the few English who understand Italy, without which Italian is nothing." The verses begin thus:

"Byron[20], while you make gay what circle fits ye, Bandy Venetian slang with the Benzon, Or play at company with the Albrizzi, The self-pleased pedant, and patrician crone, Grimanis, Mocenigos, Balbis, Rizzi, Compassionate our cruel case,—alone, Our pleasure an academy of frogs, Who nightly serenade us from the bogs," &c. &c. ]

[Footnote 20: "I have hunted out a precedent for this unceremonious address."]

* * * * *

LETTER 315. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 17. 1818.

"A few days ago, I wrote to you a letter, requesting you to desire Hanson to desire his messenger to come on from Geneva to Venice, because I won't go from Venice to Geneva; and if this is not done, the messenger may be damned, with him who mis-sent him. Pray reiterate my request.

"With the proofs returned, I sent two additional stanzas for Canto fourth: did they arrive?

"Your Monthly reviewer has made a mistake: Cavaliere, alone, is well enough; but 'Cavalier' servente' has always the e mute in conversation, and omitted in writing; so that it is not for the sake of metre; and pray let Griffiths know this, with my compliments. I humbly conjecture that I know as much of Italian society and language as any of his people; but, to make assurance doubly sure, I asked, at the Countess Benzona's last night, the question of more than one person in the office, and of these 'cavalieri serventi' (in the plural, recollect) I found that they all accorded in pronouncing for 'cavalier' servente' in the singular number. I wish Mr. * * * * (or whoever Griffiths' scribbler may be) would not talk of what he don't understand. Such fellows are not fit to be intrusted with Italian, even in a quotation.

"Did you receive two additional stanzas, to be inserted towards the close of Canto fourth? Respond, that (if not) they may be sent.

"Tell Mr. * * and Mr. Hanson that they may as well expect Geneva to come to me, as that I should go to Geneva. The messenger may go on or return, as he pleases; I won't stir: and I look upon it as a piece of singular absurdity in those who know me imagining that I should;—not to say malice, in attempting unnecessary torture. If, on the occasion, my interests should suffer, it is their neglect that is to blame; and they may all be d——d together.

"It is ten o'clock and time to dress.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 316. TO MR. MURRAY.

"April 23. 1818.

"The time is past in which I could feel for the dead,—or I should feel for the death of Lady Melbourne, the best, and kindest, and ablest female I ever knew, old or young. But 'I have supped full of horrors,' and events of this kind have only a kind of numbness worse than pain,—like a violent blow on the elbow or the head. There is one link less between England and myself.

"Now to business. I presented you with Beppo, as part of the contract for Canto fourth,—considering the price you are to pay for the same, and intending to eke you out in case of public caprice or my own poetical failure. If you choose to suppress it entirely, at Mr. * * * *'s suggestion, you may do as you please. But recollect it is not to be published in a garbled or mutilated state. I reserve to my friends and myself the right of correcting the press;—if the publication continue, it is to continue in its present form.

"As Mr. * * says that he did not write this letter, &c. I am ready to believe him; but for the firmness of my former persuasion, I refer to Mr. * * * *, who can inform you how sincerely I erred on this point. He has also the note—or, at least, had it, for I gave it to him with my verbal comments thereupon. As to 'Beppo,' I will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own.

"You may tell them this; and add, that nothing but force or necessity shall stir me one step towards places to which they would wring me.

"If your literary matters prosper let me know. If 'Beppo' pleases, you shall have more in a year or two in the same mood. And so 'Good morrow to you, good Master Lieutenant.' Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 317. TO MR. MOORE.

"Palazzo Mocenigo, Canal Grande,

"Venice, June 1. 1818.

