"I go alone,—but alone, because I mean to return here. I only want to see Rome. I have not the least curiosity about Florence, though I must see it for the sake of the Venus, &c. &c.; and I wish also to see the Fall of Terni. I think to return to Venice by Ravenna and Rimini, of both of which I mean to take notes for Leigh Hunt, who will be glad to hear of the scenery of his Poem. There was a devil of a review of him in the Quarterly, a year ago, which he answered. All answers are imprudent but, to be sure, poetical flesh and blood must have the last word that's certain. I thought, and think, very highly of his Poem ; but I warned him of the row his favourite antique phraseology would bring him into.

"You have taken a house at Hornsey: I had much rather you had taken one in the Apennines. If you think of coming out for a summer,

or so, tell me, that I may be the hover for you, upon

LETTER 274.

TO MR. MURRAY.

Ever," &c.

"Venice, April 14, 1817.

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By the favour of Dr. Polidori, wno is here on his way to England with the present Lord G**(the late earl having gone to England by another road, accompanied by his bowels in a separate coffer), I remit to you, to deliver to Mrs. Leigh, two miniatures; but previously you will have the goodness to desire Mr. Love (as a peace-offering between him and me) to set them in plain gold, with my arms complete, and Painted by Prepiani-Venice, 1817,' on the back. I wish also that you would desire Holmes to make a copy of each—that is, both-for myself, and that you will retain the said copies till my return. One was done while I was very unwell; the other in my health, which may account for their dissimilitude. I trust that they will reach their destination in safety.

"I recommend the Doctor to your good offices with your government friends; and if you can be of any use to him in a literary point of view, pray be so.

"To-day, or rather yesterday, for it is past midnight, I have been up to the battlements of the highest tower in Venice, and seen it and its view, in all the glory of a clear Italian sky. I also went over the Manfrini Palace, famous for its pictures. Amongst them, there is a portrait of Ariosto by Titian, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of painting or human expression: it is the poetry of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There was also one of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom :-it is the kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of its frame. There is also a famous dead Christ and live Apostles, for which Buonaparte offered in vain five thousand louis; and of which, though it is a capo d'opera of Titian, as I am no connoisseur, I say little, and thought less, except of one figure in it. There are ten thousand others, and some very fine Giorgiones amongst them, &c. &c. There is an original Laura and Petrarch, very hideous both. Petrarch has not only the dress, but the features

and air of an old woman, and Laura looks by no means like a young one, or a pretty one. What struck me most in the general collection was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or generations old, to those you see and meet every day among the existing Italians. The queen of Cyprus and Giorgione's wife, particularly the latter, are Venetians as it were of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, and, to my mind, there is none finer.

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'You must recollect, however, that I know nothing of painting; and that I detest it, unless it reminds me of something I have seen, or think it possible to see, for which reason I spit upon and abhor all the Saints and subjects of one half the impostures I see in the churches and palaces; aud when in Flanders, I never was so disgusted in my life, as with Rubens and his eternal wives and infernal glare of colours, as they appeared to me; and in Spain I did not think much of Murillo and Velasquez. Depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most artificial and unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is most imposed upon. never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or expectation; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it, besides some horses; and a lion (at Veli Pacha's) in the Morea; and a tiger at supper in Exeter Change.

I

Where do

"When you write, continue to address to me at Venice. you suppose the books you sent to me are? At Turin! This comes of the Foreign office,' which is foreign enough, God knows, for any good it can be of to me, or any one else, and be d-d to it, to its last clerk and first charlatan, Castlereagh.

"This makes my hundredth letter at least.

Yours," &c.

LETTER 275.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 14, 1817.

"The present proofs (of the whole) begin only at the 17th page; but as I had corrected and sent back the first Act, it does not signify. "The third act is certainly d-d bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily (which savoured of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. It must on no account be published in its present state. I will try and reform it, or re-write it altogether; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making any thing out of it. I would not have it published as it is on any account. The speech of Manfred to the Sun is the only part of this act I thought good myself; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the devil possessed me.

"I am very glad, indeed, that you sent me Mr. Gifford's opinion without deduction. Do you suppose me such a booby as not to be very much obliged to him? or that in fact I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense? "I shall try at it again in the mean time, lay it upon the shelf (the

:

whole Drama, I mean): but pray correct your copies of the first and second Acts from the original MS.

"I am not coming to England; but going to Rome in a few days. I return to Venice in June; so, pray, address all letters, &c. to me here; as usual, that is, to Venice. Dr. Polidori this day left this city with Lord G** for England. He is charged with some books to your care (from me), and two miniatures also to the same address, both for my sister.

"Recollect not to publish, upon pain of I know not what, until I have tried again at the third Act. I am not sure that I shall try, and still less that I shall succeed, if I do; but I am very sure, that (as it is) it is unfit for publication or perusal; and unless I can make it out to my own satisfaction, I won't have any part published.

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"I write in haste, and after having lately written very often.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 276.

TO MR. MURRAY.

Foligno, April 26, 1817.

