LORD BYRON: (continued 5)

"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.

"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 * * * * *.

"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 have had better fortune than any traveller of equal enterprise (except Humboldt), in returning safe; and after the fate of the Brownes, and the Parkes, and the Burckhardts, it is hardly less surprise than satisfaction 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, the 'Hearken, Lady 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 useless to discuss until it be ascertained if it may or may not be a property.

"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."

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 mischievous consequences which, both to the object of his attachment and himself, 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 conjugal negotiations, in which Lord Byron does not appear to have interfered, the young Contessa consented reluctantly to accompany her lord to Ravenna, it being first covenanted that, in future, all communication between her and her lover should cease.

"In a few days after this," says Mr. Hoppner, in some notices of his noble friend with which he has favoured me, "he returned to Venice, very much out of spirits, owing to Madame Guiccioli's departure, and out of humour with every body and every thing 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.

"You are," he says, "and ever will be, my first thought. But, at this moment, I am in a state most dreadful, not knowing which way to decide;—on the one hand, fearing that I should compromise you for ever, by my return to Ravenna and the consequences of such a step, and, on the other, dreading that I shall lose both you and myself, and all that I have ever known or tasted of happiness, by never seeing you more. I pray of you, I implore you to be comforted, and to believe that I cannot cease to love you but with my life."[61] In another part he says, "I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you. Your letters to F * * and myself do wrong to my motives—but you will yet see your injustice. It is not enough that I must leave you—from motives of which ere long you will be convinced—it is not enough that I must fly from Italy, with a heart deeply wounded, after having passed all my days in solitude since your departure, sick both in body and mind—but I must also have to endure your reproaches without answering and without deserving them. Farewell! in that one word is comprised the death of my happiness."[62]

He had now arranged every thing for his departure for England, and had even fixed the day, when accounts reached him from Ravenna that the Contessa was alarmingly ill;—her sorrow at their separation having so much preyed upon her mind, that even her own family, fearful of the consequences, had withdrawn all opposition to her wishes, and now, with the sanction of Count Guiccioli himself, entreated her lover to hasten to Ravenna. What was he, in this dilemma, to do? Already had he announced his coming to different friends in England, and every dictate, he felt, of prudence and manly fortitude urged his departure. While thus balancing between duty and inclination, the day appointed for his setting out arrived; and the following picture, from the life, of his irresolution on the occasion, is from a letter written by a female friend of Madame Guiccioli, who was present at the scene:—"He was ready dressed for the journey, his gloves and cap on, and even his little cane in his hand. Nothing was now waited for but his coming down stairs,—his boxes being already all on board the gondola. At this moment, my Lord, by way of pretext, declares, that if it should strike one o'clock before every thing was in order (his arms being the only thing not yet quite ready), he would not go that day. The hour strikes, and he remains!"[63]

The writer adds, "it is evident he has not the heart to go;" and the result proved that she had not judged him wrongly. The very next day's tidings from Ravenna decided his fate, and he himself, in a letter to the Contessa, thus announces the triumph which she had achieved. "F * * * will already have told you, with her accustomed sublimity, that Love has gained the victory. I could not summon up resolution enough to leave the country where you are, without, at least, once more seeing you. On yourself, perhaps, it will depend, whether I ever again shall leave you. Of the rest we shall speak when we meet. You ought, by this time, to know which is most conducive to your welfare, my presence or my absence. For myself, I am a citizen of the world—all countries are alike to me. You have ever been, since our first acquaintance, the sole object of my thoughts. My opinion was, that the best course I could adopt, both for your peace and that of all your family, would have been to depart and go far, far away from you;—since to have been near and not approach you would have been, for me, impossible. You have however decided that I am to return to Ravenna. I shall accordingly return—and shall do—and be all that you wish. I cannot say more.[64]

On quitting Venice he took leave of Mr. Hoppner in a short but cordial letter, which I cannot better introduce than by prefixing to it the few words of comment with which this excellent friend of the noble poet has himself accompanied it:—"I need not say with what painful feeling I witnessed the departure of a person who, from the first day of our acquaintance, had treated me with unvaried kindness, reposing a confidence in me which it was beyond the power of my utmost efforts to deserve; admitting me to an intimacy which I had no right to claim, and listening with patience, and the greatest good temper, to the remonstrances I ventured to make upon his conduct."

LETTER 349. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"My dear Hoppner,

"Partings are but bitter work at best, so that I shall not venture on a second with you. Pray make my respects to Mrs. Hoppner, and assure her of my unalterable reverence for the singular goodness of her disposition, which is not without its reward even in this world—for those who are no great believers in human virtues would discover enough in her to give them a better opinion of their fellow-creatures and—what is still more difficult—of themselves, as being of the same species, however inferior in approaching its nobler models. Make, too, what excuses you can for my omission of the ceremony of leave-taking. If we all meet again, I will make my humblest apology; if not, recollect that I wished you all well; and, if you can, forget that I have given you a great deal of trouble.

"Yours," &c. &c.

LETTER 350. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, December 10. 1819.

"Since I last wrote, I have changed my mind, and shall not come to England. The more I contemplate, the more I dislike the place and the prospect. You may, therefore, address to me as usual here, though I mean to go to another city. I have finished the third Canto of Don Juan, but the things I have read and heard discourage all further publication—at least for the present. You may try the copy question, but you'll lose it: the cry is up, and cant is up. I should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and have written to Mr. Kinnaird by this post on the subject. Talk with him.

"I have not the patience, nor do I feel interest enough in the question, to contend with the fellows in their own slang; but I perceive Mr. Blackwood's Magazine and one or two others of your missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in their abuse. I like and admire W * *n, and he should not have indulged himself in such outrageous licence.[65] It is overdone and defeats itself. What would he say to the grossness without passion and the misanthropy without feeling of Gulliver's Travels?—When he talks of Lady's Byron's business, he talks of what he knows nothing about; and you may tell him that no one can more desire a public investigation of that affair than I do.

"I sent home by Moore (for Moore only, who has my Journal also) my Memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but not to publish, on any account. You may read it, and you may let W * *n read it, if he likes—not for his public opinion, but his private; for I like the man, and care very little about his Magazine. And I could wish Lady B. herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or mis-stated; as it may probably appear after my extinction, and it would be but fair she should see it,—that is to say, herself willing.

"Perhaps I may take a journey to you in the spring; but I have been ill and am indolent and indecisive, because few things interest me. These fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and now they are wroth that I am, or attempted to be, facetious. I have got such a cold and headach that I can hardly see what I scrawl:—the winters here are as sharp as needles. Some time ago, I wrote to you rather fully about my Italian affairs; at present I can say no more except that you shall hear further by and by.

"Your Blackwood accuses me of treating women harshly: it may be so, but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them. I mean to leave Venice in a few days, but you will address your letters here as usual. When I fix elsewhere, you shall know."

Soon after this letter to Mr. Murray he set out for Ravenna, from which place we shall find his correspondence for the next year and a half dated. For a short time after his arrival, he took up his residence at an inn; but the Count Guiccioli having allowed him to hire a suite of apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli itself, he was once more lodged under the same roof with the Countess Guiccioli.

LETTER 351. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, Dec. 31. 1819.

