The droll remarks of the _Quarterly_, and Hunt's kind defence, arrived
as safe as such poison, and safer than such an antidote, usually do.
I am on the point of sending to you 250 copies of a work which I have
printed in Italy; which you will have to pay four or five pounds duty
upon, on my account. Hunt will tell you the _kind of thing_ it is,
and in the course of the winter I shall send directions for its
publication, _until the arrival of which directions, I request that
you would have the kindness not_ to open the box, _or, if by necessity
it is opened, to abstain from observing yourself or permitting others
to observe, what it contains_. I trust this confidently to you, it
being of consequence. Meanwhile, assure yourself that this work has no
reference, direct or indirect, to politics, or religion, or personal
satire, and that this precaution is merely literary.
The _Prometheus_, a poem in my best style, whatever that may amount
to, will arrive with it, but in MS., which you can print and publish
in the season. It is the most perfect of my productions.
Southey wrote the article in question, I am well aware. Observe the
impudence of the man in speaking of himself. The only remark worth
notice in this piece is the assertion that I imitate Wordsworth.
It may as well be said that Lord Byron imitates Wordsworth, or that
Wordsworth imitates Lord Byron, both being great poets, and deriving
from the new springs of thought and feeling, which the great events
of our age have exposed to view, a similar tone of sentiment, imagery,
and expression. A certain similarity all the best writers of any
particular age inevitably are marked with, from the spirit of that age
acting on all. This I had explained in my _Preface_, which the
writer was too disingenuous to advert to. As to the other trash, and
particularly that lame attack on my personal character, which was
meant so ill, and which I am not the man to feel, 'tis all nothing. I
am glad, with respect to that part of it which alludes to Hunt, that
it should so have happened that I dedicate, as you will see, a work
which has all the capacities for being popular to that excellent
person. I was amused, too, with the finale; it is like the end of the
first act of an opera, when that tremendous concordant discord sets
up from the orchestra, and everybody talks and sings at once. It
describes the result of my battle with their Omnipotent God; his
pulling me under the sea by the hair of my head, like Pharaoh; my
calling out like the devil who was _game_ to the last; swearing and
cursing in all comic and horrid oaths, like a French postilion on
Mount Cenis; entreating everybody to drown themselves; pretending not
to be drowned myself when I _am_ drowned; and lastly, _being_ drowned.
You would do me a particular kindness if you would call on Hunt, and
ask him when my parcel went, the name of the ship, and the name of the
captain, and whether he has any bill of lading, which, if he has, you
would oblige me by sending, together with the rest of the information,
by return of post, addressed to the Post Office, Florence.