present a battle upon a rencontre once before,)-'unless French,) two moons ago. Have you had the letter?-you promise to be friends, and'-the answer was an inter- shall send you another:-you must not neglect my Arineuption, by a declaration of war against the other, which nians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, tincture of myrrh, tooth. she said would be a 'Guerra di Candia.' Is it not odd, brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal that the lower order of Venetians should still allude pro- demands. verbially to that famous contest, so glorious and so fatal to

the ambassador at Naples, Horace Mann, and others of gestion, you may do as you please. But recollect it is not the same kind of animal. to be published in a garbled or mutilated state. I reserve

"I thought of a preface, defending Lord Hervey against to my friends and myself the right of correcting the press: Pope's attack, but Pope-quoad Pope, the poet-against-if the publication continue, it is to continue in its present all the world, in the unjustifiable attempts begun by War-form. ton, 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."

LETTER CCCLXXII.

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?

"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 the places to which they would wring me.

"Palazzo Mocenigo, Canal Grande, "Venice, June 1, 1818.

"Your monthly reviewer has made a mistake: Cavalierc alone is well enough; 'Cavalier' servente' has always the e "Your letter is almost the only news, as yet, of Canto mute in conversation, and omitted in writing; so that it is 4th, and it has by no means settled its fate, at least, does not for the sake of metre; and pray let Griffiths know this, not tell me how the 'Poeshie' has been received by the with my compliments. I humbly conjecture that I know public. But I suspect, no great things,-firstly, from Muras much of Italian society and language as any of his peo- ray's 'horrid stillness;' secondly, from what you say about ple; but to make assurance doubly sure, I asked, at the Countess Benzona's, last night, the question of more than une 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 Griffith's scribbler may be) would not talk of what he do n'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.

the stanzas running into each other, which I take not to be yours, but a notion you have binned 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 expe riments, and carelessness into conceitor 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.'

*

I have

"You like Beppo; that's right. * * "Tell Mr. and Mr. Hanson, that they may as well expect Geneva to come to me, as that I should go to Ge- not had the Fudges yet, but live in hopes. I need not say neva. The messenger may go or return, as he pleases; I that your successes are mine. By-the-way, Lydia White won't stir: and I look upon it as a piece of singular absurdity is here, and has just borrowed my copy of 'Lalla Rookh. 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

"April 23, 1818.

*

*

"Hunt's letter is probably the exact piece of vulgar cox. combry you might expect from his situation. He is a good man, with some poetical elements in his chaos; but spoiled by the Christ-Church Hospital and a Sunday newspaper, -to say nothing of the Surry Jail, which conceited him into a martyr. But he is a good man. When I saw 'Rimini' in MSS., 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 belleves his trash of vulgar phrases tortured into The tire is past in which I could feel for the dead, compound barbarisms to be old English; and we may say or I should feel for the death of Lady Melbourne, the best, of it as Aimwell says of Captain Gibbet's regiment, when and kindest, and ablest female I ever knew, old or young; the Captain calls it an 'old corps,' -the oldest in Europe But I have supped full of horrors; and events of this kind if I may judge by your uniform.' He sent out his 'Foliage have only a kind of numbness worse than pain, like a vio-by Percy Shelley, and, of all the meffable Centaurs that

lent blow on the elbow or the head. There is one link less between England and myself.

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

"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 sug-stage without baiting."

• Mr. Moore had said, in his letter to him, that this practice of carryirs one stanza into another, was "something like taking on horses anothe

into a belief of his own impostures, and talks Punch in pure had probably been exaggerated as an Englishman's. simplicity of heart, taking himself (as poor Fitzgerald said Whether they remarked us looking at them or no, I know of himself in the Morning Post) for Vates in both senses, not; but one of them called out to me in Venetian, 'Why or nonsenses, of the word. Did you look at the transla- do not you, who relieve others, think of us also?' I turned nions of his own which he prefers to Pope and Cowper, and round and answered her 'Cara, tu sei troppo bella e says so? Did you read his skimble-skamble about ✶ ✶ giovane per aver' bisogna del' soccorso mio.' She an. being at the head of his own profession in the eyes of those swered,' If you saw my hut and my food, you would not who followed it? I thought that poetry was an art, or an say so. All this passed half jestingly, and I saw no more attribute, and not a profession;—but be it one, is that *** of her for some days. at the head of your profession in your eyes? I'll be cursed if he is of mine, or ever shall be. He is the only ne 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 few Jacob Behmen, this *

*

*

"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.

whose pride might have kept him true, even had his principles turned as perverted as his soi-disant poetry.