"I have been here this week, and was obliged to put on my armour and go the night after my arrival to the Marquis Cavalli's, where there were between two and three hundred of the best company I have seen in Italy,—more beauty, more youth, and more diamonds among the women than have been seen these fifty years in the Sea-Sodom.[66] I never saw such a difference between two places of the same latitude, (or platitude, it is all one,)—music, dancing, and play, all in the same salle. The G.'s object appeared to be to parade her foreign friend as much as possible, and, faith, if she seemed to glory in so doing, it was not for me to be ashamed of it. Nobody seemed surprised;—all the women, on the contrary, were, as it were, delighted with the excellent example. The vice-legate, and all the other vices, were as polite as could be;—and I, who had acted on the reserve, was fairly obliged to take the lady under my arm, and look as much like a cicisbeo as I could on so short a notice,—to say nothing of the embarrassment of a cocked hat and sword, much more formidable to me than ever it will be to the enemy.

"I write in great haste—do you answer as hastily. I can understand nothing of all this; but it seems as if the G. had been presumed to be planted, and was determined to show that she was not,—plantation, in this hemisphere, being the greatest moral misfortune. But this is mere conjecture, for I know nothing about it—except that every body are very kind to her, and not discourteous to me. Fathers, and all relations, quite agreeable.

"Yours ever,

"B.

"P.S. Best respects to Mrs. H.

"I would send the compliments of the season; but the season itself is so complimentary with snow and rain that I wait for sunshine."

LETTER 352. TO MR. MOORE.

"January 2. 1320.

"My dear Moore,

Or thus:

"My this present writing is to direct you that, if she chooses, she may see the MS. Memoir in your possession. I wish her to have fair play, in all cases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. For this purpose, it were but just that Lady B. should know what is there said of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to any part or parts, as may seem fitting to herself. This is fair dealing, I presume, in all events.

"To change the subject, are you in England? I send you an epitaph for Castlereagh. * * * * * Another for Pitt:—

"The gods seem to have made me poetical this day:—

Or,

"Pray let not these versiculi go forth with my name, except among the initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable House, according to Galignani's Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are menacing a prosecution to a pamphlet of his. I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the natural effects of taking a part in them.

"For my own part I had a sad scene since you went. Count Gu. came for his wife, and none of those consequences which Scott prophesied ensued. There was no damages, as in England, and so Scott lost his wager. But there was a great scene, for she would not, at first, go back with him—at least, she did go back with him; but he insisted, reasonably enough, that all communication should be broken off between her and me. So, finding Italy very dull, and having a fever tertian, I packed up my valise, and prepared to cross the Alps; but my daughter fell ill, and detained me.

"After her arrival at Ravenna, the Guiccioli fell ill again too; and at last, her father (who had, all along, opposed the liaison most violently till now) wrote to me to say that she was in such a state that he begged me to come and see her,—and that her husband had acquiesced, in consequence of her relapse, and that he (her father) would guarantee all this, and that there would be no farther scenes in consequence between them, and that I should not be compromised in any way. I set out soon after, and have been here ever since. I found her a good deal altered, but getting better:—all this comes of reading Corinna.

"The Carnival is about to begin, and I saw about two or three hundred people at the Marquis Cavalli's the other evening, with as much youth, beauty, and diamonds among the women, as ever averaged in the like number. My appearance in waiting on the Guiccioli was considered as a thing of course. The Marquis is her uncle, and naturally considered me as her relation.

"The paper is out, and so is the letter. Pray write. Address to Venice, whence the letters will be forwarded. Yours, &c. B."

LETTER 353. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, January 20. 1820.

"I have not decided any thing about remaining at Ravenna. I may stay a day, a week, a year, all my life; but all this depends upon what I can neither see nor foresee. I came because I was called, and will go the moment that I perceive what may render my departure proper. My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close to such liaisons; but 'time and the hour' must decide upon what I do. I can as yet say nothing, because I hardly know any thing beyond what I have told you.

"I wrote to you last post for my movables, as there is no getting a lodging with a chair or table here ready; and as I have already some things of the sort at Bologna which I had last summer there for my daughter, I have directed them to be moved; and wish the like to be done with those of Venice, that I may at least get out of the 'Albergo Imperiale,' which is imperial in all true sense of the epithet. Buffini may be paid for his poison. I forgot to thank you and Mrs. Hoppner for a whole treasure of toys for Allegra before our departure; it was very kind, and we are very grateful.

"Your account of the weeding of the Governor's party is very entertaining. If you do not understand the consular exceptions, I do; and it is right that a man of honour, and a woman of probity, should find it so, particularly in a place where there are not 'ten righteous.' As to nobility—in England none are strictly noble but peers, not even peers' sons, though titled by courtesy; nor knights of the garter, unless of the peerage, so that Castlereagh himself would hardly pass through a foreign herald's ordeal till the death of his father.

"The snow is a foot deep here. There is a theatre, and opera,—the Barber of Seville. Balls begin on Monday next. Pay the porter for never looking after the gate, and ship my chattels, and let me know, or let Castelli let me know, how my law-suits go on—but fee him only in proportion to his success. Perhaps we may meet in the spring yet, if you are for England. I see H * * has got into a scrape, which does not please me; he should not have gone so deep among those men without calculating the consequences. I used to think myself the most imprudent of all among my friends and acquaintances, but almost begin to doubt it.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 354. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, January 31. 1820.

"You would hardly have been troubled with the removal of my furniture, but there is none to be had nearer than Bologna, and I have been fain to have that of the rooms which I fitted up for my daughter there in the summer removed here. The expense will be at least as great of the land carriage, so that you see it was necessity, and not choice. Here they get every thing from Bologna, except some lighter articles from Forli or Faenza.

"If Scott is returned, pray remember me to him, and plead laziness the whole and sole cause of my not replying:—dreadful is the exertion of letter-writing. The Carnival here is less boisterous, but we have balls and a theatre. I carried Bankes to both, and he carried away, I believe, a much more favourable impression of the society here than of that of Venice,—recollect that I speak of the native society only.

"I am drilling very hard to learn how to double a shawl, and should succeed to admiration if I did not always double it the wrong side out; and then I sometimes confuse and bring away two, so as to put all the Servanti out, besides keeping their Servite in the cold till every body can get back their property. But it is a dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife except your neighbour's,—if you go to the next door but one, you are scolded, and presumed to be perfidious. And then a relazione or an amicizia seems to be a regular affair of from five to fifteen years, at which period, if there occur a widowhood, it finishes by a sposalizio; and in the mean time it has so many rules of its own that it is not much better. A man actually becomes a piece of female property,—they won't let their Serventi marry until there is a vacancy for themselves. I know two instances of this in one family here.

"To-night there was a ——[67] Lottery after the opera; it is an odd ceremony. Bankes and I took tickets of it, and buffooned together very merrily. He is gone to Firenze. Mrs. J * * should have sent you my postscript; there was no occasion to have bored you in person. I never interfere in anybody's squabbles,—she may scratch your face herself.

"The weather here has been dreadful—snow several feet—a fiume, broke down a bridge, and flooded heaven knows how many campi; then rain came—and it is still thawing—so that my saddle-horses have a sinecure till the roads become more practicable. Why did Lega give away the goat? a blockhead—I must have him again.

"Will you pay Missiaglia and the Buffo Buffini of the Gran Bretagna? I heard from Moore, who is at Paris; I had previously written to him in London, but he has not yet got my letter, apparently.

"Believe me," &c.

