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says that worthy man. I have never seen it in print. The third canto is in advance about one hundred stanzas ; but the failure of the two first has weakened my estro, and it will neither be so good as the two former, nor completed, unless I get a little more riscaldato in its behalf. I understand the outcry was beyond every thing. - Pretty cant for people who read Tom Jones, and Roderick Random, and the Bath Guide, and Ariosto, and Dryden, and Pope to say nothing of Little's Poems! Of course I refer to the morality of these works, and not to any pretension of mine to compete with them in any thing but decency. I hope yours is the Paris edition, and that you did not pay the London price. I have seen neither except in the newspapers.

"Pray make my respects to Mrs. H., and take care of your little boy. All my household have the fever and ague, except Fletcher, Allegra, and mysen (as we used to say in Nottinghamshire), and the horses, and Mutz, and Moretto. In the beginning of November, perhaps sooner, I expect to have the pleasure of seeing you. To-day I got drenched by a thunder-storm, and my horse and groom too, and his horse all bemired up to the middle in a cross-road. It was summer at noon, and at five we were bewintered; but the lightning was sent perhaps to let us know that the summer was not yet over. It is queer weather for the 27th October. Yours, &c."

LETTER 344.

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TO MR. MURRAY.

44 Venice, October 29. 1819.

to the present supposing Dante to speak in his own person, previous to his death, and embracing all topics in the way of prophecy, like Lycophron's Cassandra; but this and the other are both at a stand-still for the present.

"I gave Moore, who is gone to Rome, my Life in MS., in seventy-eight folio sheets, brought down to 1816. But this I put into his hands for his care, as he has some other MSS. of mine - -a Journal kept in 1814, &c. Neither are for publication during my life; but when I am cold you may do what you please. In the meantime, if you like to read them you may, and show them to any body you like I care not.

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The Life is Memoranda, and not Confessions. I have left out all my loves (except in a general way), and many other of the most important things (because I must not compromise other people), so that it is like the play of Hamlet-the part of Hamlet omitted by particular desire. But you will find many opinions, and some fun, with a detailed account of my marriage, and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such account, for İ suppose we are all prejudiced.

"I have never read over this Life since it was written, so that I know not exactly what it may repeat or contain. Moore and I passed some merry days together.

"I probably must return for business, or in my way to America. Pray, did you get a letter for Hobhouse, who will have told you the contents? I understand that the Venezuelan commissioners had orders to treat with emigrants; now I want to go there. I should not make a bad South American

Yours of the 15th came yesterday. I planter, and I should take my natural daugham sorry that you do not mention a large ter, Allegra, with me, and settle. I wrote, letter addressed to your care for Lady Byron, at length, to Hobhouse, to get information from me, at Bologna, two months ago. Pray from Perry, who, I suppose, is the best totell me, was this letter received and for-pographer and trumpeter of the new republicans. Pray write.

warded?

"You say nothing of the vice-consulate for the Ravenna patrician, from which it is to be inferred that the thing will not be done.

"I had written about a hundred stanzas of a third canto to Don Juan, but the reception of the two first is no encouragement to you nor me to proceed.

"I had also written about 600 lines of a

poem, the Vision (or Prophecy) of Dante, the subject a view of Italy in the ages down

[In a letter of the same date Lord Byron says: "So far from seducing me to England,' as you suppose, the account Moore gave of me and mine was of any thing but a nature to make me wish to return. It is not such

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"Yours ever,

"B.

- Moore and I did nothing but laugh. He will tell you of my whereabouts,' and all my proceedings at this present; they fellows publish false Don Juans;' but do are as usual. You should not let those not put my name, because I mean to cut Roberts up like a gourd, in the preface, if I continue the poem."

opinions of the public that would weigh with me one way or the other; but I think they should weigh with others of my friends before they ask me to return to a place for which I have no great inclination."]

