""When at eve thou rovest
By the star thou lovest.'

But it was not in a romantic mood, as I should have been once; and yet it was a new woman (that is, new to me), and, of course, expected to be made love to. But I merely made a few commonplace speeches. I feel, as your poor friend Curran said, before his death, 'a mountain of lead upon my heart,'* which I believe to be constitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the same remedy."

TO MR. ROGERS.

"Ravenna, October 21, 1821.

"I shall be (the gods willing) in Bologna on Saturday next. This is a curious answer to your letter; but I have taken a house in Pisa for the winter, to which all my chattels, furniture, horses, carriages, and live stock are already removed, and I am preparing to follow.

"The cause of this removal is, shortly, the exile or proscription of all my friends' relations and connections here into Tuscany, on account of our late politics; and where they go I accompany them. I merely remained till now to settle some arrangements about my daughter, and to give time for my furniture, etc., to precede me. I have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs and tables, and a mattress for the week to come.

"If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you for as long as you like (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is spacious-it is on the Arno); and I have four carriages, and as many saddle-horses (such as they are in these parts), with all other conveniences, at your command, as also their owner. If you could do this, we may, at least, cross the Apennines together: or if you are going by another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I hope. I address this to the post-office (as you desire), and you will probably find me at the Albergo di San Marco. If you arrive first, wait till I come up, which will be (barring accidents) on Saturday or Sunday at farthest.

"I presume you are alone in your voyages. Moore is in London incog., according to my latest advices from these climes.

"It is better than a lustre (five years and six months and some days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from Tadcaster in the farce ('Love Laughs at Locksmiths'), whose acquaintances, including the cat and the terrier, who 'caught a halfpenny in his mouth,' were all 'gone dead,' but too many of our acquaintances have taken the same path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, etc., etc.- almost everybody of much name of the old school. But 'so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,' therefore let us make the most of our remainder.

"Let me find two lines from you 'at the hostel or inn.' "Yours, ever, etc.,

"The two passages cannot be altered without making Lucifer talk like the Bishop of Lincoln, which would not be in the character of the former. The notion is from Cuvier (that of the old worlds), as I have explained in an additional note to the preface. The other passage is also in character: if nonsense, so much the better, because then it can do no harm, and the sillier Satan is made, the safer for everybody. As to 'alarms, etc., do you really think such things ever led anybody astray? Are these people more impious than Milton's 'Satan?' or the 'Prometheus' of Æschylus? or even than the 'Sadducees' of, the 'Fall of Jerusalem'. .? Are not Adam, Eve, Adah, and Abel, as pious as the catechism?

..

"Gifford is too wise a man to think that such things can have any serious effect: who was ever altered by a poem ? I beg leave to observe, that there is no creed nor personal hypothesis of mine in all this: but I was obliged to make Cain and Lucifer talk consistently, and surely this has always been permitted to poesy. Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdom, etc., it would elate him: the object of the Demon is to depress him still further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere internal irritation, not premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against life, and the Author of life, than the mere living.

"His subsequent remorse is the natural effect of looking on his sudden deed. Had the deed been premeditated, his repentance would have been tardier.

"Either dedicate it to Walter Scott, or, if you think he would like the dedication of 'The Foscaris' better, put the dedication to 'The Foscaris.' Ask him which.

"Your first note was queer enough: but your other two letters, with Moore's and Gifford's opinions, set all right again. I told you before that I can never recast anything. I am like the tiger: if I miss the first spring, I go grumbling back to my jungle again; but if I do hit, it is crushing.... You disparaged the last three cantos to me, and kept them back above a year; but I have heard from England that (notwithstanding the errors of the press) they are well thought of; for instance, by American Irving, which last is a feather in my (fool's) cap.

"You have received my letter (open) through Mr. Kinnaird, and, so, pray, send me no more reviews of any kind. I will read no more of evil or good in that line. Walter Scott has not read a review of himself for thirteen years.

"The bust is not my property, but Hobhouse's. I addressed it to you as an Admiralty man, great at the Custom-house. Pray deduct the expenses of the same, and all others.

"Yours, etc."

TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, November 16, 1821.

"There is here Mr. Taaffe, an Irish genius, with whom we are acquainted. He hath written a really excellent Commentary on Dante,* full of new and true information, and much ingenuity. But his verse is such as it hath pleased God to endue him withal. Nevertheless, he is so firmly persuaded of its equal excellence, that he won't divorce the Commentary from the traduction, as I ventured delicately to hint, not having the fear of Ireland before my eyes, and upon the presumption of having shotten very well in his presence (with common pistols too, not with my Manton's) the day before.

"But he is eager to publish all, and must be gratified, though the Reviewers will make him suffer more tortures than there are in his original. Indeed, the Notes are well worth publication; but he insists upon the translation for company, so that they will come out together, like Lady Ct chaperoning Miss. I read a letter of yours to him yesterday, and he begs me to write to you about his Poeshie. He is really a good fellow, apparently, and I dare say that his verse is very good Irish.

"Now, what shall we do for him? He says that he will risk part of the expense with the publisher. He will never rest till he is published and abused--for he has a high opinion of himself and I see nothing left but to gratify him, so as to have him abused as little as possible; for I think it would kill him. You must write, then, to Jeffrey to beg him not to review him, and I will do the same to * Mr. Taaffe's "Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri," Vol. i., was published by Mr. Murray in 1823.

Gifford, through Murray. Perhaps they might notice the Comment without touching the text. But I doubt the dogs-the text is too tempting.

"I have to thank you again, as I believe I did before, for your opinion of 'Cain,' etc.

"You are right to allow to settle the claim; but I do not see why you should repay him out of your legacy -at least, not yet. If you feel about it (as you are ticklish on such points), pay him the interest now, and the principal when you are strong in cash; or pay him by instalments; or pay him as I do my creditors that is, not till they make me.

"I address this to you at Paris, as you desire. Reply soon, and believe me ever, etc.

"P.S.-What I wrote to you about low spirits is, however, very true. At present, owing to the climate, etc. (I can walk down into my garden, and pluck my own oranges, -and, by-the-way, have got a diarrhœa in consequence of indulging in this meridian luxury of proprietorship), my spirits are much better. You seem to think that I could not have written the 'Vision,' etc., under the influence of low spirits; but I think there you err. A man's poetry is a distinct faculty, or soul, and has no more to do with the everyday individual than the Inspiration with the Pythoness when removed from her tripod."

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Pisa, December 4, 1821.

"By extracts in the English papers, -in your holy ally, Galignani's 'Messenger,' - I perceive that 'the two greatest examples of human vanity in the present age' are, firstly, 'the ex-Emperor Napoleon,' and secondly, 'his Lordship, etc., the noble poet,' meaning your humble servant, 'poor guiltless I.'