"Your letter is almost the only news, as yet, of Canto fourth, and it has by no means settled its fate,—at least, does not tell me how the 'Poeshie' has been received by the public. But I suspect, no great things,—firstly, from Murray's 'horrid stillness;' secondly, from what you say about the stanzas running into each other[21], which I take not to be yours, but a notion you have been dinned with among the Blues. The fact is, that the terza rima of the Italians, which always runs on and in, may have led me into experiments, and carelessness into conceit—or conceit into carelessness—in either of which events failure will be probable, and my fair woman, 'superne,' end in a fish; so that Childe Harold will be like the mermaid, my family crest, with the fourth Canto for a tail thereunto. I won't quarrel with the public, however, for the 'Bulgars' are generally right; and if I miss now, I may hit another time:—and so, the 'gods give us joy.'

"You like Beppo, that's right. I have not had the Fudges yet, but live in hopes. I need not say that your successes are mine. By the way, Lydia White is here, and has just borrowed my copy of 'Lalla Rookh.'

"Hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar coxcombry you might expect from his situation. He is a good man, with some poetical elements in his chaos; but spoilt by the Christ-Church Hospital and a Sunday newspaper,—to say nothing of the Surrey gaol, which conceited him into a martyr. But he is a good man. When I saw 'Rimini' in MS., I told him that I deemed it good poetry at bottom, disfigured only by a strange style. His answer was, that his style was a system, or upon system, or some such cant; and, when a man talks of system, his case is hopeless: so I said no more to him, and very little to any one else.

"He believes his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into compound barbarisms to be old English; and we may say of it as Aimwell says of Captain Gibbet's regiment, when the Captain calls it an 'old corps,'—'the oldest in Europe, if I may judge by your uniform.' He sent out his 'Foliage' by Percy Shelley * * *, and, of all the ineffable Centaurs that were ever begotten by Self-love upon a Night-mare, I think this monstrous Sagittary the most prodigious. He (Leigh H.) is an honest charlatan, who has persuaded himself into a belief of his own impostures, and talks Punch in pure simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said of himself in the Morning Post) for Vates in both senses, or nonsenses, of the word. Did you look at the translations of his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and says so?—Did you read his skimble-skamble about * * being at the head of his own profession, in the eyes of those who followed it? I thought that poetry was an art, or an attribute, and not a profession;—but be it one, is that * * * * * * at the head of your profession in your eyes? I'll be curst if he is of mine, or ever shall be. He is the only one of us (but of us he is not) whose coronation I would oppose. Let them take Scott, Campbell, Crabbe, or you, or me, or any of the living, and throne him;—but not this new Jacob Behmen, this * * * * * * whose pride might have kept him true, even had his principles turned as perverted as his soi-disant poetry.

"But Leigh Hunt is a good man, and a good father—see his Odes to all the Masters Hunt;—a good husband—see his Sonnet to Mrs. Hunt;—a good friend—see his Epistles to different people;—and a great coxcomb and a very vulgar person in every thing about him. But that's not his fault, but of circumstances.[22]

"I do not know any good model for a life of Sheridan but that of Savage. Recollect, however, that the life of such a man may be made far more amusing than if he had been a Wilberforce;—and this without offending the living, or insulting the dead. The Whigs abuse him; however, he never left them, and such blunderers deserve neither credit nor compassion. As for his creditors,—remember, Sheridan never had a shilling, and was thrown, with great powers and passions, into the thick of the world, and placed upon the pinnacle of success, with no other external means to support him in his elevation. Did Fox * * * pay his debts?—or did Sheridan take a subscription? Was the * *'s drunkenness more excusable than his? Were his intrigues more notorious than those of all his contemporaries? and is his memory to be blasted, and theirs respected? Don't let yourself be led away by clamour, but compare him with the coalitioner Fox, and the pensioner Burke, as a man of principle, and with ten hundred thousand in personal views, and with none in talent, for he beat them all out and out. Without means, without connection, without character, (which might be false at first, and make him mad afterwards from desperation,) he beat them all, in all he ever attempted. But alas, poor human nature! Good night—or rather, morning. It is four, and the dawn gleams over the Grand Canal, and unshadows the Rialto. I must to bed; up all night—but, as George Philpot says, 'it's life, though, damme, it's life!' Ever yours, B.

