'tone of levity, that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will be a mistake : 'I I am always flippant in prose. Considering you, ' as I really and warmly do, in common with all your ' own, and with most other nations, to be by far the 'first literary character which has existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you the following work,-not as being ' either a tragedy or a poem (for I cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one or the other, or 'both, or neither), but as a mark of esteem and ad'miration from a foreigner to the man who has been ' hailed in Germany "THE GREAT GOETHE." 'I have the honour to be, 'P.S. I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call ""Classical" and "Romantic,"-terms which were not 'subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago. Some of the English ' scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the 'reason was that they themselves did not know how 'to write either prose or verse; but nobody thought 'them worth making a sect of. Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I have 'not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I shall be very sorry to believe it.' LETTER 394. TO MR. MOORE. 'Ravenna, October 17th, 1820. 'You owe me two letters-pay them. I want to you will be back to Paris. Apropos of Paris, it was 'not Sophia Gail, but Sophia Gay-the English word Gay-who was my correspondent*. Can you tell 'who she is, as you did of the defunct * *? 'Have you gone on with your Poem? I have re'ceived the French of mine. Only think of being tra'duced into a foreign language in such an abominable travesty! It is useless to rail, but one can't help it. Have you got my Memoir copied? I have begun ' a continuation. Shall I send it you, as far as it is gone? I can't say any thing to you about Italy, for the 'Government here look upon me with a suspicious eye, as I am well informed. Pretty fellows!-as if I, a solitary stranger, could do any mischief. It is because I am fond of rifle and pistol shooting, I be'lieve; for they took the alarm at the quantity of cartridges I consumed,-the wiseacres ! 'You don't deserve a long letter-nor a letter at 'all-for your silence. You have got a new Bourbon, 'it seems, whom they have christened "Dieu-donné;" '-perhaps the honour of the present may be dis'puted. Did you write the good lines on 'Laker? * * the The Queen has made a pretty theme for the jour'nals. Was there ever such evidence published? Why, it is worse than "Little's Poems" or "Don * I had mistaken the name of the lady he inquired after, and reported her to him as dead. But, on the receipt of the above letter, I discovered that his correspondent was Madame Sophie Gay, mother of the celebrated poetess and beauty, Mademoiselle Delphine Gay, TO MR. MURRAY. 'Ravenna, 8bre 25°, 1820. Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is ' on business. 'In thanking you for the Abbot, I made four grand mistakes, Sir John Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son of Huntley's. He suffered not 'for his loyalty, but in an insurrection. He had nothing to do with Loch Leven, having been dead some time at the period of the Queen's confinement: and, fourthly, I am not sure that he was the Queen's paramour or no, for Robertson does not allude to this, though Walter Scott does, in the list he gives of her 'admirers (as unfortunate) at the close of " the Abbot." 'I must have made all these mistakes in recollecting my mother's account of the matter, although she was more accurate than I am, being precise upon points of genealogy, like all the aristocratical Scotch. 'She had a long list of ancestors, like Sir Lucius 'O'Trigger's, most of whom are to be found in the old 'Scotch Chronicles, Spalding, &c., in arms and doing 'mischief. I remember well passing Loch Leven, as ' well as the Queen's Ferry: we were on our way to 'England in 1798. • Yours. 'You had better not publish Blackwood and the Roberts' prose, except what regards Pope;-you 'have let the time slip by.' The Pamphlet in answer to Blackwood's Magazine, here mentioned, was occasioned by an article in that work, entitled Remarks on Don Juan,' and, though put to press by Mr. Murray, was never published, The writer in the Magazine having, in reference to certain passages in Don Juan, taken occasion to pass some severe strictures on the author's matrimonial conduct, Lord Byron, in his reply, enters at some length into that painful subject; and the following extracts from his defence,—if defence it can be called, where there has never yet been any definite charge,— will be perused with strong interest. My learned brother proceeds to observe, that "it is in vain for Lord B. to attempt in any way to justify 'his own behaviour in that affair: and now that he 'has so openly and audaciously invited inquiry and reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should 'not be plainly told so by the voice of his country'men." How far the " openness" of an anonymous 'poem, and the "audacity" of an imaginary character, 'which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B., may be deemed to merit this formidable denuncia'tion from their "most sweet voices," I neither know nor care; but when he tells me that I cannot "in any way justify my own behaviour in that affair," I acquiesce, because no man can "justify" himself until he knows of what he is accused; and I have never had—and, God knows, my whole desire has 'ever been to obtain it-any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the atrocities of public rumour and 'the mysterious silence of the lady's legal advisers may be deemed such*. But is not the writer con'tent with what has been already said and done? Has "not" the general voice of his countrymen" long ago ८ While these sheets are passing through the press, a printed statement has been transmitted to me by Lady Noel Byron, which the reader will find inserted in the Appendix to this volume. (First Edition.) pronounced upon the subject-sentence without trial, and condemnation without a charge? Have I not 'been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells 'which proscribed me were anonymous? Is the 'writer ignorant of the public opinion and the public 'conduct upon that occasion? If he is, I am not the 'public will forget both long before I shall cease to ' remember either. 'The man who is exiled by a faction has the conso'lation of thinking that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real or imaginary he who withdraws from the pressure of debt 'may indulge in the thought that time and prudence 'will retrieve his circumstances: he who is con'demned by the law has a term to his banishment, or ' a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may be, the know'ledge or the belief of some injustice of the law, or ' of its administration in his own particular: but he who is outlawed by general opinion, without the 'intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or 'embarrassed circumstances, whether he be innocent 'or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile, 'without hope, without pride, without alleviation. This case was mine. Upon what grounds the public founded their opinion, I am not aware; but it was ' general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine they ' knew little, except that I had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, became a fa'ther, and was involved in differences with my wife ' and her relatives, no one knew why, because the per'sons complaining refused to state their grievances. The fashionable world was divided into parties, mine 'consisting of a very small minority: the reasonable 'world was naturally on the stronger side, which |