LETTER 345. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"October 29. 1819.

and a very good creature, too,- - an excellent creature. Pray-um! how do you pass your evenings? It is a devil of a question that, and perhaps as easy to answer with a wife as with a mistress.

"If you go to Milan, pray leave at least a Vice-Consul- the only vice that will ever be wanting in Venice. D'Orville is a good fellow. But you shall go to England in the spring with me, and plant Mrs. Hoppner at | Berne with her relations for a few months. wish you had been here (at Venice, I mean, not the Mira) when Moore was here we were very merry and tipsy. He hated Venice, by the way, and swore it was a sad place.

"The Ferrara story is of a piece with all the rest of the Venetian manufacture, you may judge. I only changed horses there since I wrote to you, after my visit in June last. " Convent,' and ' carry off' quotha! and 'girl.' I should like to know who has been carried off, except poor dear me. I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war; but as to the I arrest and its causes, one is as true as the other, and I can account for the invention of neither. I suppose it is some confusion of the tale of the Fornarina and of Me. Guiccioli, and half a dozen more; but it is useless to unravel the web, when one has only to brush it away. I shall settle with Master E., who looks very blue at your in-decision, and swears that he is the best arithmetician in Europe; and so I think also, for he makes out two and two to be five.

"You may see me next week. I have a horse or two more (five in all), and I shall repossess myself of Lido, and I will rise earlier, and we will go and shake our livers over the beach, as heretofore, if you like and we will make the Adriatic roar again with our hatred of that now empty oystershell, without its pearl, the city of Venice.

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Murray sent me a letter yesterday: the impostors have published two new third cantos of Don Juan:-the devil take the impudence of some blackguard bookseller or other there for! Perhaps I did not make myself understood; he told me the sale had been great, 1200 out of 1500 quarto, I believe (which is nothing after selling 13,000 of the Corsair in one day); but that the 'best judges,' &c. had said it was very fine, and clever, and particularly good English, and poetry, and all those consolatory things, which are not, however, worth a single copy to a bookseller: and as to the author, of course I am in a d-ned passion at the bad taste of the times, and swear there is nothing like posterity, who, of course, must know more of the matter than their grandfathers. There has been an eleventh commandment to the women not to read it, and, what is still more extraordinary, they seem not to have broken it. But that can be of little import to them, poor things, for the reading or non-reading a book will never *

"Count G. comes to Venice next week, and I am requested to consign his wife to him, which shall be done. What you say of the long evenings at the Mira, or Venice, reminds me of what Curran said to Moore:'So I hear you have married a pretty woman,

"So Madame Albrizzi's death is in danger poor woman! Moore told me that at Geneva they had made a devil of a story of the Fornaretta: -" -Young lady seduced! - subsequent abandonment !— leap into the Grand Canal!'- and her being in the 'hospital of fous in consequence!' I should like to know who was nearest being made 'fou,' and be d-d to them! Don't you think me in the interesting character of a very ill-used gentleman? I hope your little boy is well. Allegrina is flourishing like a promegranate blossom. "Yours, &c."

LETTER 346. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, November 8. 1819.

"Mr. Hoppner has lent me a copy of 'Don Juan,' Paris edition, which he tells me is read in Switzerland by clergymen and ladies with considerable approbation. In the second canto, you must alter the 49th

stanza to

"'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters, like a veil
Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown
Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail :
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown,
And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale
And the dim desolate deep; twelve days had Fear
Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

tertian fever, caught in the country on horse-
"I have been ill these eight days with a
back in a thunder-storm. Yesterday I had
the fourth attack: the two last were very
smart, the first day as well as the last being
preceded by vomiting. It is the fever of the
place and the season. I feel weakened, but
not unwell, in the intervals, except headach
and lassitude.

1 I beg to say that this report of my opinion of Venice is coloured somewhat too deeply by the feelings of the reporter.

2 [See antè, p. 413.]

