mentioned her humour and amiability, but I thought at sixty, beauty would be most agreeable or least likely. However, it shall be rectified in a new edition; and if any of the parties have either looks or qualities which they wish to be noticed, let me have a minute of them. I have no private nor personal dislike to Venice, rather the contrary; but I merely speak of what is the subject of all remarks and all writers upon her present state. Let me hear from you before you start.

"Believe me ever, &c.

"P. S. Did you receive two letters of Douglas Kinnaird's in an endorse from me? Remember me to Mengaldo, Soranzo, and all who care that I should remember them. The letter alluded to in the enclosed, to the Cardinal,' was in answer to some queries of the government, about a poor devil of a Neapolitan, arrested at Sinigaglia on suspicion, who came to beg of me here; being without breeches, and consequently without pockets for halfpence, I relieved and forwarded him to his country, and they arrested him at Pesaro on suspicion, and have since interrogated me (civilly and politely, however,) about him. I sent them the poor man's petition, and such information as I had about him, which I trust will get him out again, that is to say, if they give him a fair hearing.

I am content with the article. Pray, did you receive, some posts ago, Moore's lines which I enclosed to you, written at Paris?"

In their eagerness, like true controversialists, to avail themselves of every passing advantage, and convert even straws into weapons on an emergency, my two friends, during their short warfare, contrived to place me in that sort of embarrassing position, the most provoking feature of which is, that it excites more amusement than sympathy. On the one side, Mr. Bowles chose to cite, as a support to his argument, a short fragment of a note, addressed to him, as he stated, by "a gentleman of the highest literary," &c. &c., and saying, in reference to Mr. Bowles's former pamphlet, " You have hit the right nail on the head, and **** too." This short scrap was signed with four asterisks; and when, on the appearance of Mr. Bowles's Letter, I met with it in his pages, not the slightest suspicion ever crossed my mind that I had been myself the writer of it; my communications with my reverend friend and neighbour having been (for years, I am proud to say) sufficiently frequent to allow of such a hasty compliment to his disputative powers passing from my memory. When Lord Byron took the field against Mr. Bowles's Letter, this unlucky scrap, so authoritatively brought forward, was, of course, too tempt

513

"Behold the blessings of a lucky lot

My play is damn'd, and Lady * * not.

"The papers (and perhaps your letters) will have put you in possession of Muster Elliston's dramatic behaviour. It is to be presumed that the play was fitted for the stage by Mr. Dibdin, who is the tailor upon such occasions, and will have taken measure with his usual accuracy. I hear that it is still continued to be performed a piece of obstinacy for which it is some consolation to think that the discourteous histrio will be out of pocket.

"You will be surprised to hear that I have finished another tragedy in five acts, observing all the unities strictly. It is called Sardanapalus,' and was sent by last post to England. It is not for the stage, any more than the other was intended for it—and I shall take better care this time that they don't get hold on't.

I have also sent, two months ago, a further letter on Bowles, &c. ; but he seems to be so taken up with my respect' (as he calls it) towards him in the former case, that I am not sure that it will be published, being somewhat too full of 'pastime and prodigality.' I learn from some private letters of Bowles's, that you were the gentleman in asterisks.' Who would have dreamed it? you see what mischief that clergyman has done by printing notes without names. How the deuce was I to suppose that the first four asterisks meant Campbell' and not' Pope,' and that the blank signature meant Thomas Moore? 1 You see what comes of being

ing a mark for his facetiousness to be resisted; more especially as the person mentioned in it, as having suffered from the reverend critic's vigour, appeared, from the number of asterisks employed in designating him, to have been Pope himself, though, in reality, the name was that of Mr. Bowles's former antagonist, Mr. Campbell. The noble assailant, it is needless to say, made the most of this vulnerable point; and few readers could have been more diverted than I was with his happy ridicule of" the gentleman in asterisks," little thinking that I was myself, all the while, this veiled victim, nor was it till about the time of the receipt of the above letter, that, by some communication on the subject from a friend in England, I was startled into the recollection of my own share in the transaction.

While by one friend I was thus unconsciously, if not innocently, drawn into the scrape, the other was not slow in rendering me the same friendly service; - for, on the appearance of Lord Byron's answer to Mr. Bowles, I had the mortification of finding that, with a far less pardonable want of reserve, he had all but named me as his authority for an anecdote of his reverend opponent's

familiar with parsons. His answers have not yet reached me, but I understand from Hobhouse, that he (H.) is attacked in them. If that be the case, Bowles has broken the truce, (which he himself proclaimed, by the way,) and I must have at him again.

"Did you receive my letters with the two or three concluding sheets of Memoranda ? "There are no news here to interest much. A German spy (boasting himself such) was stabbed last week, but not mortally. The moment I heard that he went about bullying and boasting, it was easy for me, or any one else, to foretell what would occur to him, which I did, and it came to pass in two days after. He has got off, however, for a slight incision.