"Excuse errors—no time for revision. The post goes out at noon, and I sha'n't be up then. I will write again soon about your plan for a publication."

[Footnote 21: I had said, I think, in my letter to him, that this practice of carrying one stanza into another was "something like taking on horses another stage without baiting."]

[Footnote 22: I had, in first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic, and, perhaps, over-severe character of Mr. Hunt; but the tone of that gentleman's book having, as far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression, I have considered myself at liberty to restore the passage.]

* * * * *

During the greater part of the period which this last series of letters comprises, he had continued to occupy the same lodgings in an extremely narrow street called the Spezieria, at the house of the linen-draper, to whose lady he devoted so much of his thoughts. That he was, for the time, attached to this person,—as far as a passion so transient can deserve the name of attachment,—is evident from his whole conduct. The language of his letters shows sufficiently how much the novelty of this foreign tie had caught his fancy; and to the Venetians, among whom such arrangements are mere matters of course, the assiduity with which he attended his Signora to the theatre, and the ridottos, was a subject of much amusement. It was with difficulty, indeed, that he could be prevailed upon to absent himself from her so long as to admit of that hasty visit to the Immortal City, out of which one of his own noblest titles to immortality sprung; and having, in the space of a few weeks, drunk in more inspiration from all he saw than, in a less excited state, possibly, he might have imbibed in years, he again hurried back, without extending his journey to Naples,—having written to the fair Marianna to meet him at some distance from Venice.

Besides some seasonable acts of liberality to the husband, who had, it seems, failed in trade, he also presented to the lady herself a handsome set of diamonds; and there is an anecdote related in reference to this gift, which shows the exceeding easiness and forbearance of his disposition towards those who had acquired any hold on his heart. A casket, which was for sale, being one day offered to him, he was not a little surprised on discovering them to be the same jewels which he had, not long before, presented to his fair favourite, and which had, by some unromantic means, found their way back into the market. Without enquiring, however, any further into the circumstances, he generously repurchased the casket and presented it to the lady once more, good-humouredly taxing her with the very little estimation in which, as it appeared, she held his presents.

To whatever extent this unsentimental incident may have had a share in dispelling the romance of his passion, it is certain that, before the expiration of the first twelvemonth, he began to find his lodgings in the Spezieria inconvenient, and accordingly entered into treaty with Count Gritti for his Palace on the Grand Canal,—engaging to give for it, what is considered, I believe, a large rent in Venice, 200 louis a year. On finding, however, that, in the counterpart of the lease brought for his signature, a new clause had been introduced, prohibiting him not only from underletting the house, in case he should leave Venice, but from even allowing any of his own friends to occupy it during his occasional absence, he declined closing on such terms; and resenting so material a departure from the original engagement, declared in society, that he would have no objection to give the same rent, though acknowledged to be exorbitant, for any other palace in Venice, however inferior, in all respects, to Count Gritti's. After such an announcement, he was not likely to remain long unhoused; and the Countess Mocenigo having offered him one of her three Palazzi, on the Grand Canal, he removed to this house in the summer of the present year, and continued to occupy it during the remainder of his stay in Venice.

Highly censurable, in point of morality and decorum, as was his course of life while under the roof of Madame * *, it was (with pain I am forced to confess) venial in comparison with the strange, headlong career of licence to which, when weaned from that connection, he so unrestrainedly and, it may be added, defyingly abandoned himself. Of the state of his mind on leaving England I have already endeavoured to convey some idea, and, among the feelings that went to make up that self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his fate, was an indignant scorn of his own countrymen for the wrongs he thought they had done him. For a time, the kindly sentiments which he still harboured towards Lady Byron, and a sort of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well as sufficiently under the influence of English opinion to prevent his breaking out into such open rebellion against it, as he unluckily did afterwards.