"Count Guiccioli has arrived in Venice, and has presented his spouse (who had preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of Dr. Aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours and conduct, and morals, &c. &c. which he insists on her accepting, and she persists in refusing. I am expressly, it should seem, excluded by this treaty, as an indispensable preliminary; so that they are in high discussion, and what the result may be I know not, particularly as they are consulting friends.

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To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over 'Don Juan,' she stumbled by mere chance on the 137th stanza of the first canto, and asked me what it meant. I told her, Nothing-but "your husband is coming."'1 As I said this in Italian, with some emphasis, she started up in a fright, and said, Oh my God, is he coming?' thinking it was her own, who either was or ought to have been at the theatre. You may suppose we laughed when she found out the mistake. You will be amused, as I was ;-it happened not three hours ago.

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"I wrote to you last week, but have added nothing to the third canto since my fever, nor to The Prophecy of Dante.' Of the former there are about 110 octaves done; of the latter about 500 lines perhaps more. Moore saw the third Juan, as far as it then went. I do not know if my fever will let me go on with either, and the tertian lasts, they say, a good while. I had it in Malta on my way home, and the malaria fever in Greece the year before that. The Venetian is not very fierce, but I was delirious one of the nights with it, for an hour or two, and, on my senses coming back, found Fletcher sobbing on one side of the bed, and La Contessa Guiccioli weeping on the other; so that I had no want of attendance. I have not yet taken any phy

["For God's sake, madam — madam - here's my master."]

2 The following curious particulars of his delirium are given by Madame Guiccioli :-"At the beginning of winter Count Guiccioli came from Ravenna to fetch me. When he arrived, Lord Byron was ill of a fever, occasioned by his having got wet through; - a violent storm having surprised him while taking his usual exercise on horseback. He had been delirious the whole night, and I had watched continually by his bedside. During his delirium he composed a good many verses, and ordered his servant to write them down from his dictation. The rhythm of these verses was quite correct, and the poetry itself had no appearance of being the work of a delirious mind. He preserved them for some time after he got well, and then burned them."-" Sul cominciare dell' inverno il Conte Guiccioli venne a prendermi per ricondurmi a Ravenna. Quando egli giunse Ld. Byron era ammalato di febbri prese per essersi bagnato avendolo

sician, because, though I think they may relieve in chronic disorders, such as gout and the like, &c. &c. &c. (though they can't cure them)-just as surgeons are necessary to set bones and tend wounds - yet I think fevers quite out of their reach, and remediable only by diet and nature.

"I don't like the taste of bark, but I suppose that I must take it soon.

"Tell Rose that somebody at Milan (an Austrian, Mr. Hoppner says) is answering his book. William Bankes is in quarantine at Trieste. I have not lately heard from you. Excuse this paper: it is long paper shortened for the occasion. What folly is this of Carlile's trial? why let him have the honours of a martyr? it will only advertise the books in question.

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Yours, &c.

"B.

"P. S. As I tell you that the Guiccioli business is on the eve of exploding in one way or the other, I will just add that, without attempting to influence the decision of the Contessa, a good deal depends upon it. If she and her husband make it up, you will, perhaps, see me in England sooner than you expect. If not, I shall retire with her to France or America, change my name, and lead a quiet provincial life. All this may seem odd, but I have got the poor girl into a scrape; and as neither her birth, nor her rank, nor her connections by birth or marriage are inferior to my own, I am in honour bound to support her through. Besides, she is a very pretty woman ask Moore - and not yet one and twenty.

"If she gets over this and I get over my tertian, I will, perhaps, look in at Albemarle Street, some of these days, en pas

sant to Bolivar."

sorpreso un forte temporale mentre faceva l' usato suo esercizio a cavallo. Egli aveva delirato tutta la notte, ed io aveva sempre vegliato presso al suo letto. Nel suo delirio egli compose molti versi che ordinò al suo domestico di scrivere sotto la sua dittatura. La misura dei versi era esatissima, e la poesia pure non pareva opera di una mente in delirio. Egli la conservò lungo tempo dopo restabilito - poi l' abbrucciò."