LETTER 355. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, February 7. 1820.

"I have had no letter from you these two months; but since I came here in December, 1819, I sent you a letter for Moore, who is God knows where—in Paris or London, I presume. I have copied and cut the third Canto of Don Juan into two, because it was too long; and I tell you this beforehand, because in case of any reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not longer than one of the first: so remember that I have not made this division to double upon you; but merely to suppress some tediousness in the aspect of the thing. I should have served you a pretty trick if I had sent you, for example, cantos of 50 stanzas each.

"I am translating the first Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, and have half done it; but these last days of the Carnival confuse and interrupt every thing.

"I have not yet sent off the Cantos, and have some doubt whether they ought to be published, for they have not the spirit of the first. The outcry has not frightened but it has hurt me, and I have not written con amore this time. It is very decent, however, and as dull as 'the last new comedy.'

"I think my translations of Pulci will make you stare. It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a bigoted age to a churchman, on the score of religion;—and so tell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy.

"I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six to join the cavalcade, and I must follow with all the rest of the Ravenna world. Our old Cardinal is dead, and the new one not appointed yet; but the masquing goes on the same, the vice-legate being a good governor. We have had hideous frost and snow, but all is mild again.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 356. TO MR. BANKES.

"Ravenna, February 19. 1820.

"I have room for you in the house here, as I had in Venice, if you think fit to make use of it; but do not expect to find the same gorgeous suite of tapestried halls. Neither dangers nor tropical heats have ever prevented your penetrating wherever you had a mind to it, and why should the snow now?—Italian snow—fie on it!—so pray come. Tita's heart yearns for you, and mayhap for your silver broad pieces; and your playfellow, the monkey, is alone and inconsolable.

"I forget whether you admire or tolerate red hair, so that I rather dread showing you all that I have about me and around me in this city. Come, nevertheless,—you can pay Dante a morning visit, and I will undertake that Theodore and Honoria will be most happy to see you in the forest hard by. We Goths, also, of Ravenna, hope you will not despise our arch-Goth, Theodoric. I must leave it to these worthies to entertain you all the fore part of the day, seeing that I have none at all myself—the lark that rouses me from my slumbers, being an afternoon bird. But, then, all your evenings, and as much as you can give me of your nights, will be mine. Ay! and you will find me eating flesh, too, like yourself or any other cannibal, except it be upon Fridays. Then, there are more Cantos (and be d——d to them) of what the courteous reader, Mr. S——, calls Grub Street, in my drawer, which I have a little scheme to commit to your charge for England; only I must first cut up (or cut down) two aforesaid Cantos into three, because I am grown base and mercenary, and it is an ill precedent to let my Mecænas, Murray, get too much for his money. I am busy, also, with Pulci—translating—servilely translating, stanza for stanza, and line for line—two octaves every night,—the same allowance as at Venice.

"Would you call at your banker's at Bologna, and ask him for some letters lying there for me, and burn them?—or I will—so do not burn them, but bring them,—and believe me ever and very affectionately Yours,

"BYRON.

"P.S. I have a particular wish to hear from yourself something about Cyprus, so pray recollect all that you can.—Good night."

LETTER 357. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, February 21. 1820.

"The bull-dogs will be very agreeable. I have only those of this country, who, though good, have not the tenacity of tooth and stoicism in endurance of my canine fellow-citizens: then pray send them by the readiest conveyance—perhaps best by sea. Mr. Kinnaird will disburse for them, and deduct from the amount on your application or that of Captain Tyler.

"I see the good old King is gone to his place. One can't help being sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity, are supposed to be drawbacks on human felicity; but I am not at all sure that the latter, at least, might not render him happier than any of his subjects.

"I have no thoughts of coming to the coronation, though I should like to see it, and though I have a right to be a puppet in it; but my division with Lady Byron, which has drawn an equinoctial line between me and mine in all other things, will operate in this also to prevent my being in the same procession.

"By Saturday's post I sent you four packets, containing Cantos third and fourth. Recollect that these two cantos reckon only as one with you and me, being, in fact, the third canto cut into two, because I found it too long. Remember this, and don't imagine that there could be any other motive. The whole is about 225 stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of 96 lines, so that they are no longer than the first single cantos: but the truth is, that I made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had I thought better. Instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say so many stanzas or pages: it was Jacob Tonson's way, and certainly the best; it prevents mistakes. I might have sent you a dozen cantos of 40 stanzas each,—those of 'The Minstrel' (Beattie's) are no longer,—and ruined you at once, if you don't suffer as it is. But recollect that you are not pinned down to any thing you say in a letter, and that, calculating even these two cantos as one only (which they were and are to be reckoned), you are not bound by your offer. Act as may seem fair to all parties.

"I have finished my translation of the first Canto of 'The Morgante Maggiore' of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send. It is the parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but of all jocose Italian poetry. You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word.

"You ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on Italy. Perhaps I am in the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place particularly); but there are many reasons why I do not choose to treat in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 'amico di casa,' and sometimes as 'amico di cuore' of the Dama, and in neither case do I feel myself authorised in making a book of them. Their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you would all understand. The conventual education, the cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and living are so entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more striking the more you live intimately with them, that I know not how to make you comprehend a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their characters and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions and passions, which are at once sudden and durable (what you find in no other nation), and who actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by their comedies; they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni, and that is because they have no society to draw it from.

"Their conversazioni are not society at all. They go to the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. The women sit in a circle, and the men gather into groups, or they play at dreary faro, or 'lotto reale,' for small sums. Their academic are concerts like our own, with better music and more form. Their best things are the carnival balls and masquerades, when every body runs mad for six weeks. After their dinners and suppers they make extempore verses and buffoon one another; but it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of the north.

"In their houses it is better. I should know something of the matter, having had a pretty general experience among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the Nobil Dama, whom I serve. Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them in public as in private, whenever they can. In short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and strike the not out of that commandment. The reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You hear a person's character, male or female, canvassed not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto, I don't know that I could do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their Serventi—particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which is not often the case, however); so that you would often suppose them relations—the Servente making the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene: but this is at starting, generally, when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly,—and is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant.

"You enquire after Dante's Prophecy: I have not done more than six hundred lines, but will vaticinate at leisure.

"Of the bust I know nothing. No cameos or seals are to be cut here or elsewhere that I know of, in any good style. Hobhouse should write himself to Thorwaldsen: the bust was made and paid for three years ago.

"Pray tell Mrs. Leigh to request Lady Byron to urge forward the transfer from the funds. I wrote to Lady Byron on business this post, addressed to the care of Mr. D. Kinnaird."

LETTER 358. TO MR. BANKES.

"Ravenna, February 26. 1820.

"Pulci and I are waiting for you with impatience; but I suppose we must give way to the attraction of the Bolognese galleries for a time. I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the Venetian—above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mariscalchi in Bologna. The real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful. Buy her, by all means, if you can, and take her home with you: put her in safety: for be assured there are troublous times brewing for Italy; and as I never could keep out of a row in my life, it will be my fate, I dare say, to be over head and ears in it; but no matter, these are the stronger reasons for coming to see me soon.

"I have more of Scott's novels (for surely they are Scott's) since we met, and am more and more delighted. I think that I even prefer them to his poetry, which (by the way) I redde for the first time in my life in your rooms in Trinity College.

