tion. I have altered the passages according to your wish. With this note I send a few stanzas on a subject which has lately occupied much of my thoughts. They refer to the death of one to whose name you are a stranger, and, consequently, cannot be interested. I mean them to complete the present volume. They relate to the same person whom I have mentioned in canto 2nd, and at the conclusion of the poem.

I by no means intend to identify myself with Harold, but to deny all connection with him. If in parts I may be thought to have drawn from myself, believe me it is but in parts, and I shall not own even to that. As to the Monastic dome, etc., I thought those circumstances would suit him as well as any other, and I could describe what I had seen better than I could invent. I would not be such a fellow as I have made my hero for the world.—Yours ever,

B.

cxvii

TO MR. MOORE

8 St. James's Street, November I, 1811. Sir,-As I should be very sorry to interrupt your Sunday's engagement, if Monday, or any other day of the ensuing week, would be equally convenient to yourself and friend, I will then have the honour of accepting his invitation. Of the professions of esteem with which Mr. Rogers has honoured me, I cannot but feel proud, though undeserving. I should be wanting to myself, if insensible to the praise of such a man; and should my approaching interview with

him and his friend lead to any degree of intimacy with both or either, I shall regard our past correspondence as one of the happiest events of my life.-I have the honour to be, your very sincere and obedient servant, BYRON.

TO MR. HODGSON

8 St. James's Street, November 17, 1811.

Dear Hodgson,-I have been waiting for the letter, cxviii which was to be sent by you immediately, and must again jog your memory on the subject. I have heard from Hobhouse, who has at last sent more copy to Cawthorn for his Travels. I franked an enormous cover for you yesterday, seemingly to convey at least twelve cantos on any given subject. I fear the aspect of it was too epic for the post. From this and other coincidences I augur a publication on your part, but what or when, or how much, you must disclose immediately.

I don't know what to say about coming down to Cambridge at present, but live in hopes. I am so completely superannuated there, and besides feel it something brazen in me to wear my magisterial habit, after all my buffooneries, that I hardly think I shall venture again. And being now an 'aρiσтov pèv dop' disciple I won't come within wine-shot of such determined topers as your collegiates. I have not yet subscribed to Bowen. I mean to cut Harrow 'enim unquam' as somebody classically said for a farewell sentence. I am superannuated there too, and, in short, as old at twenty-three as many men at seventy.

Do write and send this letter that hath been so long in your custody. It is of importance that M. should be certain I never received it, if it be his. Are you drowned that I have never heard from you, or are you fallen into a fit of perplexity? Cawthorn has declined, and the мs. is returned to him. This is all at present from yours in the faith,

Μπαιρῶν.

cxix

TO MR. HODGSON

8 St. James's Street, Dec. 4, 1811.

My dear Hodgson, I have seen Miller, who will see Bland, but I have no great hopes of his obtaining the translation from the crowd of candidates. Yesterday I wrote to Harness, who will probably tell you what I said on the subject. Hobhouse has sent me my Romaic MSS., and I shall require your aid in correcting the press, as your Greek eye is more correct than mine. But these will not come to type this month, I dare say. I have put some soft lines on ye Scotch in the Curse of Minerva; take them :

Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, etc.

If you are not content now, I must say with the Irish drummer to the deserter who called out, 'Flog high, flog low'—'The de'il burn ye, there's no pleasing you, flog where one will.'

He proves

I have read Watson to Gibbon. nothing, so I am where I was, verging towards Spinoza; and yet it is a gloomy creed, and I want

a better, but there is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything. The post brings me to a conclusion. Bland has just been here.-Yours ever,

TO MR. HARNESS

BN.

8 St. James's Street, Dec. 6, 1811.

My dear Harness,-I write again, but don't suppose cxx I mean to lay such a tax on your pen and patience as to expect regular replies. When you are inclined, write: when silent, I shall have the consolation of knowing that you are much better employed. Yesterday Bland and I called on Mr. Miller, who, being then out, will call on Bland to-day or to-morrow. shall certainly endeavour to bring them together.— You are censorious, child; when you are a little older, you will learn to dislike everybody, but abuse nobody.

I

With regard to the person of whom you speak, your own good sense must direct you. I never pretend to advise, being an implicit believer in the old proverb.

This present frost is detestable. It is the first I have felt for these three years, though I longed for one in the oriental summer, when no such thing is to be had, unless I had gone to the top of Hymettus for it.

I thank you most truly for the concluding part of your letter. I have been of late not much accustomed to kindness from any quarter, and am not the less pleased to meet with it again from one

where I had known it earliest. I have not changed in all my ramblings,-Harrow, and, of course, yourself, never left me, and the

'Dulces reminiscitur Argos'

attended me to the very spot to which that sentence alludes in the mind of the fallen Argive.—Our intimacy began before we began to date at all, and it rests with you to continue it till the hour which must number it and me with the things that were.

Do read mathematics.-I should think X plus Y at least as amusing as the Curse of Kehama, and much more intelligible. Master Southey's poems are, in fact, what parallel lines might be-viz. prolonged ad infinitum without meeting anything half so absurd as themselves.

What news, what news? Queen Oreaca,

What news of scribblers five?

S, W, C—, L―d, and L—e?—--
All damn'd, though yet alive.

Coleridge is lecturing. 'Many an old fool,' said
Hannibal to some such lecturer, but such as this,
never.'-Ever yours, etc.

TO MR. HARNESS

cxxi

St. James's Street, Dec. 8, 1811.

Behold a most formidable sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being Sunday, I can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. Bland