"A row the other night, about a lady of the place, between her various lovers, occasioned a midnight discharge of pistols, but nobody wounded. Great scandal, however -planted by her lover-to be thrashed by her husband, for inconstancy to her regular Servente, who is coming home post about it, and she herself retired in confusion into the country, although it is the acme of the opera season. All the women furious against her (she herself having been censorious) for being found out. She is a pretty womana Countess Rusponi-a fine old Visigoth name, or Ostrogoth.

The Greeks! what think you? They are my old acquaintances but what to think I know not. Let us hope howsomever.

"Yours,

LETTER 435. TO MR. MOORE.

B."

the Asiatic kind- I mean Asiatic, as the Romans called 'Asiatic oratory,' and not because the scenery is Oriental-must be tried by that test only. I am not quite sure that I shall allow the Miss Byrons (legitimate or illegitimate) to read Lalla Rookh-in the first place, on account of this said 'passion; and, in the second, that they may'nt discover that there was a better poet than papa, "You say nothing of politics-but, alas! what can be said?

"The world is a bundle of hay,

Mankind are the asses who pull,
Each tugs it a different way,-

And the greatest of all is John Bull !

"How do you call your new project? I have sent Murray a new tragedy, ycleped Sardanapalus,' writ according to Aristotle -all, save the chorus-I could not reconcile me to that. I have begun another, and am in the second act ;-so you see I saunter on as usual.

"Bowles's answers have reached me; but I can't go on disputing for ever,—particu larly in a polite manner. I suppose he will take being silent for silenced. He has been so civil that I can't find it in my liver to be facetious with him, -else I had a savage joke or two at his service.

"I can't send you the little journal, because it is in boards, and I can't trust it per post. Don't suppose it is any thing parti cular; but it will show the intentions of the natives at that time—and one or two other things, chiefly personal, like the former one.

So, Longman don't bite. It was my wish to have made that work of use. Could you not raise a sum upon it (however small), reserving the power of redeeming it, on repayment?

Are you in Paris, or a villaging? If you are in the city, you will never resist the Anglo-invasion you speak of. I do not see an Englishman in half a year, and, when I do, I turn my horse's head the other way. The fact, which you will find in the last note to the Doge, has given me a good excuse for quite dropping the least connection with travellers.

"I do not recollect the speech you speak of, but suspect it is not the Doge's, but one of Israel Bertuccio to Calendaro. I hope you think that Elliston behaved shamefully —

Ain, gave its name not only to an excellent "Journal," extending to fifty-six volumes, but also to a Dictionary. consisting of eight large folios—“precious," says Mr. D'Israeli," as a vast collection of ancient and modera learning, and not merely a grammatical, scientific, and technical encyclopædia, but replete with divinity, law, moral philosophy, critical and historical learning, and abounding with innumerable miscellaneous curiosities."

ET. 33.

And d-n the fool who rung it - Well!
From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd.

"I have had a friend of your Mr. Irving's a very pretty lada Mr. Coolidge, of Boston-only somewhat too full of poesy and entusymusy.' I was very civil to him during his few hours' stay, and talked with him much of Irving, whose writings are my delight. But I suspect that he did not take quite so much to me, from his having expected to meet a misanthropical gentleman, in wolf-skin breeches, and answering in fierce monosyllables, instead of a man of this world. I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?

"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw her), who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, &c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N. N. A. and has not a word of 'cant' or preachment in it upon any opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so, begging me to burn her letter which, by the way, I can not do, as I look upon such a letter in such circumstances as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from Drontheim in Norway (but not from a dying woman), in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at times believe one's self a poet. But if I must believe that *****, and such fellows, are poets also, it is better to be out of the corps.

515

"I am now in the fifth act of' Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve months, besides proses; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And are you, too, busy? I | doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last year, and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the Muses. This sentence is so like **** that

In the Journal entitled "Detached Thoughts," I find the tribute to his genius which he here mentions, as well as some others, thus interestingly dwelt upon.

66

As far as fame goes (that is to say, living fame) I have had my share, perhaps -indeed, certainly― more than my deserts.

"Some odd instances have occurred to my own experience, of the wild and strange places to which a name may penetrate, and where it may impress. Two years ago (almost three, being in August or July, 1819,) I received at Ravenna a letter in English verse, from Drontheim in Norway, written by a Norwegian, and full of the usual compliments, &c. &c. It is still somewhere amongst my papers. In the same month I received an invitation into Holstein from a Mr. Jacobsen (I think) of Hamburgh ; also, by the same medium, a translation of Medora's song in The Corsair by a Westphalian baroness (not Thunderton-Tronck'), with some original verses of hers (very pretty and Klopstock-ish), and a prose translation annexed to them, on the subject of my wife: -as they concerned her more than me, I sent them to her, together with Mr. Jacobsen's letter. It was odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the summer in Holstein while in Italy, from people I never knew. The letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. Jacobsen talked to me of the wild roses growing in the Holstein summer.' Why then did the Cimbri and Teutones emigrate?

"What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my face-unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into the man