"There are some curious commentaries on Dante preserved here, which you should see. Believe me ever, faithfully and most affectionately, yours," &c.

LETTER 359. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 1. 1820.

"I sent you by last post the translation of the first Canto of the Morgante Maggiore, and wish you to ask Rose about the word 'sbergo,' i.e. 'usbergo,' which I have translated cuirass. I suspect that it means helmet also. Now, if so, which of the senses is best accordant with the text? I have adopted cuirass, but will be amenable to reasons. Of the natives, some say one, and some t'other: but they are no great Tuscans in Romagna. However, I will ask Sgricci (the famous improvisatore) to-morrow, who is a native of Arezzo. The Countess Guiccioli who is reckoned a very cultivated young lady, and the dictionary, say cuirass. I have written cuirass, but helmet runs in my head nevertheless—and will run in verse very well, whilk is the principal point. I will ask the Sposa Spina Spinelli, too, the Florentine bride of Count Gabriel Rusponi, just imported from Florence, and get the sense out of somebody.

"I have just been visiting the new Cardinal, who arrived the day before yesterday in his legation. He seems a good old gentleman, pious and simple, and not quite like his predecessor, who was a bon-vivant, in the worldly sense of the words.

"Enclosed is a letter which I received some time ago from Dallas. It will explain itself. I have not answered it. This comes of doing people good. At one time or another (including copyrights) this person has had about fourteen hundred pounds of my money, and he writes what he calls a posthumous work about me, and a scrubby letter accusing me of treating him ill, when I never did any such thing. It is true that I left off letter-writing, as I have done with almost everybody else; but I can't see how that was misusing him.

"I look upon his epistle as the consequence of my not sending him another hundred pounds, which he wrote to me for about two years ago, and which I thought proper to withhold, he having had his share, methought, of what I could dispone upon others.

"In your last you ask me after my articles of domestic wants; I believe they are as usual: the bull-dogs, magnesia, soda-powders, tooth-powders, brushes, and every thing of the kind which are here unattainable. You still ask me to return to England: alas! to what purpose? You do not know what you are requiring. Return I must, probably, some day or other (if I live), sooner or later; but it will not be for pleasure, nor can it end in good. You enquire after my health and SPIRITS in large letters: my health can't be very bad, for I cured myself of a sharp tertian ague, in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,—a circumstance which surprised Dr. Aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. I did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which I can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. As to spirits, they are unequal, now high, now low, like other people's I suppose, and depending upon circumstances.

"Pray send me W. Scott's new novels. What are their names and characters? I read some of his former ones, at least once a day, for an hour or so. The last are too hurried: he forgets Ravenswood's name, and calls him Edgar and then Norman; and Girder, the cooper, is styled now Gilbert, and now John; and he don't make enough of Montrose; but Dalgetty is excellent, and so is Lucy Ashton, and the b——h her mother. What is Ivanhoe? and what do you call his other? are there two? Pray make him write at least two a year: I like no reading so well.

"The editor of the Bologna Telegraph has sent me a paper with extracts from Mr. Mulock's (his name always reminds me of Muley Moloch of Morocco) 'Atheism answered,' in which there is a long eulogium of my poesy, and a great 'compatimento' for my misery. I never could understand what they mean by accusing me of irreligion. However, they may have it their own way. This gentleman seems to be my great admirer, so I take what he says in good part, as he evidently intends kindness, to which I can't accuse myself of being invincible.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 360. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 5. 1820.

"In case, in your country, you should not readily lay hands on the Morgante Maggiore, I send you the original text of the first Canto, to correspond with the translation which I sent you a few days ago. It is from the Naples edition in quarto of 1732,—dated Florence, however, by a trick of the trade, which you, as one of the allied sovereigns of the profession, will perfectly understand without any further spiegazione.

"It is strange that here nobody understands the real precise meaning of 'sbergo,' or 'usbergo[68],' an old Tuscan word, which I have rendered cuirass (but am not sure it is not helmet). I have asked at least twenty people, learned and ignorant, male and female, including poets, and officers civil and military. The dictionary says cuirass, but gives no authority; and a female friend of mine says positively cuirass, which makes me doubt the fact still more than before. Ginguené says 'bonnet de fer,' with the usual superficial decision of a Frenchman, so that I can't believe him: and what between the dictionary, the Italian woman, and the Frenchman, there's no trusting to a word they say. The context, too, which should decide, admits equally of either meaning, as you will perceive. Ask Rose, Hobhouse, Merivale, and Foscolo, and vote with the majority. Is Frere a good Tuscan? if he be, bother him too. I have tried, you see, to be as accurate as I well could. This is my third or fourth letter, or packet, within the last twenty days."

LETTER 361. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 14. 1820.

"Enclosed is Dante's Prophecy—Vision—or what not.[69] Where I have left more than one reading (which I have done often), you may adopt that which Gifford, Frere, Rose, and Hobhouse, and others of your Utican Senate think the best or least bad. The preface will explain all that is explicable. These are but the four first cantos: if approved, I will go on.

"Pray mind in printing; and let some good Italian scholar correct the Italian quotations.

"Four days ago I was overturned in an open carriage between the river and a steep bank:—wheels dashed to pieces, slight bruises, narrow escape, and all that; but no harm done, though coachman, foot-man, horses, and vehicle, were all mixed together like macaroni. It was owing to bad driving, as I say; but the coachman swears to a start on the part of the horses. We went against a post on the verge of a steep bank, and capsized. I usually go out of the town in a carriage, and meet the saddle horses at the bridge; it was in going there that we boggled; but I got my ride, as usual, after the accident. They say here it was all owing to St. Antonio of Padua, (serious, I assure you,)—who does thirteen miracles a day,—that worse did not come of it. I have no objection to this being his fourteenth in the four-and-twenty-hours. He presides over overturns and all escapes therefrom, it seems: and they dedicate pictures, &c. to him, as the sailors once did to Neptune, after 'the high Roman fashion.'

"Yours, in haste."

LETTER 362. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 20. 1820.

"Last post I sent you 'The Vision of Dante,'—four first Cantos. Enclosed you will find, line for line, in third rhyme (terza rima), of which your British blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, Fanny of Rimini. You know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from Gary, Boyd, and such people. I have done it into cramp English, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. You had best append it to the poems already sent by last three posts. I shall not allow you to play the tricks you did last year, with the prose you post-scribed to Mazeppa, which I sent to you not to be published, if not in a periodical paper,—and there you tacked it, without a word of explanation. If this is published, publish it with the original, and together with the Pulci translation, or the Dante imitation. I suppose you have both by now, and the Juan long before.

"FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

"Translation from the Inferno of Dante, Canto 5th.

LETTER 363. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 23. 1820.

"I have received your letter of the 7th. Besides the four packets you have already received, I have sent the Pulci a few days after, and since (a few days ago) the four first Cantos of Dante's Prophecy, (the best thing I ever wrote, if it be not unintelligible,) and by last post a literal translation, word for word (versed like the original), of the episode of Francesca of Rimini. I want to hear what you think of the new Juans, and the translations, and the Vision. They are all things that are, or ought to be, very different from one another.

"If you choose to make a print from the Venetian, you may; but she don't correspond at all to the character you mean her to represent. On the contrary, the Contessa G. does (except that she is fair), and is much prettier than the Fornarina; but I have no picture of her except a miniature, which is very ill done; and, besides, it would not be proper, on any account whatever, to make such a use of it, even if you had a copy.