*

In short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and for a long space of time she was the only one But Leigh Hunt is a good man, and a good father who preserved over me an ascendancy which was often see his Odes to all the Masters Hunt;-a good husband-disputed, and never impaired. 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.

"The reasons for 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 naïvet 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 overbearing, and used to walk in when ever 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.

"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 creuit 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 "When I first knew her, I was in 'relazione' (liaison) to support him in his elevation. Did Fox *** pay his with la Signora **, who was silly enough one evening at #ebts?or did Sheridan take a subscription? Was the Dolo, accompanied by some of her female friends, to threaten Duke of Norfolk's drunkenness more excusable than his? her; for the gossips of the Villeggiatura had already found Were his intrigues more notorious than those of all his out, by the neighing of my horse one evening, that I used to contemporaries? and is his memory to be blasted, and ride late in the night' to meet the Fornarina. Margarita theirs respected? Don't let yourself be led away by threw back her veil (fazziolo,) and replied in very explicit clamour, but compare him with the coalitioner Fox, and Venetian: 'You are not his wife: I am not his unfe: you the pensioner Burke, as a man of principle, and with ten are his Donna, and I am his Donna: your husband is a hundred thousand in personal views, and with none in becco, and mine is another. For the rest, what right have talent, for he beat them all out and out. Without means, you to reproach me? If he prefers me to you, is it my without connexion, without character (which might be false fault? If you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoatat first, and made him mad afterward from desperation,) he string. But do not think to speak to me without a reply, beat them all, in all he ever attempted. But alas, poor because you happen to be richer than I am.' Having de human nature! Good night-or, rather, morning. It is livered this pretty piece of eloquence (which I translate four, and the dawn gleams over the Grand Canal, and un-as it was translated to me by a bystander,) she went on shadows the Rialto. I must to bed; up all night-but, as her way, leaving a numerous audience, with Madame * George Philpot says, 'it's life, though, damme, it's life!'

* Ever yours, "B. "Excuse errors-no time for revision. The post goes Osat at noon and I sha'n't be up then. I will write again son about ur plan for a publication."

LETTER CCCLXXV.

ΤΟ

you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you hall be sold it, though it may be lengthy.

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

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.

Her

"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 In the summer of 1817, *** and myself were saum-scandalously neglected her. As it was midnight, I let her tering on horseback along the Brenta one evening, when, stay, and next day there was no moving her at ali among a group of peasants, we remarked two girls as the husband came roaring and crying, and entreating her to prettiest we had seen for some time. About this period come back-not she! He then applied to the police, and there had been great distress in the country, and I had a they applied to me: I told them and her husband to take fittle relieved some of the people. Generosity makes a her; I did not want her; she had come, and I could not great figure a very little cost in Venetian livres, and mine fling her out of the window; but they might conduct her

"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 notprobably against neither-but Fletcher seized he 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.

through that of the door if they chose it. She went before rately mixed with ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress the commissary, but was obliged to return with that 'becco over her recovered cubs. 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 fooieries. 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 buyng 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.

"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, inquiring 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.'