By the failure of the attempted mediation with Lady Byron, his last link with home was severed; while, notwithstanding the quiet and unobtrusive life which he had led at Geneva, there was as yet, he found, no cessation of the slanderous warfare against his character;—the same busy and misrepresenting spirit which had tracked his every step at home having, with no less malicious watchfulness, dogged him into exile. To this persuasion, for which he had but too much grounds, was added all that an imagination like his could lend to truth,—all that he was left to interpret, in his own way, of the absent and the silent,—till, at length, arming himself against fancied enemies and wrongs, and, with the condition (as it seemed to him) of an outlaw, assuming also the desperation, he resolved, as his countrymen would not do justice to the better parts of his nature, to have, at least, the perverse satisfaction of braving and shocking them with the worst. It is to this feeling, I am convinced, far more than to any depraved taste for such a course of life, that the extravagances to which he now, for a short time, gave loose, are to be attributed. The exciting effect, indeed, of this mode of existence while it lasted, both upon his spirits and his genius,—so like what, as he himself tells us, was always produced in him by a state of contest and defiance,—showed how much of this latter feeling must have been mixed with his excesses. The altered character too, of his letters in this respect cannot fail, I think, to be remarked by the reader,—there being, with an evident increase of intellectual vigour, a tone of violence and bravado breaking out in them continually, which marks the high pitch of re-action to which he had now wound up his temper.

In fact, so far from the powers of his intellect being at all weakened or dissipated by these irregularities, he was, perhaps, at no time of his life, so actively in the full possession of all its energies; and his friend Shelley, who went to Venice, at this period, to see him[23], used to say, that all he observed of the workings of Byron's mind, during his visit, gave him a far higher idea of its powers than he had ever before entertained. It was, indeed, then that Shelley sketched out, and chiefly wrote, his poem of "Julian and Maddalo," in the latter of which personages he has so picturesquely shadowed forth his noble friend[24]; and the allusions to "the Swan of Albion," in his "Lines written among the Euganean Hills," were also, I understand, the result of the same access of admiration and enthusiasm.

In speaking of the Venetian women, in one of the preceding letters, Lord Byron, it will be recollected, remarks, that the beauty for which they were once so celebrated is no longer now to be found among the "Dame," or higher orders, but all under the "fazzioli," or kerchiefs, of the lower. It was, unluckily, among these latter specimens of the "bel sangue" of Venice that he now, by a suddenness of descent in the scale of refinement, for which nothing but the present wayward state of his mind can account, chose to select the companions of his disengaged hours;—and an additional proof that, in this short, daring career of libertinism, he was but desperately seeking relief for a wronged and mortified spirit, and

"What to us seem'd guilt might be but woe,"—

is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home. It is, indeed, certain, that to this least defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach; and among the causes of the detestation which he afterwards felt for Venice, this recollection of the excesses to which he had there abandoned himself was not the least prominent.

The most distinguished and, at last, the reigning favourite of all this unworthy Harem was a woman named Margarita Cogni, who has been already mentioned in one of these letters, and who, from the trade of her husband, was known by the title of the Fornarina. A portrait of this handsome virago, drawn by Harlowe when at Venice, having fallen into the hands of one of Lord Byron's friends after the death of that artist, the noble poet, on being applied to for some particulars of his heroine, wrote a long letter on the subject, from which the following are extracts:—

"Since you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you shall be told it, though it may be lengthy.

"Her face is the fine Venetian cast of the old time; her figure, though perhaps too tall, is not less fine—and taken altogether in the national dress.

"In the summer of 1817, * * * * and myself were sauntering on horseback along the Brenta one evening, when, amongst a group of peasants, we remarked two girls as the prettiest we had seen for some time. About this period, there had been great distress in the country, and I had a little relieved some of the people. Generosity makes a great figure at very little cost in Venetian livres, and mine had probably been exaggerated as an Englishman's. Whether they remarked us looking at them or no, I know not; but one of them called out to me in Venetian, 'Why do not you, who relieve others, think of us also?' I turned round and answered her—'Cara, tu sei troppo bella e giovane per aver' bisogna del' soccorso mio.' She answered, 'If you saw my hut and my food, you would not say so.' All this passed half jestingly, and I saw no more of her for some days.