I have been informed, too, that, during his ravings at this time, he was constantly haunted by the idea of his mother-in-law, taking every one that came near him for her, and reproaching those about him for letting her enter his room.

1 [For republishing "Paine's Age of Reason." This trial occupied three days; the greater part of the time being consumed in the defence. Carlile was sentenced to pay a fine of fifteen hundred pounds, and be imprisoned three years in Dorchester gaol.]

LETTET 347. TO MR. BANKES.

"Venice, November 20. 1819.

"A tertian ague, which has troubled me for some time, and the indisposition of my daughter, have prevented me from replying before to your welcome letter. I have not been ignorant of your progress nor of your discoveries, and I trust that you are no worse in health from your labours. You may rely upon finding every body in England eager to reap the fruits of them; and as you have done more than other men, I hope you will not limit yourself to saying less than may do justice to the talents and time you have bestowed on your perilous researches. The first sentence of my letter will have explained to you why I cannot join you at Trieste. I was on the point of setting out for England (before I knew of your arrival) when my child's illness has made her and me dependent on a Venetian Proto-Medico.

"It is now seven years since you and I met ;which time you have employed better for others and more honourably for yourself than I have done.

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"In England you will find considerable changes, public and private, you will see some of our old college contemporaries turned into lords of the Treasury, Admiralty, and the like, others become reformers and orators, many settled in life, as it is called, and others settled in death; among the latter, (by the way, not our fellow collegians,) Sheridan, Curran, Lady Melbourne, Monk Lewis, Frederick Douglas, &c. &c. &c.; but you will still find Mr. ** living and all his family, as also ***

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Should you come up this way, and I am still here, you need not be assured how glad I shall be to see you; I long to hear some part from you, of that which I expect in no long time to see. At length you

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Mr. Douglas and Mr. Hobhouse," says the reviewer, "the country is indebted for many valuable facts, and many intelligent observations illustrative of the present state of the inhabitants of Greece, and it may be hoped that the example of those gentlemen will not be long without followers. That it is only by a steady perseverance in pursuits of this kind, that the Greeks can arrive at their favourite object of political emancipation. Weak and untutored minds,' says Mr. Douglas, ‘are seldom able to support with steadiness the sudden glare of reason: the events of the French revolution may inform us that a gradual progression is necessary, that the seeds

have had better fortune than any traveller of equal enterprise (except Humbolt), in returning safe; and after the fate of the hardts, it is hardly less surprise than satisBrownes, and the Parkes, and the Burckfaction to get you back again.

*

"Believe me ever

"And very affectionately yours,
"BYRON."

LETTER 348. TO MR. MURRAY.

*

*

"Venice, December 4. 1819.

*

*

"You may do as you please, but you are about a hopeless experiment. Eldon will decide against you, were it only that my name is in the record. You will also recollect that if the publication is pronounced against, on the grounds you mention, as indecent and blasphemous, that I lose all right in my daughter's guardianship and education, in short, all paternal authority, and every thing concerning her, except It was SO decided in Shelley's case, because he had written Queen Mab, &c. &c. However, you can ask the lawyers, and do as you like: I do not inhibit you trying the question; I merely state one of the consequences to me. With regard to the copyright, it is hard that you should pay for a nonentity: I will therefore refund it, which I can very well do, not having spent it, nor begun upon it; and so we will be quits on that score. It lies at my banker's.

"Of the Chancellor's law I am no judge; but take up Tom Jones, and read his Mrs. Waters and Molly Seagrim; or Prior's Hans Carvel and Paulo Purganti: Smollett's Roderick Random, the chapter of Lord Strutwell, and many others; Peregrine Pickle, the scene of the beggar girl; Johnson's London, for coarse expressions; for instance, the words ***,' and '**;' Anstey's Bath Guide 2, the Hearken, Lady

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of rational liberty will never prosper in a soil not prepared by proper cultivation to receive them. The Greeks have commenced, however, with moderation and wisdom; and if the wild fancies of politicians and enthusiasts do not hurry them out of the course in which they are advancing with cautious but accelerated steps, another age may witness the glorious period when the torch of knowledge shall conduct them to the enjoyment of happiness and freedom.'"]