"In the mean tiine, 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 unust 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 "All my people were consternated. They had always body did their duty better-the apartments were kept been frightened at her, and were now paralyzed: they in order, and every thing and every body else, except wanted me to apply to the police, to guard myself, &c. &c. herself. like a pack of snivelling servile boobies, as they were. did nothing of the kind, thinking that I might as well end that way as another; besides, I had been used to savage

*

*

*

*

*

"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 gon-women, and knew their ways. auliers, we were overtaken by a heavy squall, and the "I had her sent home quietly after her recovery, and gondola put in peril-hats blown away, boat filling, oar never saw her since, except twice at the opera, at a distance lust, tumbling sea, thunder, rain in torrents, night coming, among the audience. She made many attempts to return, and wind unceasing. On our return, after a tight struggle, but no more violent ones.-And this is the story of MarI found her on the open steps of the Mocenigo palace, on garita Cogn, as far as it relates to me. the Grand Canal, with her great black eyes flashing "I forgot to mention that she was very devout, and would through her tears, and the long dark hair, which was cross herself if she heard the prayer time strike. * streaming, drenched with rain, over her brows and breast. She was perfectly exposed to the storm; and the wind "She was quick in reply; as, for instance-One day blowing her hair and dress about her thin tall figure, and when she had made me very angry with beating somebody the lighting flashing around her, and the waves rolling at or other, I called her a cow, (a cow, in Italian, is a sad her feet, made her look like Medea alighted from her affront.) I called her 'Vacca.' She turned round, curtchariot, or the Sibyl of the tempest that was rolling around sied, and answered, 'Vacca tua, 'celenza,' (i. e. eccellenza.) her, the only living thing within hail a' that moment except Your cow, please your Excellency. In short, she was, as ourselves. On seeing me safe, she did not wait to greet I said before, a very fine animal, of considerable beauty me, as might have been expected, but calling out to me- and energy, with many good and several amusing qualities, Ah! can' della Madonna, xe esto il tempo por andar' al' but wild as a witch and fierce as a demon. She used to Lido? (Ah! dog of the Virgin, is this a time to go to boast publicly of her ascendency over me, contrasting it Lido?) ran into the house, and solaced herself with scold-with that of other women, and assigning for it sundry ing the boatmen for not foreseeing the 'temporale.' I am reasons, ***. True it was, that they all tried to get her cold by the servants that she had only been prevented from away, and no one succeeded till her own absurdity helped coming in a boat to look after me, by the refusal of all the them.

gondoliers of the canal to put out into the harbour in such "I omitted to tell you her answer, when I reproached her a moment; and that then she sat down on the steps in all for snatching Madame Contarini's mask at the Cavalchina. the thickest of the squall, a would neither be removed I represented to her that she was a lady of high birth, 'una nor comforted. Her joy at seeing ine again was mode- Dama, &c. She answered, 'Se ella è dama mi (io) son

Venetiana-if she is a lady, I am a Venetian.' This and expedite him, as I have nearly a hundred thousand would have been fine a hundred years ago, the pride of the pounds depending upon the completion of the sale and the nation rising up against the pride of aristocracy:* but, alas! signature of the papers. Venice, and her people, and her nobles, are alike returning "The draft on you is drawn up by Siri and Willhalm fast to the ocean; and where there is no independence, I hope that the form is correct. I signed it two or three there can be no real self-respect. I believe that I mistook days ago, desiring them to forward it to Messrs. Morland or misstated one of her phrases in my let'er; it should nave been 'Can' della Madonna, cosa vus tu? esto non tempo per andar a Lido?"

LETTER CCCLXXVI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, June 18, 1818.

and Ransom.

"Your projected editions for November had better be postponed, as I have some things in project, or preparation, that may be of use to you, though not very important in themselves. I have completed an Ode on Venice,* and have two Stories, one serious and one ludicrous, (à la Beppo) not yet finished, and in no hurry to be so.

"You talk of the letter to Hobhouse being much admired, and speak of prose. I think of writing (for your full edition) some Memoirs of my life, to prefix to them, upon Business and the utter and inexplicable silence of all the same model (though far enough, I fear, from reaching my correspondents renders me impatient and troublesome.it,) of Gifford, Hume, &c.; and this without any intention I wrote to Mr. Hanson for a balance which is (or ought to be) in his hands;—no answer. I expected the messenger with the Newstead papers two months ago, and instead of him, I received a requisition to proceed to Geneva, which (from **, who knows my wishes and opinions about approaching England) could only be irony or insult.

of making disclosures, or remarks upon living people, which would be unpleasant to them; but I think it might be done and well done. However, this is to be considered. I have materials in plenty, but the greater part of them could not be used by me, nor for these hundred years to come. However, there is enough without these, and merely as a literary man, to make a preface for such an edition as you meditate. But this is by-the-way: I have not made up my mind.