"A few evenings after, we met with these two girls again, and they addressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their statement. They were cousins; Margarita married, the other single. As I doubted still of the circumstances, I took the business in a different light, and made an appointment with them for the next evening. In short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and for a long space of time she was the only one who preserved over me an ascendency which was often disputed, and never impaired.

"The reasons of this were, firstly, her person;—very dark, tall, the Venetian face, very fine black eyes. She was two-and-twenty years old, * * * She was, besides, a thorough Venetian in her dialect, in her thoughts, in her countenance, in every thing, with all their naivete and pantaloon humour. Besides, she could neither read nor write, and could not plague me with letters,—except twice that she paid sixpence to a public scribe, under the piazza, to make a letter for her, upon some occasion when I was ill and could not see her. In other respects, she was somewhat fierce and 'prepotente,' that is, over-bearing, and used to walk in whenever it suited her, with no very great regard to time, place, nor persons; and if she found any women in her way, she knocked them down.

"When I first knew her, I was in 'relazione' (liaison) with la Signora * *, who was silly enough one evening at Dolo, accompanied by some of her female friends, to threaten her; for the gossips of the villeggiatura had already found out, by the neighing of my horse one evening, that I used to 'ride late in the night' to meet the Fornarina. Margarita threw back her veil (fazziolo), and replied in very explicit Venetian, 'You are not his wife: I am not his wife: you are his Donna, and I am his Donna: your husband is a becco, and mine is another. For the rest, what right have you to reproach me? If he prefers me to you, is it my fault? If you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string.—But do not think to speak to me without a reply, because you happen to be richer than I am.' Having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which I translate as it was related to me by a bystander), she went on her way, leaving a numerous audience with Madame * *, to ponder at her leisure on the dialogue between them.

"When I came to Venice for the winter, she followed; and as she found herself out to be a favourite, she came to me pretty often. But she had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women. At the 'Cavalchina,' the masked ball on the last night of the carnival, where all the world goes, she snatched off the mask of Madame Contarini, a lady noble by birth, and decent in conduct, for no other reason, but because she happened to be leaning on my arm. You may suppose what a cursed noise this made; but this is only one of her pranks.

"At last she quarrelled with her husband, and one evening ran away to my house. I told her this would not do: she said she would lie in the street, but not go back to him; that he beat her, (the gentle tigress!) spent her money, and scandalously neglected her. As it was midnight I let her stay, and next day there was no moving her at all. Her husband came, roaring and crying, and entreating her to come back:—not she! He then applied to the police, and they applied to me: I told them and her husband to take her; I did not want her; she had come, and I could not fling her out of the window; but they might conduct her through that or the door if they chose it. She went before the commissary, but was obliged to return with that 'becco ettico,' as she called the poor man, who had a phthisic. In a few days she ran away again. After a precious piece of work, she fixed herself in my house, really and truly without my consent; but, owing to my indolence, and not being able to keep my countenance, for if I began in a rage, she always finished by making me laugh with some Venetian pantaloonery or another; and the gipsy knew this well enough, as well as her other powers of persuasion, and exerted them with the usual tact and success of all she-things; high and low, they are all alike for that.

"Madame Benzoni also took her under her protection, and then her head turned. She was always in extremes, either crying or laughing, and so fierce when angered, that she was the terror of men, women, and children—for she had the strength of an Amazon, with the temper of Medea. She was a fine animal, but quite untameable. I was the only person that could at all keep her in any order, and when she saw me really angry (which they tell me is a savage sight), she subsided. But she had a thousand fooleries. In her fazziolo, the dress of the lower orders, she looked beautiful; but, alas! she longed for a hat and feathers; and all I could say or do (and I said much) could not prevent this travestie. I put the first into the fire; but I got tired of burning them, before she did of buying them, so that she made herself a figure—for they did not at all become her.