2 ["There is a new thing published, that will make you split your cheeks with laughing. It is called the New Bath Guide. It stole into the world, and for a fortnight no soul looked into it, concluding its name was its true name. No such thing. It is a set of letters in verse, describing the life at Bath, and incidentally every thing else; but so much wit, so much humour, fun and poetry, never met together before. I can say it by heart, and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not

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Betty, hearken ;'-take up, in short, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Dryden, Fielding, Smollett, and let the counsel select passages, and what becomes of their copyright, if his Wat Tyler decision is to pass into a precedent? I have nothing more to say you must judge for yourselves.

I wrote to you some time ago. I have had a tertian ague; my daughter Allegra has been ill also, and I have been almost obliged to run away with a married woman; but with some difficulty, and many internal struggles, I reconciled the lady with her lord, and cured the fever of the child with bark, and my own with cold water. I think of setting out for England by the Tyrol in a few days, so that I could wish you to direct your next letter to Calais. Excuse my writing in great haste and late in the morning, or night, whichever you please to call it. The third canto of Don Juan' is completed, in about two hundred stanzas; very decent, I believe, but do not know, and it is use

less to discuss until it be ascertained if it may or may not be a property.

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My present determination to quit Italy was unlooked for; but I have explained the reasons in letters to my sister and Douglas Kinnaird, a week or two ago. My progress will depend upon the snows of the Tyrol, and the health of my child, who is at present quite recovered; but I hope to get on well,

and am

"Yours ever and truly.

"P. S. Many thanks for your letters, to which you are not to consider this as an answer, but as an acknowledgment.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

1819-1820.

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PHECY OF DANTE, AND THE TRANSLA-
TIONS OF PULCI'S MORGANTE AND DANTE'S
FRANCESCA DI RIMINI.

THE struggle which, at the time of my visit to him, I had found Lord Byron so well disposed to make towards averting, as far as now lay in his power, some of the the object of his attachment and himself, mischievous consequences which, both to were likely to result from their connection, had been brought, as the foregoing letters show, to a crisis soon after I left him. The Count Guiccioli, on his arrival at Venice, insisted, as we have seen, that his lady should return with him; and, after some does not appear to have interfered, the conjugal negotiations, in which Lord Byron young Contessa consented reluctantly to accompany her lord to Ravenna, it being first cation between her and her lover should covenanted that, in future, all communi

cease.

Hoppner, in some notices of his noble friend "In a few days after this," says Mr.

with which he has favoured me, "he returned

to Venice, very much out of spirits, owing of humour with every body and every thing to Madame Guiccioli's departure, and out around him. We resumed our rides at the Lido; and I did my best not only to raise his spirits, but to make him forget his absent mistress, and to keep him to his purpose of returning to England. He went into no society; and having no longer any relish for his former occupation, his time, when he was not writing, hung heavy enough on hand."

The promise given by the lovers not to correspond was, as all parties must have foreseen, soon violated; and the letters Lord Byron addressed to the lady, at this time, though written in a language not his own, are rendered frequently even eloquent by the mere force of the feeling that governed him a feeling which could not have owed its fuel to fancy alone, since, now that reality had been so long substituted, it still burned on. From one of these letters, dated November 25th, I shall so far presume upon the discretionary power vested in me, as to lay a short extract or two before the reader not merely as matters of curiosity, but on account of the strong evidence they afford of the struggle between passion and a sense of right that now agitated him.

a certain Yorkshire baronet did before he carried it to his daughters; yet I remember you all read Crazy Tales without pasting."- Gray to Dr. Wharton, Aug. 26. 1766.]

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