yourself. I hope this is fair. In everything of this kind there must be risk; and till that be past, in one way or the other, I would not willingly add to it, particularly in times like the present. And pray always recollect that nothing could mortify me more no failure on my own part-than having made you lose by any purchase from me.

"The Monody* was written by request of Mr. Kinnaird for the theatre. I did as well as I could; but where I have not my choice I pretend to answer for nothing. Mr. Hobhouse and myself are just returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the Wengen Alp; and seen torrents of nine hundred feet in fall, and glaciers of all dimensions: we have heard shepherds' pipes, and avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys below us, like the spray of the ocean of hell. Chamouni, and that which it inherits, we saw a month ago : but though Mont Blanc is higher, it is not equal in wildness to the Jungfrau, the Eighers, the Shreckhorn, and the Rose Glaciers.

"We set off for Italy next week. The road is within this month infested with bandits, but we must take our chance and such precautions as are requisite.

"Ever, etc."

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Diodati, September 30, 1816.

"I answered your obliging letters yesterday: to-day the Monody arrived with its title-page, which is, I presume, a separate publication. 'The request of a friend':---

""Obliged by hunger and request of friends.'

I will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add, 'by a person of quality,' or 'of wit and honour about town.' Merely say, 'written to be spoken at Drury

K

Lane.' To-morrow I dine at Copet. Saturday I strike tents for Italy. This evening, on the lake in my boat with Mr. Hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs (the worst, luckily) as to make me do a foolish thing-viz., to faint-a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is six hours since), and cost Mr. Hobhouse some apprehension and much sprinkling of water to recover me. The sensation was a very odd one: I never had but two such before, once from a cut on the head from a stone, several years ago, and once (long ago also) in falling into a great wreath of snow; - a sort of grey giddiness first, then nothingness, and a total loss of memory on beginning to recover. The last part is not disagreeable, if one did not find it again.

"You want the original MSS. Mr. Davies has the first fair copy in my own hand, and I have the rough composition here, and will send or save it for you, since you wish it.

"With regard to your new literary project, if anything falls in the way which will, to the best of my judgment, suit you, I will send you what I can. At present I must lay by a little, having pretty well exhausted myself in what I have sent you. Italy or Dalmatia and another summer may, or may not, set me off again. I have no plans, and am nearly as indifferent what may come as where I go. I shall take Felicia Hemans's 'Restoration,' etc., with me; it is a good poem-very.

"Pray repeat my best thanks and remembrances to Mr. Gifford for all his trouble and good-nature towards me.

"Do not fancy me laid up, from the beginning of this scrawl. I tell you the accident for want of better to say; but it is over, and I am only wondering what the deuce was the matter with me.

"I have lately been over all the Bernese Alps and their lakes. I think many of the scenes (some of which were not those usually frequented by the English) finer than Chamouni, which I visited some time before. I have been to Clarens again, and crossed the mountains behind it: of this tour I kept a short journal for my sister, which I sent yesterday in three letters. It is not all for perusal; but if you like to hear about the romantic part, she will, I dare say, show you what touches upon the rocks, etc.

"Christabel-I won't have any one sneer at Christabel: it is a fine wild poem.

"Madame de Stael wishes to see the Antiquary, and I am going to take it to her to-morrow. She has made Copet as agreeable as society and talent can make any place on earth. "Ν."

"Yours ever,

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Milan, October 15, 1816.

"I hear that Mr. Davies has arrived in England,-but that of some letters, etc., committed to his care by Mr. H., only half have been delivered. This intelligence naturally makes me feel a little anxious for mine, and amongst them for the MS., which I wished to have compared with the one sent by me through the hands of Mr. Shelley. I trust that it has arrived safely, and indeed not less so, that some little crystals, etc., from Mont Blanc, for my daughter and my nieces, have reached their address. Pray have the goodness to ascertain from Mr. Davies that no accident (by custom-house or loss) has befallen them, and satisfy me on this point at your earliest convenience.

"If I recollect rightly, you told me that Mr. Gifford had kindly undertaken to correct the press (at my request) during my absence-at least I hope so. It will add to my many obligations to that gentleman.

"I wrote to you, on my way here, a short note, dated Martigny. Mr. Hobhouse and myself arrived here a few days ago, by the Simplon and Lago Maggiore route. Of course we visited the Borromean Islands, which are fine, but too artificial. The Simplon is magnificent in its nature and its art, both God and man have done wonders, -to say nothing of the devil, who must certainly have had a hand (or a hoof) in some of the rocks and ravines through and over which the works are carried.

"Milan is striking-the cathedral superb. The city altogether reminds me of Seville, but a little inferior. We had heard divers bruits, and took precautions on the road, near the frontier, against some 'many worthy fellows (i.e., felons) that were out, and had ransacked some preceding travellers, a few weeks ago, near Sesto, -or Cesto, I forget which, of cash and raiment, besides putting them in bodily fear, and lodging about twenty slugs in the retreating part of a courier belonging to Mr. Hope. But we were not molested, and I do not think in any danger, except of making mistakes in the way of cocking and priming whenever we saw an old house, or an ill-looking thicket, and now and then suspecting the true men,' who have very much the appearance of the thieves of other countries. What the thieves may look like I know not, nor desire to know; for it seems they come upon you in bodies of thirty ('in buckram and Kendal green') at a time, so that voyagers have no great chance. It is something like poor dear Turkey in that respect, but not so good, for there you can have as great a body of rogues to match the regular banditti; but here the gens-d'armes are said to be no great things; and as for one's own people, one can't carry them about like Robinson Crusoe with a gun on each shoulder.

"I have been to the Ambrosian library it is a fine collection-full of MSS. edited and unedited. I enclose you a list of the former recently published: these are matters for your literati. For me, in my simple way, I have been most delighted with a correspondence of letters, all original and amatory, between Lucretia Borgia and Cardinal Bembo, preserved there. I have pored over them and a lock of her hair, the prettiest and fairest imaginable -I never saw fairer and shall go repeatedly to read the epistles over and over; and if I can obtain some of the hair by fair means, I shall try. I have already persuaded the librarian to promise me copies of the letters, and I hope he will not disappoint me. They are short, but very simple, sweet, and to the purpose; there are some copies of verses in Spanish also by her; the tress of her hair is long, and, as I said before, beautiful. The Brera gallery of paintings has some fine pictures, but nothing of a collection. Of painting I know nothing; but I like a Guercino-a picture of Abraham putting away Hagar and Ishmael-which seems to me natural and goodly. The Flemish school, such as I saw it in Flanders, I utterly detested, despised, and abhorred; it might be painting, but it was not nature ; the Italian is pleasing, and their ideal very noble.

"The Italians I have encountered here are very intelligent and agreeable. In a few days I am to meet Monti. By-the-way, I have just heard an anecdote of Beccaria, who published such admirable things against the punishment of death. As soon as his book was out, his servant (having read it, I presume) stole his watch; and his master, while correcting the proofs of a second edition, did all he could to have him hanged by way of advertisement.

"I forgot to mention the triumphal arch begun by Napoleon, as a gate to this city. It is unfinished, but the part completed worthy of another age and the same country. The society here is very oddly carried on, at the theatre, and the theatre only, which answers to our opera. People meet there as at a rout, but in very small circles. From Milan I shall go to Venice. If you write, write to Geneva, as before the letter will be forwarded.

"Yours ever."

TO MR. MOORE.

"Verona, November 6, 1816.

"My dear Moore, - Your letter, written before my departure from England, and addressed to me in London, only reached me recently. Since that period I have been over a portion of that part of Europe which I had not