No

actor got a pension: What! has he got a pension? Then it is time that I should give up mine!' body could be prouder of the praise of the Edinburgh than I was, or more alive to their censure, as I showed in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. At present all the men they have ever praised are degraded by that insane article. Why don't they review and praise Solomon's Guide to Health?' it is better sense and as much poetry as Johnny Keats.

"Bowles must be bowled down. 'Tis a sad match at cricket if he can get any notches at Pope's expense. If he once get into 'Lord's ground,' (to continue the pun, because it is foolish,) I think I could beat him in one innings. You did not know, perhaps, that I was once (not metaphorically, but really,) a good cricketer, particularly in batting, and I played in the Harrow match against the Etonians in 1805, gaining more notches (as one of our chosen eleven) than any, except Lord Ipswich and Brookman, on our side."

LETTER 400. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 9bre 23°, 1820. "The Hints,' Hobhouse says, will require a good deal of slashing to suit the times, which will be a work of time, for I don't feel at all laborious just now. Whatever effect they are to have would perhaps be greater in a separate form, and they also must have my name to them. Now, if you publish them in the same volume with Don Juan, they identify Don Juan as mine, which I don't think worth a

Chancery suit about my daughter's guardianship, as in your present code a facetious poem is sufficient to take away a man's rights over his family.

“Of the state of things here it would be difficult and not very prudent to speak at large, the Huns opening all letters. I wonder if they can read them when they have opened them; if so, they may see, in my MOST LEGIBLE HAND, THAT I THINK THEM DAMNED SCOUNDRELS AND BARBARIANS, and THEIR EMPEROR & FOOL, and themselves more fools than he; all which they may send to Vienna for any thing I care. They have got themselves masters of the Papal police, and are bullying away; but some day or other they will pay for all: it may not be very soon, because these unhappy Italians have no consistency among themselves; but I suppose that Providence will get tired of them at last,

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 401.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

"Besides this letter, you will receive three packets, containing, in all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, I fear, will cost you more in postage than they will ever produce by being printed in the next century. Instead of waiting so long, if you could make any thing of them now in the way of reversion, (that is, after my death,) I should be very glad,-as, with all due regard to your progeny, I prefer you to your grandchildren. Would not Longman or Murray advance you a certain sum now, pledging them

selves not to have them published till after my decease, think you? — and what say you?

"Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary power *; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is too sincere for the public. If I consent to your disposing of their reversion now, where would be the harm? Tastes may change. I would, in your case, make my essay to dispose of them, not publish, now; and if you (as is most likely) survive me, add what you please from your own knowledge; and, above all, contradict any thing, if I have mis-stated; for my first object is the truth, even at my own expense.

"I have some knowledge of your countryman Muley Moloch, the lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian already, I should probably have been now, in consequence. I thought there was something of wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of absurdity, -as there must be in all talent, let loose upon the world, without a martingale.

"The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen * but they won't go out, the sons of b-es. Damn Reform-I want a place - what say you? You must applaud the honesty of the declaration, whatever you may think of the intention.

* The power here meant is that of omitting passages that might be thought objectionable. He afterwards gave me this, as well as every other right, over the whole of the manuscript.

"I have quantities of paper in England, original and translated tragedy, &c. &c. and am now copying out a fifth Canto of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near three thin Albemarle, or two thick volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about me like a dragon till I make manure of * for the top of Parnassus.

"These rogues are right—we do laugh at t'others -eh?-don't we? You shall see-you shall see what things I'll say, an' it pleases Providence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a constitution-when they can get them. But I won't talk politics—it is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her bottle that's the only motley nowadays.

"If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests here are trying to persecute me, but no matter. Yours," &c.

LETTER 402. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

"I open my letter to tell you a fact, which will show the state of this country better than I can. The commandant of the troops is now lying dead

* He here alludes to a humorous article, of which I had told him, in Blackwood's Magazine, where the poets of the day were all grouped together in a variety of fantastic shapes, with "Lord Byron and little Moore laughing behind, as if they would split," at the rest of the fraternity.

door. I

in my house. He was shot at a little past eight o'clock, about two hundred paces from my was putting on my great-coat to visit Madame la Contessa G. when I heard the shot. On coming into the hall, I found all my servants on the balcony, exclaiming that a man was murdered. I immediately ran down, calling on Tita (the bravest of them) to follow me. The rest wanted to hinder us from going, as it is the custom for every body here, it seems, to run away from the stricken deer.'

"However, down we ran, and found him lying on his back, almost, if not quite, dead, with five wounds, one in the heart, two in the stomach, one in the finger, and the other in the arm. Some soldiers cocked their guns, and wanted to hinder me from passing. However, we passed, and I found Diego, the adjutant, crying over him like a child— a surgeon, who said nothing of his professiona priest, sobbing a frightened prayer - and the commandant, all this time, on his back, on the hard, cold pavement, without light or assistance, or any thing around him but confusion and dismay.

"As nobody could, or would, do any thing but howl and pray, and as no one would stir a finger to move him, for fear of consequences, I lost my patience - made my servant and a couple of the mob take up the body-sent off two soldiers to the guard—despatched Diego to the Cardinal with the news, and had the commandant carried up stairs into my own quarter. But it was too late, he was gone not at all disfigured-bled inwardly - not above an ounce or two came out.