"Recollect that the two new Cantos only count with us for one. You may put the Pulci and Dante together: perhaps that were best. So you have put your name to Juan, after all your panic. You are a rare fellow. I must now put myself in a passion to continue my prose. Yours," &c.

"I have caused write to Thorwaldsen. Pray be careful in sending my daughter's picture—I mean, that it be not hurt in the carriage, for it is a journey rather long and jolting."

LETTER 364. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 28. 1820.

"Enclosed is a 'Screed of Doctrine' for you, of which I will trouble you to acknowledge the receipt by next post. Mr. Hobhouse must have the correction of it for the press. You may show it first to whom you please.

"I wish to know what became of my two Epistles from St. Paul (translated from the Armenian three years ago and more), and of the letter to R——ts of last autumn, which you never have attended to? There are two packets with this.

"P.S. I have some thoughts of publishing the 'Hints from Horace,' written ten years ago[71],—if Hobhouse can rummage them out of my papers left at his father's,—with some omissions and alterations previously to be made when I see the proofs."

LETTER 365. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 29. 1820.

"Herewith you will receive a note (enclosed) on Pope, which you will find tally with a part of the text of last post. I have at last lost all patience with the atrocious cant and nonsense about Pope, with which our present * *s are overflowing, and am determined to make such head against it as an individual can, by prose or verse; and I will at least do it with good will. There is no bearing it any longer; and if it goes on, it will destroy what little good writing or taste remains amongst us. I hope there are still a few men of taste to second me; but if not, I'll battle it alone, convinced that it is in the best cause of English literature.

"I have sent you so many packets, verse and prose, lately, that you will be tired of the postage, if not of the perusal. I want to answer some parts of your last letter, but I have not time, for I must 'boot and saddle,' as my Captain Craigengelt (an officer of the old Napoleon Italian army) is in waiting, and my groom and cattle to boot.

"You have given me a screed of metaphor and what not about Pulci, and manners, and 'going without clothes, like our Saxon ancestors.' Now, the Saxons did not go without clothes; and, in the next place, they are not my ancestors, nor yours either; for mine were Norman, and yours, I take it by your name, were Gael. And, in the next, I differ from you about the 'refinement' which has banished the comedies of Congreve. Are not the comedies of Sheridan? acted to the thinnest houses? I know (as ex-committed) that 'The School for Scandal' was the worst stock piece upon record. I also know that Congreve gave up writing because Mrs. Centlivre's balderdash drove his comedies off. So it is not decency, but stupidity, that does all this; for Sheridan is as decent a writer as need be, and Congreve no worse than Mrs. Centlivre, of whom Wilks (the actor) said, 'not only her play would be damned, but she too.' He alluded to 'A Bold Stroke for a Wife.' But last, and most to the purpose, Pulci is not an indecent writer—at least in his first Canto, as you will have perceived by this time.

"You talk of refinement:—are you all more moral? are you so moral? No such thing. I know what the world is in England, by my own proper experience of the best of it—at least of the loftiest; and I have described it every where as it is to be found in all places.

"But to return. I should like to see the proofs of mine answer, because there will be something to omit or to alter. But pray let it be carefully printed. When convenient let me have an answer.

"Yours."

LETTER 366. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, March 31. 1820.

"Ravenna continues much the same as I described it. Conversazioni all Lent, and much better ones than any at Venice. There are small games at hazard, that is, faro, where nobody can point more than a shilling or two;—other card-tables, and as much talk and coffee as you please. Every body does and says what they please; and I do not recollect any disagreeable events, except being three times falsely accused of flirtation, and once being robbed of six sixpences by a nobleman of the city, a Count * * *. I did not suspect the illustrious delinquent; but the Countess V * * * and the Marquis L * * * told me of it directly, and also that it was a way he had, of filching money when he saw it before him; but I did not ax him for the cash, but contented myself with telling him that if he did it again, I should anticipate the law.

"There is to be a theatre in April, and a fair, and an opera, and another opera in June, besides the fine weather of nature's giving, and the rides in the Forest of Pine. With my best respects to Mrs. Hoppner, believe me ever, &c. BYRON.

"P.S. Could you give me an item of what books remain at Venice? I don't want them, but want to know whether the few that are not here are there, and were not lost by the way. I hope and trust you have got all your wine safe, and that it is drinkable. Allegra is prettier, I think, but as obstinate as a mule, and as ravenous as a vulture: health good, to judge of the complexion—temper tolerable, but for vanity and pertinacity. She thinks herself handsome, and will do as she pleases."

LETTER 367. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, April 9. 1820.

"In the name of all the devils in the printing-office, why don't you write to acknowledge the receipt of the second, third, and fourth packets, viz. the Pulci translation and original, the Danticles, the Observations on, &c.? You forget that you keep me in hot water till I know whether they are arrived, or if I must have the bore of re-copying.

"Have you gotten the cream of translations, Francesca of Rimini, from the Inferno? Why, I have sent you a warehouse of trash within the last month, and you have no sort of feeling about you: a pastry-cook would have had twice the gratitude, and thanked me at least for the quantity.

"To make the letter heavier, I enclose you the Cardinal Legate's (our Campeius) circular for his conversazione this evening. It is the anniversary of the Pope's tiara-tion, and all polite Christians, even of the Lutheran creed, must go and be civil. And there will be a circle, and a faro-table, (for shillings, that is, they don't allow high play,) and all the beauty, nobility, and sanctity of Ravenna present. The Cardinal himself is a very good-natured little fellow, bishop of Muda, and legate here,—a decent believer in all the doctrines of the church. He has kept his housekeeper these forty years * * * *; but is reckoned a pious man, and a moral liver.

"I am not quite sure that I won't be among you this autumn, for I find that business don't go on—what with trustees and lawyers—as it should do, 'with all deliberate speed.' They differ about investments in Ireland.

I am puzzled; and so much time is lost by my not being upon the spot, what with answers, demurs, rejoinders, that it may be I must come and look to it; for one says do, and t'other don't, so that I know not which way to turn: but perhaps they can manage without me.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. I have begun a tragedy on the subject of Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice; but you sha'n't see it these six years, if you don't acknowledge my packets with more quickness and precision. Always write, if but a line, by return of post, when any thing arrives, which is not a mere letter.

"Address direct to Ravenna; it saves a week's time, and much postage."

LETTER 368. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, April 16. 1820.

"Post after post arrives without bringing any acknowledgment from you of the different packets (excepting the first) which I sent within the last two months, all of which ought to be arrived long ere now; and as they were announced in other letters, you ought at least to say whether they are come or not. You are not expected to write frequent, or long letters, as your time is much occupied; but when parcels that have cost some pains in the composition, and great trouble in the copying, are sent to you, I should at least be put out of suspense, by the immediate acknowledgment, per return of post, addressed directly to Ravenna. I am naturally—knowing what continental posts are—anxious to hear that they are arrived; especially as I loathe the task of copying so much, that if there was a human being that could copy my blotted MSS. he should have all they can ever bring for his trouble. All I desire is two lines, to say, such a day I received such a packet. There are at least six unacknowledged. This is neither kind nor courteous.