"I wrote to you the other day from Florence, inclosing a MS. entitled

The Lament of Tasso.'

having been lately at Ferrara.

It was written in consequence of my
In the last section of this MS. but one

(that is, the penultimate), I think that I have omitted a line in the copy sent to you from Florence, viz. after the line

insert,

"And woo compassion to a blighted name,

"Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.

The context will show you the sense, which is not clear in this quotation. Remember, I write this in the supposition that you have received my Florentine packet.

6

"At Florence I remained but a day, having a hurry for Rome, to which I am thus far advanced. However, I went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. The Venus is more for admiration than love; but there are sculpture and painting, which for the first time at all gave me an idea of what people mean by their cant, and what Mr. Braham calls entusimusy' (i. e. enthusiasm) about those two most artificial of the arts. What struck me most were, the mistress of Raphael, a portrait; the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of Titian in the Medici gallery—the Venus; Canova's Venus also in the other gallery: Titian's mistress is also in the other gallery (that is, in the Pitti Palace gallery): the Parcæ of Michael Angelo, a picture: and the Antinous, the Alexander, and one or two not very decent groups in marble; the Genius of Death, a sleeping figure, &c. &c.

"I also went to the Medici chapel-fine frippery in great slabs of

various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten carcasses. It is unfinished, and will remain so.

"The church of Santa Croce' contains much illustrious nothing. The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo Galilei, and Alfieri, make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy. I did not admire any of these tombs-beyond their contents. That of Alfieri is heavy, and all of them seem to me overloaded. What is necessary but a bust and name? and perhaps a date? the last for the unchronological, of whom I am one. But all your allegory and eulogy is infernal, and worse than the long wigs of English numskulls upon Roman bodies in the statuary of the reigns of Charles II., William, and Anne.

"When you write, write to Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in a fortnight. I shall not be in England for a long time. This afternoon I met Lord and Lady Jersey, and saw them for some time: all well; children grown and healthy; she very pretty, but sunburnt; he very sick of travelling bound for Paris. There are not many English on the move, and those who are, mostly homewards. I shall not return till business makes me, being much better where I am in health, &c. &c.

:

"For the sake of my personal comfort, I pray you send me immediately to Venice-mind, Venice-viz. Waites' tooth-powder, red, a quantity; calcined magnesia, of the best quality, a quantity; and all this by safe, sure, and speedy means; and, by the Lord! do it. "I have done nothing at Manfred's third Act. have at it in a week or two, or so.

You must wait; I'll
Yours ever," &c.

Rome, May 5, 1817.

"By this post (or next at farthest) I send you in two other covers, the new third Act of Manfred.' I have re-written the greater part, and returned what is not altered in the proof you sent me. The Abbot is become a good man, and the Spirits are brought in at the death. You will find, I think, some good poetry in this new act, here and there; and if so, print it, without sending me farther proofs, under Mr. Gifford's correction, if he will have the goodness to overlook it. Address all answers to Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in ten days. "The Lament of Tasso,' which I sent from Florence, has, I trust, arrived I looked upon it 6 as a these be good rhymes,' as Pope's papa said to him when he was a boy. For the two-it and the Drama-you will disburse to me (via Kinnaird) six hundred guineas. You will perhaps be surprised that I set the same price upon this as upon the Drama ; but, besides that I look upon it as good, I won't take less than three hundred guineas for any thing. The two together will make you a larger publication than the Siege' and Parisina;' so you may think yourself let off very easy: that is to say, if these poems are good for any thing, which I hope and believe.

"I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am seeing sights,

and have done nothing else, except the new third Act for you. I have this morning seen a live pope and a dead cardinal: Pius VII. has been burying Cardinal Bracchi, whose body I saw in state at the Chiesa Nuova. Rome has delighted me beyond every thing, since Athens and Constantinople. But I shall not remain long this visit. Address to Venice. Ever, &c.

"P.S. I have got my saddle-horses here, and have ridden, and am riding, all about the country."

From the foregoing letters to Mr. Murray, we may collect some curious particulars respecting one of the most original and sublime of the noble poet's productions, the Drama of Manfred. His failure (and to an extent of which the reader shall be enabled presently to judge), in the completion of a design which he had, through two Acts, so magnificently carried on, the impatience with which, though conscious of this failure, he as usual hurried to the press, without deigning to woo, or wait for, a happier moment of inspiration,—his frank docility in, at once, surrendering up his third Act to reprobation, without urging one parental word in its behalf,—the doubt he evidently felt, whether, from his habit of striking off these creations at a heat, he should be able to rekindle his imagination on the subject,-and then, lastly, the complete success with which, when his mind did make the spring, he at once cleared the whole space by which he before fell short of perfection,— all these circumstances, connected with the production of this grand poem, lay open to us features, both of his disposition and genius, in the highest degree interesting, and such as there is a pleasure, second only to that of perusing the poem itself, in contemplating.

As a literary curiosity, and, still more, as a lesson to genius, never to rest satisfied with imperfection or mediocrity, but to labour on till even failures are converted into triumphs, I shall here transcribe the third Act, in its original shape, as first sent to the publisher