publications, and theirs is no language at all, but jargon. Even your *** is terribly stilted and 'affected, with "very, very" so soft and pamby.

'Oh! if ever I do come amongst you again, I will give you such a " Baviad and Mæviad!" not as good as the old, but even better merited. There never was such a set as your ragamuffins (I mean not yours only, but every body's). What with the Cockneys, and the Lakers, and the followers of Scott, and Moore, and Byron, you are in the very uttermost ' decline and degradation of literature. I can't think ' of it without all the remorse of a murderer.

' that Johnson were alive again to crush them!'

I wish

'Ravenna, Sept. 14th, 1820. 'What! not a line? Well, have it your own way.

'I wish you would inform Perry, that his stupid 'paragraph is the cause of all my newspapers being 'stopped in Paris. The fools believe me in your in'fernal country, and have not sent on their gazettes, 'so that I know nothing of your beastly trial of the Queen.

'I cannot avail myself of Mr. Gifford's remarks, 'because I have received none, except on the first act. 'Yours, &c.

'P.S. Do, pray, beg the editors of papers to say any thing blackguard they please; but not to put me amongst their arrivals. They do me more mischief 'by such nonsense than all their abuse can do.'

LETTER 386.

TO MR. MURRAY.

'Ravenna, Sept. 21st, 1820.

'So you are at your old tricks again. This is the 'second packet I have received unaccompanied by a

single line of good, bad, or indifferent. It is strange 'that you have never forwarded any further observa'tions of Gifford's. How am I to alter or amend, if I 'hear no further? or does this silence mean that it

is well enough as it is, or too bad to be repaired? If the last, why do you not say so at once, instead ' of playing pretty, while you know that soon or late you must out with the truth.

Yours, &c.

P.S. My sister tells me that you sent to her to inquire where I was, believing in my arrival, " driv

ing a curricle," &c. &c. into Palace-yard. Do you 'think me a coxcomb or a madman, to be capable of 'such an exhibition? My sister knew me better, and told you, that could not be me.

'well have thought me entering on ' like Death in the Revelations.'

You might as

a pale horse,"

Ravenna, Sept. 23d, 1820. 'Get from Mr. Hobhouse, and send me a proof '(with the Latin) of my Hints from Horace: it has now 'the nonum prematur in annum complete for its production, being written at Athens in 1811. I have a ' notion that, with some omissions of names and passages, it will do; and I could put my late observa'tions for Pope amongst the notes, with the date of 1820, and so on. As far as versification goes, it is 'good; and, on looking back to what I wrote about 'that period, I am astonished to see how little I have 'trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that 'comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad 'taste of the times. If I can trim it for present publication, what with the other things you have of 'mine, you will have a volume or two of variety at

'least, for there will be all measures, styles, and topics, whether good or no. I am anxious to hear 'what Gifford thinks of the tragedy: pray let me 'know. I really do not know what to think myself.

'If the Germans pass the Po, they will be treated to a mass out of the Cardinal de Retz's Breviary. '**'s a fool, and could not understand this: Frere 'will. It is as pretty a conceit as you would wish to see on a summer's day.

'Nobody here believes a word of the evidence against the Queen. The very mob cry shame against 'their countrymen, and say, that for half the money spent upon the trial, any testimony whatever may be brought out of Italy. This you may rely upon as 'fact. I told you as much before. As to what travellers report, what are travellers? Now I have 'lived among the Italians-not Florenced, and Romed, and galleried, and conversationed it for a few months, ' and then home again; but been of their families, and friendships, and feuds, and loves, and councils, ' and correspondence, in a part of Italy least known. 'to foreigners,-and have been amongst them of all 'classes, from the Conte to the Contadine; and you may be sure of what I say to you.

८

'Yours, &c.'

'Ravenna, Sept. 28th, 1820.

'I thought that I had told you long ago, that it never was intended nor written with any view to the stage. I have said so in the preface too. It is too long and too regular for your stage, the persons too few, and the unity too much observed. It is 'more like a play of Alfieri's than of your stage (I say

this humbly in speaking of that great man); but 'there is poetry, and it is equal to Manfred, though I 'know not what esteem is held of Manfred.

'I have now been nearly as long out of England as 'I was there during the time I saw you frequently. 'I came home July 14th, 1811, and left again April 25th, 1816: so that Sept. 28th, 1820, brings me 'within a very few months of the same duration of 'time of my stay and my absence. 'know nothing of the public taste 'from what I glean from letters, &c. 'as bad as possible.

In course, I can and feelings, but Both seem to be

'I thought Anastasius excellent: did I not say so? 'Matthews's Diary most excellent; it, and Forsyth, and parts of Hobhouse, are all we have of truth or 'sense upon Italy. The Letter to Julia very good ' indeed. I do not despise ******; but if she knit 'blue-stockings instead of wearing them, it would be 'better. You are taken in by that false stilted trashy style, which is a mixture of all the styles of the day, 'which are all bombastic (I don't except my own—no one has done more through negligence to corrupt 'the language); but it is neither English nor poetry. 'Time will show.

.

I am sorry Gifford has made no further remarks 'beyond the first Act: does he think all the English 'equally sterling as he thought the first? You did 'right to send the proofs: I was a fool; but I do really 'detest the sight of proofs: it is an absurdity; but comes from laziness.

'You can steal the two Juans into the world quietly, tagged to the others. The play as you will-the Dante too; but the Pulci I am proud of it is superb; you have no such translation. It is the best

thing I ever did in my life. I wrote the play from beginning to end, and not a single scene without interruption, and being obliged to break off in the middle; for I had my hands full, and my head, too, just then; so it can be no great shakes-I mean the play; and the head too, if you like.

6

P. S. Politics here still savage and uncertain. However, we are all in our "bandaliers," to join the "Highlanders if they cross the Forth," i. e., to crush the Austrians if they cross the Po. The rascals !— and that dog Liverpool, to say their subjects are happy! If ever I come back, I'll work some of these 'ministers.'

Sept. 29th.

'I opened my letter to say, that on reading more of the four volumes on Italy, where the author says "declined an introduction," I perceive (horresco re'ferens) it is written by a WOMAN!!! In that case you must suppress my note and answer, and all I have said about the book and the writer. I never ' dreamed of it until now, in my extreme wrath at that precious note. I can only say that I am sorry that a 'lady should say any thing of the kind. What I would

have said to one of the other sex you know already. 'Her book too (as a she book) is not a bad one; but 'she evidently don't know the Italians, or rather don't ' like them, and forgets the causes of their misery and profligacy (Matthews and Forsyth are your men for 'truth and tact), and has gone over Italy in companyalways a bad plan: you must be alone with people to 'know them well. Ask her, who was the " descendant of Lady M. W. Montague," and by whom? by Alga'rotti?