to be at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool who travels now in France or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept home again. In two or three years the first rush will be over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable.

"I stayed at Venice chiefly because it is not one of their dens of thieves;' and here they but pause and pass. In Switzerland it was really noxious. Luckily, I was early, and had got the prettiest place on all the Lake before they were quickened into motion with the rest of the reptiles. But they crossed me every where. I met a family of children and old women half-way up the Wengen Alp (by the Jungfrau) upon mules, some of them too old and others too young to be the least aware of what they saw.

"By the way, I think the Jungfrau, and all that region of Alps, which I traversed in September-going to the very top of the Wengen, which is not the highest (the Jungfrau itself is inaccessible), but the best point of view-much finer than Mont-Blanc and Chamouni, or the Simplon. I kept a journal of the whole for my sister Augusta, part of which she copied and let Murray see.

"I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of introducing the Alpine scenery in description: and this I sent lately to Murray. Almost all the dram. pers. are spirits, ghosts, or magicians, and the scene is in the Alps and the other world, so you may suppose what a Bedlam tragedy it must be make him show it you. I sent him all three acts piece-meal, by the post, and suppose they arrived.

"I have now written to you at least six letters, or letterets, and all I have received in return is a note about the length you used to write from Bury-street to St. James's-street, when we used to dine with Rogers, and talk laxly, and go to parties, and hear poor Sheridan now and then. Do you remember one night he was so tipsy that I was forced to put his cocked hat on for him, for he could not,--and I let him down at Brookes's, much as he must since have been let down into his grave. Heigh ho! I wish I was drunk-but I have nothing but this d―d barleywater before me.

"I am still in love,-which is a dreadful drawback in quitting a place, and I can't stay at Venice much longer. What I shall do on this point I don't know. The girl means to go with me, but I do not like this for her own sake. I have had so many conflicts in my own mind on this subject, that I am not at all sure they did not help me to the fever I mentioned above. I am certainly very much attached to her, and I have cause to be so, if you knew all. But she has a child; and though, like all the children of the sun,' she consults nothing but passion, it is necessary I should think for both; and it is only the virtuous, like * * * *, who can afford to give up husband and child, and live happy ever after. The Italian ethics are the most singular ever met with. The perversion, not only of action, but of reasoning, is singular in the women. It is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but love (the sentiment of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but make it an actual virtue, provided it is disinterested, and not a caprice,

and is confined to one object. They have awful notions of constancy; for I have seen some ancient figures of eighty pointed out as amorosi of forty, fifty, and sixty years' standing. I can't say I have ever seen a husband and wife so coupled. Ever, &c.

"P.S. Marianna, to whom I have just translated what I have written on our subject to you, says-' If you loved me thoroughly, you would not make so many fine reflections, which are only good forbirsi i scarpi,' —that is, to clean shoes withal,'-a Venetian proverb of appreciation, which is applicable to reasoning of all kinds."

"Venice, March 25, 1817.

this

"Your letter aud enclosure are safe; but English gentlemen' are very rare at least in Venice. I doubt whether there are at present any, save the consul and vice-consul, with neither of whom I have the slightest acquaintance. The moment I can pounce upon a witness, I will send the deed properly signed: but must he necessarily be genteel? Venice is not a place where the English are gregarious; their pigeonhouses are Florence, Naples, Rome, &c.; and to tell you the truth, was one reason why I stayed here till the season of the purgation of Rome from these people, which is infected with them at this time, should arrive. Besides, I abhor the nation and the nation me; it is impossible for me to describe my own sensation on that point, but it may suffice to say, that, if I met with any of the race in the beautiful parts of Switzerland, the most distant glimpse or aspect of them poisoned the whole scene, and I do not choose to have the Pantheon, and St. Peter's, and the Capitol, spoiled for me too. This feeling may be probably owing to recent events; but it does not exist the less, and while it exists, I shall conceal it as little as any other.

