LETTER CCCVI. TO MR MURRAY. "Venice, January 27th, 1818. "My father-that is, my Armenian father, Padre Pasquali-in the name of all the other fathers of our Convent, sends you the enclosed, greeting. “Inasmuch as it has pleased the translators of the long-lost and lately-found portions of the text of Eusebius to put forth the enclosed prospectus, of which I send six copies, you are hereby implored to obtain subscribers in the two Universities, and among the learned, and the unlearned who would unlearn their ignorance. This they (the Convent) request, I request, and do you request. "I sent you Beppo some weeks agone. You must publish it alone; it has politics and ferocity, and won't do for your isthmus of a Journal. "Mr Hobhouse, if the Alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, swimming with my commentaries and his own coat of mail in his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and Dover. "It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the extreme and agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met her at the Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth." * LETTER CCCVII. TO MR MOORE. * * "Venice, February 2d, 1818. "Your letter of Dec. 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable. Your domestic calamity is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all. Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs. "I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since (to say nothing of one before *), and I look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach-which I hope I never shall that desolating period. I have a great love for my little Ada, though perhaps she may torture me, like * * * * * * "Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. I don't much care what the wretches of the world think of me-all that's past. But I care a good deal what you think of me, and, so, say what you like. You know that I am not sullen; and, as to being savage, such things depend on circumstances. However, as to being in good-humour in your society, there is no great merit in that, because * This possibly may have been the subject of the Poem given in page 37 of the First Part. it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise. "I don't know what Murray may have been saying or quoting.* I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers of present Poesy; and said that I thought-except them-all of us youth' were on a wrong tack. But I never said that we did not sail well. Our fame will be hurt by admiration and imitation. When I say our, I mean all (Lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans. The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal and can ride. But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manége, and learn to ride the 'great horse.' 66 Talking of horses, by the way, I have transported my own, four in number, to the Lido (beach, in English), a strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that I not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits. "I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. We are in the agonies of the Carnival's last days, and I must be up all night again, as well as tomorrow. I have had some curious masking adventures this Carnival, but, as they are not yet over, shall not say on. I will work the mine of my youth to he last veins of the ore, and then-good night. I have lived, and am content. "Hobhouse went away before the Carnival began, so that he had little or no fun. Besides, it requires some time to be thoroughgoing with the Venetians; but of all this anon, in some other letter. * * "P.S. I send this without revision, so excuse errors. I delight in the fame and fortune of Lalla, and again congratulate you on your well-merited success." Of his daily rides on the Lido, which he mentions in this letter, the following account, by a gentleman who lived a good deal with him at Venice, will be found not a little interesting : "Almost immediately after Mr Hobhouse's departure, Lord Byron proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido. One of the long narrow islands which separate the Lagune, in the midst of which Venice stands, from the Adriatic, is more par * Having seen by accident the passage in one of his .etters to Mr Murray, in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the poetical system on which the greater number of his cotemporaries, as well as himself, founded their reputation, I took an opportunity, in the next letter I wrote to him, of jesting a little on this opinion and his motives for it. It was, no doubt (I ventured to say), excellent policy in him, who had made sure of his own immortality in this style of writing, thus to throw overboard all us, He was in poor devils, who were embarked with him fact, I added, behaving towards us much in the manner of the methodist preacher who said to his congregation, "You may think, at the Last Day, to get to heaven by laying hold on my skirts; but I'll cheat you all, for I'll wear a spencer, I'll wear a spencer!" 36 ticularly distinguished by this name. At one extremity is a fortification, which, with the Castle of St Andrea on an island on the opposite side, defends the nearest entrance to the city from the sea. In times of peace this fortification is almost dismantled, and Lord Byron had hired here of the Commandant an unoccupied stable, where he kept his horses. The distance from the city was not very considerable; it was much less than to the Terra Firma, and, as far as it went, the spot was not ineligible for riding. "Every day that the weather would permit, Lord Byron called for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us outside of the fort. We rode as far as we could along the seashore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which had been raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small fort about half way between the principal one which I have already mentioned, and the town or villago of Malamocco, which is near the other extremity of the island,-the distance between the two forts being about three miles. "On the land side of the embankment, not far from the smaller fort, was a boundary stone, which probably marked some division of property,-all the side of the island nearest the Lagune being divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables for the Venetian markets. At the foot of this stone Lord Byron repeatedly told me that I should cause him to be interred, if he should die in Venice, or its neigh- | bourhood, during my residence there; and he appeared to think, as he was not a Catholic, that, on the part of the government, there could be no obstacle to his interment in an unhallowed spot of ground by the seaside. At all events, I was to overcome whatever difficulties might be raised on this account. I was, by no means, he repeatedly told me, to allow his body to be removed to England, nor permit any of his family to interfere with his funeral. 66 'Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to me. We were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which, his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which most struck him. Often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the Poems he was engaged in writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more interesting to me, because I could frequently trace in them some idea which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some remark, the effect of which he had been evidently trying upon me. Occasionally too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all I had heard with regard to him, and desiring that I would not spare him, but let him know the worst that was said." LETTER CCCVIII. TO MR MURRAY. "Venice, Feb. 20th, 1818. "I have to thank Mr Croker for the arrival, and you for the contents, of the parcel which came last week, much quicker than any before, owing to Mr Croker's kind attention and the official exterior of the bags; and all safe, except much friction amongst the magnesia, of which only two bottles came entire; but it is all very well, and I am exceedingly obliged to you. "The books I have read, or rather am reading. Pray, who may be the Sexagenarian, whose gossip is very amusing? Many of his sketches I recognise, particularly Gifford, Mackintosh, Drummond, Du tens, H. Walpole, Mrs Inchbald, Opie, &c. with the Scotts Loughborough, and most of the divines and lawyers, besides a few shorter hints of authors, and a few lines about a certain noble author,' charac terised as malignant and sceptical, according to the good old story, 'as it was in the beginning, is now, but not always shall be:' do you know such a person, Master Murray ? eh ?-And pray, of the booksellers, which be you? the dry, the dirty, the honest, the opulent, the finical, the splendid, or the coxcomb bookseller? Stap my vitals, but the author grows scurrilous in his grand climacteric! "I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, and in private parties, but not frequently; and I never can recollect him except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vicemaster's, so that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in public,-commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private party of under-graduates, many of them freshmen and strangers, take up a poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Porson's that of Silenus. Of all the disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went, which were only at William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) rooms. I saw him once go away in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the Cobbler of Messina,' insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or rather vomit pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition than this man's intoxication. "I perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very savage. I cannot judge, as I never saw him sober, except in hall or combination-room; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to see him. Of his drunken deportment, I can be sure, because I saw it. "With the Reviews, I have been much entertained. It requires to be as far from England as I am to relish a periodical paper properly it is like sodawater in an Italian summer. But what cruel work you make with Lady ****! You should recollect that she is a woman; though, to be sure, they are now and then very provoking; still, as authoresses, they can do no great harm; and I think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us, Jacobin gentlemen, for you to work upon. It is perhaps as bitter mise not to undertake any other of that or any other of my things: I will send him his money immediately on this condition. "As I did not write to the Italians, nor for the Italians, nor of the Italians (except in a poem not yet published, where I have said all the good I know or do not know of them, and none of the harin), I confess I wish that they would let me alone, and not drag me into their arena as one of the gladiators, in a silly contest which I neither understand nor have ever interfered with, having kept clear of all their literary parties, both here and at Milan, and elsewhere.-I came into Italy to feel the climate and be quiet, if possible. Mossi's translation I would have prevented if I had known it, or could have done so ; and I trust that I shall yet be in time to stop this new gentleman, of whom I heard yesterday for the first time. He will only hurt himself, and do no good to his party, for in party the whole thing originates. Our modes of thinking and writing are so unutterably different, that I can conceive no greater absurdity than attempting to make any approach between the English and Italian poetry of the present day. I like the people very much, and their literature very much, but I am not the least ambitious of being the subject of their discussions literary and personal (which appear to be pretty much the same thing, as is the case in most countries); and if you can aid me in impeding this publication, you will add to much kindness already received from you by yours, "Ever and truly, "BYRON. "P.S. How is the son, and mamma? Well, I dare say." "Our friend, il Conte M., threw me into a cold sweat last night, by telling me of a menaced version of Manfred (in Venetian, I hope, to complete the thing) by some Italian, who had sent it to you for correction, which is the reason why I take the liberty of troubling you on the subject. If you have any means of communication with the man, would you permit me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain or think to obtain for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire,† and pro * On the birth of this child, who was christened John William Rizzo, Lord Byron wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remarkable than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan :"His father's sense, his mother's grace. In him, I hope, will always fit so; With (still to keep him in good case) The health and appetite of Rizzo." The original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were printed, in a small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the Seminary of Padua. + Having ascertained that the utmost this translator could expect to make by his manuscript was 200 francs, Lord Byron offered him that sum, if he would desist from publishing. The Italian, however, held out for more; nor could he be brought to terms, till it was intimated to him LETTER CCCX. TO MR ROGERS. "Venice, March 3d, 1818. pretty plainly from Lord Byron that, should the publication be persisted in, he would horse whip him the very first time they met. Being but little inclined to suffer martyrdom in the cause, the translator accepted the 200 francs and delivered up his manuscript, entering at the same time into a written engagement never to translate any other of the noble poet's works. Of the qualifications of this person as a translator of English poetry, some idea may be formed from the difliculty he found himself under respecting the meaning of a line in the Incantation in Manfred,-" And the wisp on the morass," which he requested of Mr Hoppner to expound to, him, not having been able to find in the dictionaries to which he had access any other signification of the word "wisp" than "a bundle of straw." few miles of Arqua, which I have visited twice, and hope to visit often. "Last summer (except an excursion to Rome) I passed upon the Brenta. In Venice I winter, transporting my horses to the Lido, bordering the Adriatic (where the fort is), so that I get a gallop of some miles daily along the strip of beach which reaches to Malamocco, when in health; but within these few weeks I have been unwell. At present I am getting better. The Carnival was short, but a good one. I don't go out much, except during the time of masques; but there are one or two conversazioni, where I go regularly, just to keep up the system; as I had letters to their givers; and they are particular on such points; and now and then, though very rarely, to the Governor's. "It is a very good place for women. I like the dialect and their manner very much. There is a naïveté about them which is very winning, and the romance of the place is a mighty adjunct; the bel sangue is not, however, now amongst the dame or higher orders; but all under i fazzioli, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads);—the vesta zendale, or old national female costume is no more. The city, however, is decaying daily, and does not gain in population. However, I prefer it to any other in Italy; and here have I pitched my staff, and here do I purpose to reside for the remainder of my life, unless events, connected with business not to be transacted out of England, compel me to return for that purpose; otherwise I have few regrets, and no desires to visit it again for its own sake. I shall probably be obliged to do so, to sign papers for my affairs and a proxy for the Whigs, and to see Mr Waite, for I can't find a good dentist here, and every two or three years one ought to consult one. About seeing my children I must take my chance. One I shall have sent here; and I shall be very happy to see the legitimate one, when God pleases, which he perhaps will some day or other. As for my mathematical ***, I am as well without her. "Your account of your visit to Fonthill is very striking could you beg of him for me a copy in MS. of the remaining Tales?* I think I deserve them, as a strenuous and public admirer of the first one. I will return it when read, and make no ill use of the copy, if granted. Murray would send me out any thing safely. If ever I return to England, I should like very much to see the author, with his permission. In the mean time, you could not oblige me more than by obtaining me the perusal I request, in French or English, all 's one for that, though I prefer Italian to either. I have a French copy of Vathek, which I bought at Lausanne. I can read French with great pleasure and facility, though I neither speak nor write it. Now Italian I can speak with some fluency, and write sufficiently for my purposes, but I don't like their modern prose at all; it is very heavy, and so different from Machiavelli. "They say Francis is Junius ;-I think it looks like * A continuation of Vathek, by the author of that very striking and powerful production. The "Tales" of which this unpublished sequel consists are, I understand, those supposed to have been related by the Princes in the Hall of Eblis. it. I remember meeting him at Earl Grey's at dinner. Has not he lately married a young woman; and was not he Madame Talleyrand's cavaliere servente in India years ago? "I read my death in the papers, which was not true. I see they are marrying the remaining singleness of the royal family. They have brought out Fazio with great and deserved success at Coventgarden: that's a good sign. I tried, during the directory, to have it done at Drury-lane, but was overruled. If you think of coming into this country, you will let me know perhaps beforehand. I suppose Moore won't move. Rose is here. I saw him the other night at Madame Albrizzi's; he talks of returning in May. My love to the Hollands. "Ever, &c. "They are an odd people. The other day I was telling a girl, you must not come to-morrow, because Marguerita is coming at such a time,'—(they are both about five feet ten inches high, with great black eyes and fine figures-fit to breed gladiators from-and I had some difficulty to prevent a battle upon a rencontre once before),-'unless you promise to be friends, and'-the answer was an interruption, by a declaration of war against the other, which she said would be a Guerra di Candia.' Is it not odd, that the lower order of Venetians should still allude proverbially to that famous contest, so glorious and so fatal to the Republic? 6 "They have singular expressions, like all the Italians. For example, 'Viscere '—as we would say, my love,' or 'my heart, 'as an expression of tenderness. Also, I would go for you into the midst of a hundred knives.'- Mazza ben,' excessive attachment,— literally, 'I wish you well even to killing.' Then they say (instead of our way, 'do you think I would do you so much harm?') do you think I would assassinate you in such a manner?'' Tempo perfido,' bad weather; 'Strade perfide,' bad roads—with a thousand other allusions and metaphors, taken from the state of society and habits in the middle ages. 6 "I am not so sure about mazza, whether it don't mean massa, i. e. a great deal, a mass, instead of the interpretation I have given it. But of the other neglect my Armenians. Tooth-powder, magnesia, phrases I am sure. "Croker's is a good guess; but the style is not English, it is Italian;-Berni is the original of all. Whistlecraft was my immediate model; Rose's 'Animali' I never saw till a few days ago,-they are excellent. But (as I said above) Berni is the father of that kind of writing, which I think suits our language, too, very well;-we shall see by the experiment. If it does, I shall send you a volume in a year or two, for I know the Italian way of life well, and in time may know it yet better; and as for the verse and the passions, I have them still in tolerable vigour. "If you think that it will do you and the work, or works, any good, you may put my name to it; but first consult the knowing ones. It will, at any rate, show them that I can write cheerfully, and repel the charge of monotony and mannerism. "Yours, &c. "Why have you not sent me an answer, and lists of subscribers to the translation of the Armenian Eusebius? of which I sent you printed copies of the prospectus (in French) two moons ago. Have you had the letter?--I shall send you another :-you must not †There follows, in this place, among other matter, a long string of verses, in various metres, to the amount of about sixty lines, so full of light gaiety and humour, that it is with some reluctance I suppress them. They might, however, have the effect of giving pain in quarters where even the author himself would not have deliberately inflicted it ;from a pen like his, touches are often wounds, without being actually intended as such. tincture of myrrh, tooth-brushes, diachylon plaster, Peruvian bark, are my personal demands. "Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times, To thee, with hope and terror dumb, The unfledged MS. authors come; Thou printest all-and sellest someMy Murray. "Upon thy table's baize so green The last new Quarterly is seen, But where is thy new Magazine, My Murray? "Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine "Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons to thy mill bring grist; And then thou hast the Navy List,' My Murray. "And Heaven forbid I should conclude Without the Board of Longitude,' Although this narrow paper would, My Murray !" LETTER CCCXIV. TO MR MURRAY. "Venice, April 12, 1818. "This letter will be delivered by Signor Gioe. Bata. Missiaglia, proprietor of the Apollo library, and the principal publisher and bookseller now in Venice. He sets out for London with a view to business and correspondence with the English booksellers and it is in the hope that it may be for your mutual advantage that I furnish him with this letter of introduction to you. If you can be of use to him, either by recommendation to others, or by any personal attention on your own part, you will oblige him, and gratify me. You may also perhaps both be able to derive advantage, or establish some mode of literary communication, pleasing to the public, and beneficial to one another. "At any rate, be civil to him for my sake, as well as for the honour and glory of publishers and authors now and to come for evermore. "With him I also consign a great number of MS. letters written in English, French, and Italian, by various English established in Italy during the last century-the names of the writers, Lord Hervey, Lady M. W. Montague (hers are but few-some billets doux in French to Algarotti, and one letter in English, Italian, and all sorts of jargon, to the same), Gray, the poet (one letter), Mason (two or three), Garrick, Lord Chatham, David Hume, and many of lesser note,-all addressed to Count Algarotti. Out of these, I think, with discretion, an amusing miscellaneous volume of letters might be extracted, provided some good editor were disposed to undertake the selection, and preface, and a few notes, &c., "The proprietor of these is a friend of mine, Dr Aglietti, a great name in Italy,—and if you are |