"I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is THAT brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication, and set all your Anglo-travellers flying in every direction, with their usual fortitude in foreign tumults. The Spanish and French affairs have set the Italians in a ferment; and no wonder: they have been too long trampled on. This will make a sad scene for your exquisite traveller, but not for the resident, who naturally wishes a people to redress itself. I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, and perhaps to take a turn with them, like Dugald Dalgetty and his horse, in case of business; for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence. But they want union, and they want principle; and I doubt their success. However, they will try, probably, and if they do, it will be a good cause. No Italian can hate an Austrian more than I do: unless it be the English, the Austrians seem to me the most obnoxious race under the sky.

"But I doubt, if any thing be done, it won't be so quietly as in Spain. To be sure, revolutions are not to be made with rose-water, where there are foreigners as masters.

"Write while you can; for it is but the toss up of a paul that there will not be a row that will somewhat retard the mail by and by.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 369. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, April 18. 1820.

"I have caused write to Siri and Willhalm to send with Vincenza, in a boat, the camp-beds and swords left in their care when I quitted Venice. There are also several pounds of Mantons best powder in a Japan case; but unless I felt sure of getting it away from V. without seizure, I won't have it ventured. I can get it in here, by means of an acquaintance in the customs, who has offered to get it ashore for me; but should like to be certiorated of its safety in leaving Venice. I would not lose it for its weight in gold—there is none such in Italy, as I take it to be.

"I wrote to you a week or so ago, and hope you are in good plight and spirits. Sir Humphry Davy is here, and was last night at the Cardinal's. As I had been there last Sunday, and yesterday was warm, I did not go, which I should have done, if I had thought of meeting the man of chemistry. He called this morning, and I shall go in search of him at Corso time. I believe to-day, being Monday, there is no great conversazione, and only the family one at the Marchese Cavalli's, where I go as a relation sometimes, so that, unless he stays a day or two, we should hardly meet in public.

"The theatre is to open in May for the fair, if there is not a row in all Italy by that time,—the Spanish business has set them all a constitutioning, and what will be the end, no one knows—it is also necessary thereunto to have a beginning.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. My benediction to Mrs. Hoppner. How is your little boy? Allegra is growing, and has increased in good looks and obstinacy."

LETTER 370. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, April 23. 1820.

"The proofs don't contain the last stanzas of Canto second, but end abruptly with the 105th stanza.

"I told you long ago that the new Cantos[72] were not good, and I also told you a reason. Recollect, I do not oblige you to publish them; you may suppress them, if you like, but I can alter nothing. I have erased the six stanzas about those two impostors * * * * (which I suppose will give you great pleasure), but I can do no more. I can neither recast, nor replace; but I give you leave to put it all into the fire, if you like, or not to publish, and I think that's sufficient.

"I told you that I wrote on with no good will—that I had been, not frightened, but hurt by the outcry, and, besides, that when I wrote last November, I was ill in body, and in very great distress of mind about some private things of my own; but you would have it: so I sent it to you, and to make it lighter, cut it in two—but I can't piece it together again. I can't cobble: I must 'either make a spoon or spoil a horn,'—and there's an end; for there's no remeid: but I leave you free will to suppress the whole, if you like it.

"About the Morgante Maggiore, I won't have a line omitted. It may circulate, or it may not; but all the criticism on earth sha'n't touch a line, unless it be because it is badly translated. Now you say, and I say, and others say, that the translation is a good one; and so it shall go to press as it is. Pulci must answer for his own irreligion: I answer for the translation only.

"Pray let Mr. Hobhouse look to the Italian next time in the proofs: this time, while I am scribbling to you, they are corrected by one who passes for the prettiest woman in Romagna, and even the Marches, as far as Ancona, be the other who she may.

"I am glad you like my answer to your enquiries about Italian society. It is fit you should like something, and be d——d to you.

"My love to Scott. I shall think higher of knighthood ever after for his being dubbed. By the way, he is the first poet titled for his talent in Britain: it has happened abroad before now; but on the Continent titles are universal and worthless. Why don't you send me Ivanhoe and the Monastery? I have never written to Sir Walter, for I know he has a thousand things, and I a thousand nothings, to do; but I hope to see him at Abbotsford before very long, and I will sweat his claret for him, though Italian abstemiousness has made my brain but a shilpit concern for a Scotch sitting 'inter pocula.' I love Scott, and Moore, and all the better brethren; but I hate and abhor that puddle of water-worms whom you have taken into your troop.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. You say that one half is very good: you are wrong; for, if it were, it would be the finest poem in existence. Where is the poetry of which one half is good? is it the Æneid? is it Milton's? is it Dryden's? is it any one's except Pope's and Goldsmith's, of which all is good? and yet these two last are the poets your pond poets would explode. But if one half of the two new Cantos be good in your opinion, what the devil would you have more? No—no; no poetry is generally good—only by fits and starts—and you are lucky to get a sparkle here and there. You might as well want a midnight all stars as rhyme all perfect.

"We are on the verge of a row here. Last night they have overwritten all the city walls with 'Up with the republic!' and 'Death to the Pope!' &c. &c. This would be nothing in London, where the walls are privileged. But here it is a different thing: they are not used to such fierce political inscriptions, and the police is all on the alert, and the Cardinal glares pale through all his purple.

"April 24. 1820. 8 o'clock, P.M.

"The police have been, all noon and after, searching for the inscribers, but have caught none as yet. They must have been all night about it, for the 'Live republics—Death to Popes and Priests,' are innumerable, and plastered over all the palaces: ours has plenty. There is 'Down with the Nobility,' too; they are down enough already, for that matter. A very heavy rain and wind having come on, I did not go out and 'skirr the country;' but I shall mount to-morrow, and take a canter among the peasantry, who are a savage, resolute race, always riding with guns in their hands. I wonder they don't suspect the serenaders, for they play on the guitar here all night, as in Spain, to their mistresses.

"Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my Ode on Waterloo, written in the year 1815, and, comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of 'Vates' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?

and have not they?

"I can't pretend to foresee what will happen among you Englishers at this distance, but I vaticinate a row in Italy; in whilk case, I don't know that I won't have a finger in it. I dislike the Austrians, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, I will recommend 'the erection of a sconce upon Drumsnab,' like Dugald Dalgetty."

LETTER 371. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 8. 1820.

"From your not having written again, an intention which your letter of the 7th ultimo indicated, I have to presume that the 'Prophecy of Dante' has not been found more worthy than its predecessors in the eyes of your illustrious synod. In that case, you will be in some perplexity; to end which, I repeat to you, that you are not to consider yourself as bound or pledged to publish any thing because it is mine, but always to act according to your own views, or opinions, or those of your friends; and to be sure that you will in no degree offend me by 'declining the article,' to use a technical phrase. The prose observations on John Wilson's attack, I do not intend for publication at this time; and I send a copy of verses to Mr. Kinnaird (they were written last year on crossing the Po) which must not be published either. I mention this, because it is probable he may give you a copy. Pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions. And, moreover, I can't consent to any mutilations or omissions of Pulci: the original has been ever free from such in Italy, the capital of Christianity, and the translation may be so in England; though you will think it strange that they should have allowed such freedom for many centuries to the Morgante, while the other day they confiscated the whole translation of the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, and have persecuted Leoni, the translator—so he writes me, and so I could have told him, had he consulted me before his publication. This shows how much more politics interest men in these parts than religion. Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate Childe Harold in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing monks and knights, and church government, are let loose for centuries. I copy Leoni's account.