"I have been seriously ill with a fever, but it is gone. I believe or suppose it was the indigenous fever of the place, which comes every year at this time, and of which the physicians change the name annually, to despatch the people sooner. It is a kind of typhus, and kills occasionally. It was pretty smart, but nothing particular, and has left me some debility and a great appetite. There are a good many ill at present, I suppose, of the same.

"I feel sorry for Horner, if there was any thing in the world to make him like it; and still more sorry for his friend, as there was much to make them regret him. I had not heard of his death till by your letter.

"Some weeks ago I wrote to you my ackowledgments of Walter Scott's article. Now I know it to be his, it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to that of myself. He, and Gifford, and Moore, are the only regulars I ever knew who had nothing of the garrison about their manner: no nonsense, nor affectations, look you! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about

2

them the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky,

or so.

"Lalla Rookh'-you must recollect that, in the way of title, the 'Giaour' has never been pronounced to this day; and both it and Childe Harold sounded very facetious to the blue-bottles of wit and humour about town, till they were taught and startled into a proper deportment; and therefore Lalla Rookh, which is very orthodox and oriental, is as good a title as need be, if not better. I could wish rather that he had not called it 'a Persian Tale;' firstly, because we have had Turkish Tales, and Hindoo Tales, and Assyrian tales, already; and tale is a word of which it repents me to have nicknamed poesy. Fable' would be better; and, secondly, Persian tale' reminds one of the lines of Pope on Ambrose Phillips though no one can say, to be sure, that this tale has been ' turned for half-a-crown;' still it is as well to avoid such clashings. 'Persian Story'-why not?-or Romance? I feel as anxious for Moore as I could do for myself, for the soul of me, and I would not have him succeed otherwise than splendidly, which I trust he will do.

"With regard to the Witch Drama,' I sent all the three acts by post, week after week, within this last month. I repeat that I have not an idea if it is good or bad. If bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication; if good, it is at your service. I value it at three hundred guineas, or less, if you like it. Perhaps, if published, the best way will be to add it to your winter volume, and not publish separately. The price will show you I don't pique myself upon it; so speak out. You may put it in the fire if you like, and Gifford don't like.

"The Armenian Grammar is published—that is, one; the other is still in MS. My illness has prevented me from moving this month past, and I have done nothing more with the Armenian.

"Of Italian or rather Lombard manners, I could tell you little or nothing I went two or three times to the governor's conversazione (and if you go once, you are free to go always), at which, as I only saw very plain women, a formal circle, in short a worst sort of rout, I did not go again. I went to Academie and to Madame Albrizzi's, where I saw pretty much the same thing, with the addition of some literati, who are the same blue,* by all the world over. I fell in love the first week with Madame, and I have continued so ever since, because she is very pretty and pleasing, and talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is naïve. "Very truly, &c.

*

2

"P.S. Pray send the red tooth-powder by a safe hand, and speedily.†

Whenever a word or passage occurs (as in this instance) which Lord Byron would have pronounced emphatically in speaking, it appears, in his handwriting, as if w ritten with something of the same vehemence.

Here follow the same rhymes (I read the Christabel,' &c.) which have already been given in one of his letters to myself.

And then, still further to bewilder 'em,
Without remorse you set up 'Ilderim ;'
So mind you don't get into debt,
Because as how, if you should fail,
These books would be but baddish bail.
And mind you do not let escape

These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry,
Which would be very treacherous-very,
And get me into such a scrape!

For, firstly, I should have to sally,

All in my little boat, against a Gally;

And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight,
Have next to combat with the female knight.

"You may show these matters to Moore and the select, but not to the profane; and tell Moore, that I wonder he don't write to one now

"You will begin to think my epistolary offerings (to whatever altar you please to devote them) rather prodigal. But until you answer, I shall not abate, because you deserve no better. I know you are well, because I hear of your voyaging to London and the environs, which I rejoice to learn, because your note alarmed me by the purgation and phlebotomy therein prognosticated. I also hear of your being in the press; all which, methinks, might have furnished you with subject-matter for a middle-sized letter, considering that I am in foreign parts, and that the last month's advertisements and obituary would be absolute news to me from your Tramontane country.

