I told you long ago that the new Cantos1 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, Southey and Wordsworth (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 would have it: so I sent it to you, 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, you like it. if About the Morgante Maggiore, I won't have a line omitted: it may circulate, or it may not; but all the Criticism on earth shan'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. 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 1 "Don Juan," Cantos III, IV. "Into the marble chaos driven - Prophecy of Dante, Canto IV, p. 172. 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 shilpit1 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 waterworms whom you have taken into your troop in the history line I see. I am obliged to end abruptly. Yours, B. P. S. You say that one half2 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? Nono 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. -- 1 Balmawhapple, carousing at Luckie Macleary's, and fortified by the Bear and the Hen, “pronounced the claret shilpit, and demanded brandy with great vociferation" (Waverley, Chap. xi). 2 Of "Don Juan." TO THOMAS MOORE RAVENNA, August 31, 1820. I verily believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical temperament, can avoid a strong passion of some kind. It is the poetry of life. What should I have known or , written, had I been a quiet, mercantile politician, or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence. Besides, I only meant to be a Cavalier Servente, and had no idea it would turn out a romance, in the Anglo fashion. However, I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy – more than Lady Morgan has picked up in her posting. What do Englishmen know of Italians beyond their museums and saloons - and some hack en passant? Now, I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of Italy freshest and least influenced by strangers, - have seen and become (pars magna fui) a portion of their hopes, and fears, and passions, and am almost inoculated into a family. This is to see men and things as they are. You say that I called you "quiet"-I don't recollect anything of the sort. On the contrary, you are always in Read Schlegel. Of Dante he says, "that at no time has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever |