"Last night I suffered horribly-from an indigestion, I believe. I never sup-that is, never at home. But, last night, I was prevailed upon by the Countess Gamba's persuasion, and the strenuous example of her brother, to swallow, at supper, a quantity of boiled cockles, and to dilute them, not reluctantly, with some Imola wine. When I came home, apprehensive of the consequences, I swallowed three or four glasses of spirits, which men (the venders) call brandy, rum, or Hollands, but which Gods would entitle spirits of wine, coloured or sugared. All was pretty well till I got to bed, when I became somewhat swollen, and considerably vertiginous. I got out, and, mixing some soda-powders, drank them off. This brought on temporary relief. I returned to bed; but grew sick and sorry once and again. Took more soda-water. At last I fell into a dreary sleep. Woke, and was ill all day, till I had galloped a few miles. Query-was it the cockles, or what I took to correct them, that caused the commotion? I think both. I remarked in my illness the complete inertion, inaction, and destruction of my chief mental faculties. I tried to rouse them, and yet could not-and this is the Soul!!! I should believe that it was married to the body, if they did not sympathize so much with each other. If the one rose, when the other fell, it would be a sign that they longed for the natural state of divorce. But, as it is, they seem to draw together like post-horses.

"Let us hope the best-it is the grand possession."

During the two months comprised in this Journal, some of the Letters of the following series were written. The reader must therefore be prepared to find in them occasional notices of the same train of events.

LETTER CCCCIV.

TO MR MOORE.

"Ravenna, January 2d, 1821. "Your entering into my project for the Memoir is pleasant to me. But I doubt (contrary to my dear Madame Mac F**, whom I always loved and always shall-not only because I really did feel attached to her personally, but because she and about a dozen others of that sex were all who stuck by me in the grand conflict of 1815)-but I doubt, I say, whether the Memoir could appear in my lifetime;-and, indeed, I had rather it did not; for a man always looks dead after his Life has appeared, and I should certes not survive the appearance of mine. The first part I cannot consent to alter, even although Madame de S.'s opinion of B. C., and my remarks upon Lady C.'s beauty (which is surely great, and I suppose that I have said so at least, I ought) should go down to our grandchildren in unsophisticated nakedness.

"As to Madame de S**, I am by no means bound to be her beadsman-she was always more civil to to me in person that during my absence. Our dear defunct friend, M** L**,† who was too great a bore ever to lie, assured me, upon his tiresome word

+ Of this gentleman, the following notice occurs in the "Detached Thoughts."-" L ** was a good man, a clever

of honour, that, at Florence, the said Madame de S** was open-mouthed against me; and when asked, in Switzerland, why she had changed her opinion, replied with laudable sincerity, that I had named her in a sonnet with Voltaire, Rousseau, &c. &c. and that she could not help it, through decency. Now, I have not forgotten this, but I have been generous,as mine acquaintance, the late Captain Whitby, of the navy, used to say to his seamen (when married to the gunner's daughter')—' two dozen, and let you off easy.' The 'two dozen' were with the cat-o'-ninetails;-the 'let you off easy' was rather his own opinion than that of the patient.

6

"My acquaintance with these terms and practices arises from my having been much conversant with ships of war and naval heroes in the years of my voyages in the Mediterranean. Whitby was in the gallant action off Lissa in 1811. He was brave, but a disciplinarian. When he left his frigate, he left a parrot, which was taught by the crew the following sounds-(It must be remarked that Captain Whitby was the image of Fawcett the actor, in voice, face, and figure, and that he squinted).

"The Parrot loquitur. "Whitby! Whitby! funny eye! funny eye! two dozen, and let you off easy. Oh you

"Now, if Madame de B. has a parrot, it had better be taught a French parody of the same sounds.

"With regard to our purposed Journal, I will call it what you please, but it should be a newspaper, to make it pay. We can call it 'The Harp,' if you like -or any thing.

"I feel exactly as you do about our 'art,'* but it comes over me in a kind of rage every now and then,

man, but a bore. My only revenge or consolation used to be setting him by the ears with some vivacious person who hated bores especially,-Madame de Sor H-, for example. But I liked L**; he was a jewel of a man, had he been better set ;-I don't mean personally, but less tiresome, for he was tedious, as well as contradictory to every thing and every body. Being shortsighted, when we used to ride out together near the Brenta in the twilight in summer, he made me go before, to pilot him: I am absent at times, especially towards evening; and the consequence of this pilotage was some narrow escapes to the Mon horseback. Once I led him into a ditch over which I had passed as usual, forgetting to warn my convoy; once I led him nearly into the river, instead of on the moveable bridge which incommodes passengers; and twice did we both run against the Diligence, which, being heavy and slow, did communicate less damage than it received in its leaders, who were terrafied by the charge; thrice did I lose him in the gray of the gloaming, and was obliged to bring to to his distant signals of distance and distress; -all the time he went on talking without intermission, for he was a man of many words. Poor fellow! he died a martyr to his new riches-of a second visit to Jamaica. "I'd give the lands of Deloraine Dark Musgrave were alive again!

that is

"I would give many a sugar cane M** L** were alive again !

The following passage from the letter of mine, to which the above was an answer, will best explain what follows: With respect to the newspaper, it is odd enough that Lord **** and myself had been (about a week or two before I received your letter) speculating upon your assistance in a plan somewhat similar, but more literary and less regularly periodical in its appearance. Lord, as you will see by his volume of Essays, if it' reaches you, has a very sly, dry, and pithy way of putting sound truths, upon politics and manners, and whatever

like

and then, if I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing, which you de. scribe in your friend, I do not understand it. I feel it as a torture, which I must get rid of, but never as a pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a great pain.

"I wish you to think seriously of the Journal scheme for I am as serious as one can be, in this world, about any thing. As to matters here, they are high and mighty-but not for paper. It is much about the state of things betwixt Cain and Abel. There is, in fact, no law or government at all; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them. Excepting a few occasional murders (every body killing whomsoever he pleases, and being killed, in turn, by a friend, or relative, of the defunct), there is as quiet a society and as merry a Carnival as can be met with in a tour through Europe. There is nothing like habit in these things.

"I shall remain here till May or June, and, unless 'honour comes unlooked for,' we may perhaps meet, in France or England, within the year.

"Yours, &c.

"Of course, I cannot explain to you existing circumstances, as they open all letters. "Will you set me right about your curst Champs Elysées?' are they és' or 'ées' for the adjective? I know nothing of French, being all Italian. Though I can read and understand French, I never attempt to speak it; for I hate it. From the second part of the Memoirs cut what you please."

LETTER CCCCV.

TO MR. MURRAY.

* Ravenna, January 4th, 1821. I just see, by the papers of Galignani, that there is a new tragedy of great expectation, by Barry Cornwall. Of what I have read of his works, I liked the Dramatic Sketches, but thought his Sicilian story and Marcian Colonna, in rhyme, quite spoilt, by I know not what affectation of Wordsworth, and Moore, and myself,-all mixed up into a kind of chaos. I think him very likely to produce a good tragedy, if he keep to a natural style, and not play tricks to form harlequinades for an audience. As he (Barry Cornwall is not his true name) was a schoolfellow of mine, I take more than common interest in his success, and shall be glad to hear of it speedily. If I had been aware that he was in that line, I should have spoken of him in the preface to Marino Faliero. He will do a world's wonder if he produce a great tragedy. I am, however, persuaded, that this not to be done by following the old dramatists,-who are full of gross faults, pardoned only for the beauty of

scheme we adopt, he will be a very useful and active ally in it, as he has a pleasure in writing quite inconceivable to a poor hack scribe like me, who always feel, about my art, as the French husband did when he found a man making love to his (the Frenchman's) wife :-' Comment, Monsieur, -sans y être obligé !' When I say this, however, I mean it only of the executive part of writing; for the imagining, the shadowing out of the future work is, I own, a delicious fool's paradise."

their language,-but by writing naturally and regularly, and producing regular tragedies, like the Greeks; but not in imitation,-merely the outline of their conduct, adapted to our own times and circumstances, and of course no chorus.

6

"You will laugh, and say, ' Why don't you do so?' I have, you see, tried a sketch in Marino Faliero; but many people think my talent essentially undramatic,' and I am not at all clear that they are not right. If Marino Faliero don't fall-in the perusal-I shall, perhaps, try again (but not for the stage); and as I think that love is not the principal passion for tragedy (and yet most of ours turn upon it), you will not find me a popular writer. less it is love, furious, criminal, and hapless, it ought not to make a tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it does, but it ought not to do; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes.

Un

"If you want to have a notion of what I am trying, take up a translation of any of the Greek tragedians. If I said the original, it would be an impudent presumption of mine; but the translations are so inferior to the originals that I think I may risk it. Then judge of the 'simplicity of plot,' &c. and do not judge me by your old mad dramatists, which is like drinking usquebaugh and then proving a fountain. Yet after all, I suppose that you do not mean that spirits is a nobler element than a clear spring bubbling in the sun? and this I take to be the difference between the Greeks and those turbid mountebanks always excepting Ben Jonson, who was a scholar and a classic. Or, take up a translation of Alfieri, and try the interest, &c. of these my new attempts in the old line, by him in English; and then tell me fairly your opinion. But don't measure me by YOUR OWN old or new tailors' yards. Nothing so easy as intricate confusion of plot and rant. Mrs Centlivre, in comedy, has ten times the bustle of Congreve; but are they to be compared? and yet she drove Congreve from the theatre."

LETTER CCCCVI.

TO MR MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 19th, 1821. "Yours of the 29th ultimo hath arrived. I must really and seriously request that you will beg of Messrs Harris or Elliston to let the Doge alone: it is not an acting play; it will not serve their purpose; it will destroy yours (the sale); and it will distress me. It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appropriation of a man's writings to their mountebanks.

"I have already sent you by last post a short protest to the public (against this proceeding); in case

To the letter which inclosed this protest, and which

has been omitted to avoid repetitions, he had subjoined a passage from Spence's Anecdotes (p.197 of Singer's edition), where Pope says, speaking of himself, "I had taken such strong resolutions against any thing of that kind, from seeing how much every body that did write for the stage was obliged to subject themselves to the players and the town."-Spence's Anecdotes, p. 22.

In the same paragraph, Pope is made to say, "After I had got acquainted with the town, I resolved never to write any thing for the stage, though solicited by many of my friends to do so, and particularly Betterton."

48

that they persist, which I trust that they will not, you must then publish it in the newspapers. I shall not let them off with that only, if they go on; but make a longer appeal on that subject, and state what I think the injustice of their mode of behaviour. It is hard that I should have all the buffoons in Britain to deal with-pirates who will publish, and players who will act-when there are thousands of worthy men who can neither get bookseller nor manager for love nor money.

"You never answered me a word about Galignani. If you mean to use the two documents, do; if not, burn them. I do not choose to leave them in any one's possession: suppose some one found them without the letters, what would they think? why, that I had been doing the opposite of what I have done, to wit, referred the whole thing to you-an act of civility at least, which required saying, 'I have received your letter.' I thought that you might have some hold upon those publications by this means; to me it can be no interest one way or the other.*

"The third canto of Don Juan is 'dull,' but you must really put up with it: if the two first and the two following are tolerable, what do you expect? particularly as I neither dispute with you on it as a matter of criticism, or as a matter of business.

"Besides, what am I to understand? you, and Douglas Kinnaird, and others, write to me, that the two first published cantos are among the best that I ever wrote, and are reckoned so; Augusta writes that they are thought execrable' (bitter word that for an author -eh, Murray?) as a composition even, and that she had heard so much against them that she would never read them, and never has. Be that as it may, I can't alter; that is not my forte. If you publish three new ones without ostentation, they may perhaps succeed.

.. Pray publish the Dante and the Pulci (the Prophecy of Dante, I mean). I look upon the Pulci as my grand performance.† The remainder of the 'Hints,' where be they? Now, bring them all out about the same time, otherwise the variety' you wot of will be less obvious.

No further step was ever taken in this affair; and the documents, which were of no use whatever, are, I believe, still in Mr Murray's possession.

The self-will of Lord Byron was in no point more conspicuous than in the determination with which he thus persisted in giving the preference to one or two works of his own which, in the eyes of all other persons, were most

decided failures. Of this class was the translation from Pulci, so frequently mentioned by him, which appeared afterwards in the Liberal, and which, though thus rescued from the fate of remaining unpublished, must for ever, I fear, submit to the doom of being unread.

LETTER CCCCVII.

TO MR MURRAY.

January 20th, 1821. "I did not think to have troubled you with the plague and postage of a double letter this time, but I have just read in an Italian paper, 'That Lord Byron has a tragedy coming out,' &c. &c. &c. and that the Courier and Morning Chronicle, &c. &c. are pulling one another to pieces about it and him, &c.

"Now I do reiterate and desire, that every thing may be done to prevent it from coming out on any theatre, for which it was never designed, and on which (in the present state of the stage of London) it could never succeed. I have sent you my appeal by last post, which you must publish in case of need; and I require you even in your own name (if my honour is dear to you) to declare that such representation would be contrary to my wish and to my judgment. If you do not wish to drive me mad altogether, you will hit upon some way to prevent this. "Yours, &c.

"P.S. I cannot conceive how Harris or Elliston should be so insane as to think of acting Marino Faliero; they might as well act the Prometheus of Aschylus. I speak of course humbly, and with the greatest sense of the distance of time and merit between the two performances; but merely to show the absurdity of the attempt.

"The Italian paper speaks of a 'party against it :' to be sure there would be a party. Can you imagine, that after having never flattered man, nor beast, nor opinion, nor politics, there would not be a party against a man, who is also a popular writer-at least a successful? Why, all parties would be a party against."

LETTER CCCCVIII.

TO MR MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 20th, 1821. "If Harris or Elliston persist, after the remonstrance which I desired you and Mr Kinnaird to make on my behalf, and which I hope will be sufficient—but iƒ, I say, they do persist, then I pray you to present in person the enclosed letter to the Lord Chamberlain : I have said in person, because otherwise I shall have neither answer nor knowledge that it has reached its address, owing to the insolence of office.'

"I wish you would speak to Lord Holland, and to all my friends and yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at representation.

"God help me! at this distance, I am treated like a corpse or a fool by the few people that I thought I could rely upon; and I was a fool to think any better of them than of the rest of mankind. "Pray write.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. I have nothing more at heart (that is, in literature) than to prevent this drama from going upon the stage: in short, rather than permit it, it must be suppressed altogether, and only forty copies struck

"Recollect that I will have nothing to do with it, except as far as it may secure the copyright to yourself. I will have no bargain but with the English booksellers, and I desire no interest out of that country.

'Now, that's fair and open, and a little handsomer than your dodging silence, to see what would come of it. You are an excellent fellow, mio caro Moray, but there is still a little leaven of Fleet-street about you now and then-a crum of the old loaf. You have no right to act suspiciously with me, for I have given you no reason. I shall always be frank with you; as, for instance, whenever you talk with the votaries of Apollo arithmetically, it should be in guineas, not pounds to poets, as well as physicians, and bidders at auctions.

am

a different style of the drama; neither a servile following of the old drama, which is a grossly erroneous one, nor yet too French, like those who succeeded the older writers. It appears to me, that good English, and a severer approach to the rules, might combine something not dishonourable to our literature. I have also attempted to make a play without love; and there are neither rings, nor mistakes, nor starts, nor outrageous ranting villains, nor melodrame in it. All this will prevent its popularity, but does not persuade me that it is therefore faulty. Whatever faults it has will arise from deficiency in the conduct, rather than in the conception, which is simple and

severe.

"So you epigrammatize upon my epigram? I

"P. S. If you venture, as you say, to Ravenna this year, I will exercise the rites of hospitality while you live, and bury you handsomely (though not in holy ground), if you get shot or slashed in a creagh or splore,' which are rather frequent here of late among the native parties. But perhaps your visit may be anticipated; I may probably come to your country; in which case write to her ladyship the duplicate of the epistle the king of France wrote to Prince John."

LETTER CCCCXII.

TO MR MURRAY.

* Ravenna, February 16th, 1821. "In the month of March will arrive from Barcelona Signor Curioni, engaged for the Opera. He is an acquaintance of mine, and a gentlemanly young man, high in his profession. I must request your personal kindness and patronage in his favour. Pray introduce him to such of the theatrical people, editors of papers, and others, as may be useful to him in his profession, publicly and privately.

"The fifth is so far from being the last of Don Juan, that it is hardly the beginning. I meant to take him the tour of Europe, with a proper mixture of siege, battle, and adventure, and to make him finish as Anacharsis Cloots, in the French Revolution. To how many cantos this may extend, I know not, nor whether (even if I live) I shall complete it; but this was my notion. I meant to have made him a cavalier servente in Italy, and a cause for a divorce in England, and a sentimental Werther-faced man' in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gáté and blasé as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest: the Spanish tradition says hell; but it is probably only an allegory of the other state. You are now in possession of my notions on the subject.

"You say the Doge will not be popular: did I ever write for popularity? I defy you to show a work of mine (except a tale or two) of a popular style or complexion. It appears to me that there is room for

never let any one off in the long run (who first begins), Remember ***, and see if I don't do you as good a turn. You unnatural publisher! what! quiz your own authors? you are a paper cannibal!

"In the Letter on Bowles (which I sent by Tuesday's post), after the words 'attempts had been made,' (alluding to the republication of English Bards"), add the words, in Ireland;' for I believe that English pirates did not begin their attempts till after I had left England the second time. Pray attend to this. Let me know what you and your synod think on Bowles.

"I did not think the second scal so had; surely it is far better than the Saracen's head with which you have sealed your last letter; the larger, in profile, was surely much better than that.

"So Foscolo says he will get you a scal cut better in Italy? he means a throat-that the only thing they do dexterously. The Arts-all but Canova's, and Morghen's, and Ovid's (I don't mean poetry).—| are as low as need be: look at the seal which I gave to William Bankes, and own it. How came George Bankes to quote English Bards' in the House of Commons? All the world keep flinging that poem in my face.

"Belzoni is a grand traveller, and his English is very prettily broken.

66

'As for news, the Barbarians are marching on Naples, and if they lose a single battle, all Italy will be up. It will be like the Spanish row, if they have any bottom.

"Letters opened?'-to be sure they are, and that's the reason why I always put in my opinion of the German Austrian scoundrels. There is not an Italian who loathes them more than I do; and whatever I could do to scour Italy and the earth of their infamous oppression would be done con amore. "Yours, &c."

LETTER CCCCXIII.

TO MR MURRAY.

"Ravenna, February 21st, 1821. "In the forty-fourth page, volume first, of Turner's Travels (which you lately sent me), it is stated that 'Lord Byron, when he expressed such confidence of its practicability, seems to have forgotten that Leander swam both ways, with and against the tide; whereas he (Lord Byron) only performed the easiest part of