"'Non ignorerà forse che la mia versione del 4° Canto del Childe Harold fu confiscata in ogni parte: ed io stesso ho dovuto soffrir vessazioni altrettanto ridicole quanto illiberaii, ad arte che alcuni versi fossero esclusi dalla censura. Ma siccome il divieto non fa d'ordinario che accrescere la curiosita cos! quel carme sull' Italia è ricercato più che mai, e penso di farlo ristampare in Inghil-terra senza nulla escludere. Sciagurata condizione di questa mia patria! se patria si può chiamare una terra così avvilita dalla fortuna, dagli uomini, da se medesima.'

"Rose will translate this to you. Has he had his letter? I enclosed it to you months ago.

"This intended piece of publication I shall dissuade him from, or he may chance to see the inside of St. Angelo's. The last sentence of his letter is the common and pathetic sentiment of all his countrymen.

"Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth ascension to Mount Vesuvius, asked 'if there was not a similar volcano in Ireland?' My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but, on second thoughts, I divined that she alluded to Iceland and to Hecla—and so it proved, though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the amiable pertinacity of 'the feminie.' She soon after turned to me and asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call him?' said she. 'A great chemist,' quoth I. 'What can he do?' repeated the lady. 'Almost any thing,' said I. 'Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come off; and besides, they don't grow; can't he invent something to make them grow?' All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated and clever. But they speak like children, when first out of their convents; and, after all, this is better than an English blue-stocking.

"I did not tell Sir Humphry of this last piece of philosophy, not knowing how he might take it. Davy was much taken with Ravenna, and the PRIMITIVE Italianism of the people, who are unused to foreigners: but he only stayed a day.

"Send me Scott's novels and some news.

"P.S. I have begun and advanced into the second act of a tragedy on the subject of the Doge's conspiracy (i.e. the story of Marino Faliero); but my present feeling is so little encouraging on such matters, that I begin to think I have mined my talent out, and proceed in no great phantasy of finding a new vein.

"P.S. I sometimes think (if the Italians don't rise) of coming over to England in the autumn after the coronation, (at which I would not appear, on account of my family schism,) but as yet I can decide nothing. The place must be a great deal changed since I left it, now more than four years ago."

LETTER 372. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 20. 1820.

"Murray, my dear, make my respects to Thomas Campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right in his poets: Firstly, he says Anstey's Bath Guide characters are taken from Smollett. 'Tis impossible:—the Guide was published in 1766, and Humphrey Clinker in 1771—dunque, 'tis Smollett who has taken from Anstey. Secondly, he does not know to whom Cowper alludes, when he says that there was one who 'built a church to God, and then blasphemed his name:' it was 'Deo erexit Voltaire' to whom that maniacal Calvinist and coddled poet alludes. Thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from Shakspeare, 'to gild refined gold, to paint the lily,' &c.; for lily he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole quotation.

"Now, Tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct; for the first is an injustice (to Anstey), the second an ignorance, and the third a blunder. Tell him all this, and let him take it in good part; for I might have rammed it into a review and rowed him—instead of which, I act like a Christian.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 373. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, May 20. 1820.

"First and foremost, you must forward my letter to Moore dated 2d January, which I said you might open, but desired you to forward. Now, you should really not forget these little things, because they do mischief among friends. You are an excellent man, a great man, and live among great men, but do pray recollect your absent friends and authors.

"In the first place, your packets; then a letter from Kinnaird, on the most urgent business; another from Moore, about a communication to Lady Byron of importance; a fourth from the mother of Allegra; and, fifthly, at Ravenna, the Countess G. is on the eve of being separated. But the Italian public are on her side, particularly the women,—and the men also, because they say that he had no business to take the business up now after a year of toleration. All her relations (who are numerous, high in rank, and powerful) are furious against him for his conduct. I am warned to be on my guard, as he is very capable of employing sicarii—this is Latin as well as Italian, so you can understand it; but I have arms, and don't mind them, thinking that I could pepper his ragamuffins, if they don't come unawares, and that, if they do, one may as well end that way as another; and it would besides serve you as an advertisement:—

"Yours.

"P.S. I have looked over the press, but heaven knows how. Think what I have on hand and the post going out to-morrow. Do you remember the epitaph on Voltaire?

The original is in Grimm and Diderot, &c. &c. &c."

LETTER 374. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, May 24. 1820.

"I wrote to you a few days ago. There is also a letter of January last for you at Murray's, which will explain to you why I am here. Murray ought to have forwarded it long ago. I enclose you an epistle from a countrywoman of yours at Paris, which has moved my entrails. You will have the goodness, perhaps, to enquire into the truth of her story, and I will help her as far as I can,—though not in the useless way she proposes. Her letter is evidently unstudied, and so natural, that the orthography is also in a state of nature.

"Here is a poor creature, ill and solitary, who thinks, as a last resource, of translating you or me into French! Was there ever such a notion? It seems to me the consummation of despair. Pray enquire, and let me know, and, if you could draw a bill on me here for a few hundred francs, at your banker's, I will duly honour it,—that is, if she is not an impostor.[73] If not, let me know, that I may get something remitted by my banker Longhi, of Bologna, for I have no correspondence myself, at Paris: but tell her she must not translate;—if she does, it will be the height of ingratitude.

"I had a letter (not of the same kind, but in French and flattery) from a Madame Sophie Gail, of Paris, whom I take to be the spouse of a Gallo-Greek of that name. Who is she? and what is she? and how came she to take an interest in my poeshie or its author? If you know her, tell her, with my compliments, that, as I only read French, I have not answered her letter; but would have done so in Italian, if I had not thought it would look like an affectation. I have just been scolding my monkey for tearing the seal of her letter, and spoiling a mock book, in which I put rose leaves. I had a civet-cat the other day, too; but it ran away, after scratching my monkey's cheek, and I am in search of it still. It was the fiercest beast I ever saw, and like * * in the face and manner.

"I have a world of things to say; but, as they are not come to a dénouement, I don't care to begin their history till it is wound up. After you went, I had a fever, but got well again without bark. Sir Humphry Davy was here the other day, and liked Ravenna very much. He will tell you any thing you may wish to know about the place and your humble servitor.

"Your apprehensions (arising from Scott's) were unfounded. There are no damages in this country, but there will probably be a separation between them, as her family, which is a principal one, by its connections, are very much against him, for the whole of his conduct;—and he is old and obstinate, and she is young and a woman, determined to sacrifice every thing to her affections. I have given her the best advice, viz. to stay with him,—pointing out the state of a separated woman, (for the priests won't let lovers live openly together, unless the husband sanctions it,) and making the most exquisite moral reflections,—but to no purpose. She says, 'I will stay with him, if he will let you remain with me. It is hard that I should be the only woman in Romagna who is not to have her Amico; but, if not, I will not live with him; and as for the consequences, love, &c. &c. &c.'—you know how females reason on such occasions.

"He says he has let it go on till he can do so no longer. But he wants her to stay, and dismiss me; for he doesn't like to pay back her dowry and to make an alimony. Her relations are rather for the separation, as they detest him,—indeed, so does every body. The populace and the women are, as usual, all for those who are in the wrong, viz. the lady and her lover. I should have retreated, but honour, and an erysipelas which has attacked her, prevent me,—to say nothing of love, for I love her most entirely, though not enough to persuade her to sacrifice every thing to a frenzy. 'I see how it will end; she will be the sixteenth Mrs. Shuffleton.'