"I told you, in my last, I have had a smart fever. There is an epidemic in the place; but I suspect, from the symptoms, that mine was a fever of my own, and had nothing in common with the low, vulgar typhus, which is at this moment decimating Venice, and which has half unpeopled Milan, if the accounts be true. This malady has sorely discomfited my serving men, who want sadly to be gone away, and get me to remove. But, besides my natural perversity, I was seasoned in Turkey, by the continual whispers of the plague, against apprehensions of contagion. Besides which, apprehension would not prevent it; and then, I am still in love, and 'forty thousand' fevers should not make me stir before my minute, while under the influence of that paramount delirium. Seriously speaking, there is a malady rife in the city—a dangerous one, they say. However, mine did not appear so, though it was not pleasant.

"This is Passion-week-and twilight—and all the world are at vespers. They have an eternal churching, as in all Catholic countries, but are not so bigoted as they seem to be in Spain.

"I don't know whether to be glad or sorry that you are leaving Mayfield. Had I ever been at Newstead during your stay there (except

during the winter of 1813-14, when the roads were impracticable), we should have been within hail, and I should like to have made a giro of the Peak with you. I know that country well, having been all over it when a boy. Was you ever in Dovedale? I can assure you there are things in Derbyshire as noble as Greece or Switzerland. But you had always a lingering after London, and I don't wonder at it. I liked it as well as any body, myself, now and then.

"Will you remember me to Rogers? whom I presume to be flourishing, and whom I regard as our poetical papa. You are his lawful son, and I the illegitimate. Has be begun yet upon Sheridan? If you see our republican friend, Leigh Hunt, pray present my remembrances. I about nine months ago, that he was in a row (like my friend Hobhouse) with the Quarterly Reviewers. For my part, I never could understand these quarrels of authors with critics and with one another. For God's sake, gentlemen, what do they mean?'

saw,

6

"What think you of your countryman, Maturin ? I take some credit to myself for having done my best to bring out Bertram; but I must say my colleagues were quite as ready and willing. Walter Scott, however, was the first who mentioned him, which he did to me, with great commendation, in 1815; and it is to this casualty, and two or three other accidents, that this very clever fellow owed his first and well-merited public success. What a chance is fame!

"Did I tell you that I have translated two epistles ?—a correspondence between St. Paul and the Corinthians, not to be found in our version, but the Armenian—but which seems to me very orthodox, and I have done it into scriptural prose English.* Ever," &c.

LETTER 270.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 2, 1817.

"I sent

you

the whole of the Drama at three several times, act by act, in separate covers. I hope that you have, or will receive, some or the whole of it.

"So Love has a conscience. By Diana! I shall make him take back the box, though it were Pandora's. The discovery of its intrinsic silver

* The only plausible claim of these epistles to authenticity arises from the circumstance of St. Paul having (according to the opinion of Mosheim and others) written an epistle to the Corinthians, before that which we now call his first. They, are, however, universally given up as spurious. Though frequently referred to as existing in the Armenian, by Primate Usher, Johan. Gregorius, and other learned men, they were for the first time, I believe, translated from that language by the two Whistons, who subjoined the correspondence, with a Greek and Latin version, to their edition of the Armenian History of Moses of Chorene, published in 1736.

The translation by Lord Byron is, as far as I can learn, the first that has ever been attempted in English: and as, proceeding from his pen, it must possess, of course, additional interest, the reader will not be displeased to find it in the Appendix. Annexed to the copy in my possession are the following words in his own handwriting:-" Done into English by me, January, February, 1817, at the Convent of San Lazaro, with the aid and exposition of the Armenian text by the Father Paschal Aucher, Armenian friar.-BYRON. I had also (he adds) the Latin text, but it is in many places very corrupt, and with great omissions."