"Then she would have her gowns with a tail—like a lady, forsooth; nothing would serve her but 'l'abita colla coua,' or cua, (that is the Venetian for 'la cola,' the tail or train,) and as her cursed pronunciation of the word made me laugh, there was an end of all controversy, and she dragged this diabolical tail after her every where.

"In the mean time, she beat the women and stopped my letters. I found her one day pondering over one. She used to try to find out by their shape whether they were feminine or no; and she used to lament her ignorance, and actually studied her alphabet, on purpose (as she declared) to open all letters addressed to me and read their contents.

"I must not omit to do justice to her housekeeping qualities. After she came into my house as 'donna di governo,' the expenses were reduced to less than half, and every body did their duty better—the apartments were kept in order, and every thing and every body else, except herself.

"That she had a sufficient regard for me in her wild way, I had many reasons to believe. I will mention one. In the autumn, one day, going to the Lido with my gondoliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the gondola put in peril—hats blown away, boat filling, oar lost, tumbling sea, thunder, rain in torrents, night coming, and wind unceasing. On our return, after a tight struggle, I found her on the open steps of the Mocenigo palace, on the Grand Canal, with her great black eyes flashing through her tears, and the long dark hair, which was streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows and breast. She was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind blowing her hair and dress about her thin tall figure, and the lightning flashing round her, and the waves rolling at her feet, made her look like Medea alighted from her chariot, or the Sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around her, the only living thing within hail at that moment except ourselves. On seeing me safe, she did not wait to greet me, as might have been expected, but calling out to me—'Ah! can' della Madonna, xe esto il tempo per andar' al' Lido?' (Ah! dog of the Virgin, is this a time to go to Lido?) ran into the house, and solaced herself with scolding the boatmen for not foreseeing the 'temporale.' I am told by the servants that she had only been prevented from coming in a boat to look after me, by the refusal of all the gondoliers of the canal to put out into the harbour in such a moment; and that then she sat down on the steps in all the thickest of the squall, and would neither be removed nor comforted. Her joy at seeing me again was moderately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress over her recovered cubs.

"But her reign drew near a close. She became quite ungovernable some months after, and a concurrence of complaints, some true, and many false—'a favourite has no friends'—determined me to part with her. I told her quietly that she must return home, (she had acquired a sufficient provision for herself and mother, &c. in my service,) and she refused to quit the house. I was firm, and she went threatening knives and revenge. I told her that I had seen knives drawn before her time, and that if she chose to begin, there was a knife, and fork also, at her service on the table, and that intimidation would not do. The next day, while I was at dinner, she walked in, (having broken open a glass door that led from the hall below to the staircase, by way of prologue,) and advancing straight up to the table, snatched the knife from my hand, cutting me slightly in the thumb in the operation. Whether she meant to use this against herself or me, I know not—probably against neither—but Fletcher seized her by the arms, and disarmed her. I then called my boatmen, and desired them to get the gondola ready, and conduct her to her own house again, seeing carefully that she did herself no mischief by the way. She seemed quite quiet, and walked down stairs. I resumed my dinner.

"We heard a great noise, and went out, and met them on the staircase, carrying her up stairs. She had thrown herself into the canal. That she intended to destroy herself, I do not believe; but when we consider the fear women and men who can't swim have of deep or even of shallow water, (and the Venetians in particular, though they live on the waves,) and that it was also night, and dark, and very cold, it shows that she had a devilish spirit of some sort within her. They had got her out without much difficulty or damage, excepting the salt water she had swallowed, and the wetting she had undergone.

"I foresaw her intention to refix herself, and sent for a surgeon, enquiring how many hours it would require to restore her from her agitation; and he named the time. I then said, 'I give you that time, and more if you require it; but at the expiration of this prescribed period, if she does not leave the house, I will.'

"All my people were consternated. They had always been frightened at her, and were now paralysed: they wanted me to apply to the police, to guard myself, &c. &c. like a pack of snivelling servile boobies as they were. I did nothing of the kind, thinking that I might as well end that way as another; besides, I had been used to savage women, and knew their ways.

"I had her sent home quietly after her recovery, and never saw her since, except twice at the opera, at a distance amongst the audience. She made many attempts to return, but no more violent ones. And this is the story of Margarita Cogni, as far as it relates to me.

"I forgot to mention that she was very devout, and would cross herself if she heard the prayer time strike.

"She was quick in reply; as, for instance—One day when she had made me very angry with beating somebody or other, I called her a cow (cow, in Italian, is a sad affront). I called her 'Vacca.' She turned round, courtesied, and answered, 'Vacca tua, 'celenza' (i.e. eccelenza). 'Your cow, please your Excellency.' In short, she was, as I said before, a very fine animal, of considerable beauty and energy, with many good and several amusing qualities, but wild as a witch and fierce as a demon. She used to boast publicly of her ascendency over me, contrasting it with that of other women, and assigning for it sundry reasons. True it was, that they all tried to get her away, and no one succeeded till her own absurdity helped them.

"I omitted to tell you her answer, when I reproached her for snatching Madame Contarini's mask at the Cavalchina. I represented to her that she was a lady of high birth, 'una Dama,' &c. She answered, 'Se ella e dama mi (io) son Veneziana;'—'If she is a lady, I am a Venetian.' This would have been fine a hundred years ago, the pride of the nation rising up against the pride of aristocracy: but, alas! Venice, and her people, and her nobles, are alike returning fast to the ocean; and where there is no independence, there can be no real self-respect. I believe that I mistook or mis-stated one of her phrases in my letter; it should have been—'Can' della Madonna cosa vus' tu? esto non e tempo per andar' a Lido?'"

[Footnote 23: The following are extracts from a letter of Shelley's to a friend at this time.

"Venice, August, 1818.

"We came from Padua hither in a gondola; and the gondolier, among other things, without any hint on our part, began talking of Lord Byron. He said he was a 'Giovanotto Inglese,' with a 'nome stravagante,' who lived very luxuriously, and spent great sums of money.

"At three o'clock I called on Lord Byron. He was delighted to see me, and our first conversation of course consisted in the object of our visit. He took me in his gondola, across the Laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands, talking. Our conversation consisted in histories of his own wounded feelings, and questions as to my affairs, with great professions of friendship and regard for me. He said that if he had been in England, at the time of the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented such a decision. He talked of literary matters,—his fourth Canto, which he says is very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas, of great energy, to me. When we returned to his palace, which is one if the most magnificent in Venice," &c. &c. ]

[Footnote 24: In the preface also to this poem, under the fictitious name of Count Maddalo, the following just and striking portrait of Lord Byron is drawn:—

"He is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his weakness to be proud: he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other men, and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. His ambition preys upon itself for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the concentred and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication. He has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different countries."]

* * * * *

It was at this time, as we shall see by the letters I am about to produce, and as the features, indeed, of the progeny itself would but too plainly indicate, that he conceived, and wrote some part of, his poem of 'Don Juan;'—and never did pages more faithfully and, in many respects, lamentably, reflect every variety of feeling, and whim, and passion that, like the wrack of autumn, swept across the author's mind in writing them. Nothing less, indeed, than that singular combination of attributes, which existed and were in full activity in his mind at this moment, could have suggested, or been capable of, the execution of such a work. The cool shrewdness of age, with the vivacity and glowing temperament of youth,—the wit of a Voltaire, with the sensibility of a Rousseau,—the minute, practical knowledge of the man of society, with the abstract and self-contemplative spirit of the poet,—a susceptibility of all that is grandest and most affecting in human virtue, with a deep, withering experience of all that is most fatal to it,—the two extremes, in short, of man's mixed and inconsistent nature, now rankly smelling of earth, now breathing of heaven,—such was the strange assemblage of contrary elements, all meeting together in the same mind, and all brought to bear, in turn, upon the same task, from which alone could have sprung this extraordinary poem,—the most powerful and, in many respects, painful display of the versatility of genius that has ever been left for succeeding ages to wonder at and deplore.