Imus, therefore trouble you to pay into my bankers' immediately whatever sum or sums you can make it convenient to do on our agreement; otherwise, I shall be put to the severest and most immediate inconvenience; and "I enclose you a note on the subject of 'Parisina,' which this at a time when, by every rational prospect and calcu- Hobhouse can dress for you. It is an extract of particu lation, I ought to be in the receipt of considerable sums.lars from a history of Ferrara.

*

"Yours in haste,

LETTER CCCLXXVIII.

"B."

Pray do not neglect this; you have no idea to what incon- "I trust you have been attentive to Missiaglia, for the venience you will otherwise put me. had some absurd English have the character of neglecting the Italians at notion about the disposal of this money in annuity, (or God present, which I hope you will redeem. knows what.) which I merely listened to when he was here to avoid squabbles and sermons; but I have occasion for the principal, and had never any serious idea of appropriating it otherwise than to answer my personal expenses. Hobhouse's wish is, if possible, to force me back to England: he will not succeed; and if he did, I would not stay. I hate the country, and like this; and all foolish opposition, of course, merely adds to the feeling. Your silence makes me doubt the success of Canto Fourth. If it has failed, I will make such deduction as you think proper and fair from the original agreement; but I could wish whatever is to be paid were remitted to me, without delay, through the usual channel, by course of post.

"When I tell you that I have not heard a word from England since very early in May, I have made the eulogium of my friends, or the persons who call themselves so, since I have written so often and in the greatest anxiety. Thank God, the longer I am absent, the less cause I see for regretting the country or its living contents.

"I am yours, &c.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, July 17, 1818. "I suppose that Aglietti will take whatever you offer, but till his return from Vienna I can make him no proposal: nor, indeed, have you authorized me to do so. The three French notes are by Lady Mary; also another halfEnglish-French-Italian. They are very pretty and pas sionate; it is a pity that a piece of one of them is lost. Algarotti seems to have treated her ill; but she was much his senior, and all women are used ill-or say so, whether they are or not.

*

"I shall be glad of your books and powders. I am still in waiting for Hanson's clerk, but luckily not at Geneva. All my good friends wrote to me to hasten there to meet *him, but not one had the good sense, or the good nature, to write afterward to tell me that it would be time and a

and that I will never forgive him, (or any body,) the atrocity of their late silence at a time when I wished particularly to hear, for every reason, from my friends."

LETTER CCCLXXVII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, July 10, 1818. "I have received your letter and the credit from Morlends, &c. for whom I have also drawn upon you at sixty days' sight for the remainder, according to your proposition. I am still waiting in Venice, in expectancy of the arrival of Hanson's clerk. What can detain him, I do not know; but I trust that Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Kinnaird, when their political fit is abated, will take the trouble to inquire

Childe Harold, Carte IV. stanza 13:—“ Sinks like a seated into whence she rose."

journey thrown away, as he could not set off for some months after the period appointed. If I had taken the journey on the general suggestion, I never would have spoken again to one of you as long as I existed. I have written to request Mr. Kinnaird, when the foam of his politics is wiped away, to extract a positive answer from that ****, and not to keep me in a state of suspense upon the subject. I hope that Kinnaird, who has my power of attorney, keeps a look-out upon the gentleman, which is the more necessary, as I have a great dislike te the idea of coming over to look after him myself.

"I have several things begun, verse and prose, but none in much forwardness. I have written some six or seven sheets of a Life, which I mean to continue, and send you when finished. It may perhaps serve for your projected editions. If you would tell me exactly (for I know nothing

• See page 204. The two Stories were Mazeppa and Don Juan,
Dedication of the 4th Contralu.
I See Pariana, Now