"My paper is finished, and so must this letter.

"Yours ever, B.

"P.S. I regret that you have not completed the Italian Fudges. Pray, how come you to be still in Paris? Murray has four or five things of mine in hand—the new Don Juan, which his back-shop synod don't admire;—a translation of the first Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, excellent;—short ditto from Dante, not so much approved; the Prophecy of Dante, very grand and worthy, &c. &c. &c.;—a furious prose answer to Blackwood's Observations on Don Juan, with a savage Defence of Pope—likely to make a row. The opinions above I quote from Murray and his Utican senate;—you will form your own, when you see the things.

"You will have no great chance of seeing me, for I begin to think I must finish in Italy. But, if you come my way, you shall have a tureen of macaroni. Pray tell me about yourself, and your intents.

"My trustees are going to lend Earl Blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a Dublin mortgage. Only think of my becoming an Irish absentee!"

LETTER 375. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, May 25. 1820.

"A German named Ruppsecht has sent me, heaven knows why, several Deutsche Gazettes, of all which I understand neither word nor letter. I have sent you the enclosed to beg you to translate to me some remarks, which appear to be Goethe's upon Manfred—and if I may judge by two notes of admiration (generally put after something ridiculous by us) and the word 'hypocondrisch,' are any thing but favourable. I shall regret this, for I should have been proud of Goethe's good word; but I sha'n't alter my opinion of him, even though he should be savage.

"Will you excuse this trouble, and do me this favour?—Never mind—soften nothing—I am literary proof—having had good and evil said in most modern languages.

"Believe me," &c.

LETTER 376. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, June 1. 1820,

"I have received a Parisian letter from W.W., which I prefer answering through you, if that worthy be still at Paris, and, as he says, an occasional visiter of yours. In November last he wrote to me a well-meaning letter, stating, for some reasons of his own, his belief that a re-union might be effected between Lady B. and myself. To this I answered as usual; and he sent me a second letter, repeating his notions, which letter I have never answered, having had a thousand other things to think of. He now writes as if he believed that he had offended me by touching on the topic; and I wish you to assure him that I am not at all so,—but, on the contrary, obliged by his good nature. At the same time acquaint him the thing is impossible. You know this, as well as I,—and there let it end.

"I believe that I showed you his epistle in autumn last. He asks me if I have heard of my 'laureat' at Paris[74],—somebody who has written 'a most sanguinary Epître' against me; but whether in French, or Dutch, or on what score, I know not, and he don't say,—except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best thing in the fellow's volume. If there is any thing of the kind that I ought to know, you will doubtless tell me. I suppose it to be something of the usual sort;—he says, he don't remember the author's name.

"I wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your leisure.

"The separation business still continues, and all the world are implicated, including priests and cardinals. The public opinion is furious against him, because he ought to have cut the matter short at first, and not waited twelve months to begin. He has been trying at evidence, but can get none sufficient; for what would make fifty divorces in England won't do here—there must be the most decided proofs.

"It is the first cause of the kind attempted in Ravenna for these two hundred years; for, though they often separate, they assign a different motive. You know that the continental incontinent are more delicate than the English, and don't like proclaiming their coronation in a court, even when nobody doubts it.

"All her relations are furious against him. The father has challenged him—a superfluous valour, for he don't fight, though suspected of two assassinations—one of the famous Monzoni of Forli. Warning was given me not to take such long rides in the Pine Forest without being on my guard; so I take my stiletto and a pair of pistols in my pocket during my daily rides.

"I won't stir from this place till the matter is settled one way or the other. She is as femininely firm as possible; and the opinion is so much against him, that the advocates decline to undertake his cause, because they say that he is either a fool or a rogue—fool, if he did not discover the liaison till now; and rogue, if he did know it, and waited, for some bad end, to divulge it. In short, there has been nothing like it since the days of Guido di Polenta's family, in these parts.

"If the man has me taken off, like Polonius 'say, he made a good end,'—for a melodrama. The principal security is, that he has not the courage to spend twenty scudi—the average price of a clean-handed bravo—otherwise there is no want of opportunity, for I ride about the woods every evening, with one servant, and sometimes an acquaintance, who latterly looks a little queer in solitary bits of bushes.

"Good bye.—Write to yours ever," &c.

LETTER 377. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, June 7. 1820.

"Enclosed is something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of the greatest man of Germany—perhaps of Europe—upon one of the great men of your advertisements, (all 'famous hands,' as Jacob Tonson used to say of his ragamuffins,)—in short, a critique of Goethe's upon Manfred. There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian one; keep them all in your archives,—for the opinions of such a man as Goethe, whether favourable or not, are always interesting—and this is more so, as favourable. His Faust I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, translated most of it to me vivâ voce, and I was naturally much struck with it; but it was the Steinbach and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The first scene, however, and that of Faustus are very similar. Acknowledge this letter.

"Yours ever.

"P.S. I have received Ivanhoe;—good. Pray send me some tooth-powder and tincture of myrrh, by Waite, &c. Ricciardetto should have been translated literally, or not at all. As to puffing Whistlecraft, it won't do. I'll tell you why some day or other. Cornwall's a poet, but spoilt by the detestable schools of the day. Mrs. Hemans is a poet also, but too stiltified and apostrophic,—and quite wrong. Men died calmly before the Christian era, and since, without Christianity: witness the Romans, and, lately, Thistlewood, Sandt, and Lovel—men who ought to have been weighed down with their crimes, even had they believed. A deathbed is a matter of nerves and constitution, and not of religion. Voltaire was frightened, Frederick of Prussia not: Christians the same, according to their strength rather than their creed. What does H * * H * * mean by his stanza? which is octave got drunk or gone mad. He ought to have his ears boxed with Thor's hammer for rhyming so fantastically."

The following is the article from Goethe's "Kunst und Alterthum," enclosed in this letter. The grave confidence with which the venerable critic traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events, making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence to furnish grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition so prevalent throughout Europe, to picture Byron as a man of marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. To these exaggerated, or wholly false notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed upon the world of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in places he never saw, and with persons that never existed[75], have, no doubt, considerably contributed; and the consequence is, so utterly out of truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long current upon the Continent, that it may be questioned whether the real "flesh and blood" hero of these pages,—the social, practical-minded, and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron,—may not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers, appear but an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage.

"GOETHE ON MANFRED.

[1820.]

"Byron's tragedy, Manfred, was to me a wonderful phenomenon, and one that closely touched me. This singular intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strongest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius. The whole is in this way so completely formed anew, that it would be an interesting task for the critic to point out not only the alterations he has made, but their degree of resemblance with, or dissimilarity to, the original: in the course of which I cannot deny that the gloomy heat of an unbounded and exuberant despair becomes at last oppressive to us. Yet is the dissatisfaction we feel always connected with esteem and admiration.

"We find thus in this tragedy the quintessence of the most astonishing talent born to be its own tormentor. The character of Lord Byron's life and poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. He has often enough confessed what it is that torments him. He has repeatedly pourtrayed it; and scarcely any one feels compassion for this intolerable suffering, over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. There are, properly speaking, two females whose phantoms for ever haunt him, and which, in this piece also, perform principal parts—one under the name of Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former, the following is related:—When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in the street, and there was no one on whom any suspicion could be attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted him all his life after.