"Venice, April 9. 1817.
"Your letters of the 18th and 20th are arrived. In my own I have
given you the rise, progress, decline, and fall, of my recent
malady. It is gone to the devil: I won't pay him so bad a
compliment as to say it came from him;--he is too much of a
gentleman. It was nothing but a slow fever, which quickened its
pace towards the end of its journey. I had been bored with it some
weeks--with nocturnal burnings and morning perspirations; but I am
quite well again, which I attribute to having had neither medicine
nor doctor thereof.
"In a few days I set off for Rome: such is my purpose. I shall
change it very often before Monday next, but do you continue to
direct and address to _Venice_, as heretofore. If I go, letters
will be forwarded: I say '_if_,' because I never know what I shall
do till it is done; and as I mean most firmly to set out for Rome,
it is not unlikely I may find myself at St. Petersburg.
"You tell me to 'take care of myself;'--faith, and I will. I won't
be posthumous yet, if I can help it. Notwithstanding, only think
what a 'Life and Adventures,' while I am in full scandal, would be
worth, together with the 'membra' of my writing-desk, the sixteen
beginnings of poems never to be finished! Do you think I would not
have shot myself last year, had I not luckily recollected that Mrs.
C * * and Lady N * *, and all the old women in England would have
been delighted;--besides the agreeable 'Lunacy,' of the 'Crowner's
Quest,' and the regrets of two or three or half a dozen? Be assured
that I _would live_ for two reasons, or more;--there are one or two
people whom I have to put out of the world, and as many into it,
before I can 'depart in peace;' if I do so before, I have not
fulfilled my mission. Besides, when I turn thirty, I will turn
devout; I feel a great vocation that way in Catholic churches, and
when I hear the organ.
"So * * is writing again! Is there no Bedlam in Scotland? nor
thumb-screw? nor gag? nor hand-cuff? I went upon my knees to him
almost, some years ago, to prevent him from publishing a political
pamphlet, which would have given him a livelier idea of 'Habeas
Corpus' than the world will derive from his present production upon
that suspended subject, which will doubtless be followed by the
suspension of other of his Majesty's subjects.
"I condole with Drury Lane and rejoice with * *,--that is, in a
modest way,--on the tragical end of the new tragedy.
"You and Leigh Hunt have quarrelled then, it seems? I introduce him
and his poem to you, in the hope that (malgré politics) the union
would be beneficial to both, and the end is eternal enmity; and yet
I did this with the best intentions: I introduce * * *, and * * *
runs away with your money: my friend Hobhouse quarrels, too, with
the Quarterly: and (except the last) I am the innocent Istmhus
(damn the word! I can't spell it, though I have crossed that of
Corinth a dozen times) of these enmities.
"I will tell you something about Chillon.--A Mr. _De Luc_, ninety
years old, a Swiss, had it read to him, and is pleased with it,--so
my sister writes. He said that he was _with Rousseau_ at _Chillon_,
and that the description is perfectly correct. But this is not all:
I recollected something of the name, and find the following passage
in 'The Confessions,' vol. iii. page 247. liv. viii.:--
"'De tous ces amusemens celui qui me plût davantage fut une
promenade autour du Lac, que je fis en bateau avec _De Luc_ père,
sa bru, ses _deux fils_, et ma Therése. Nous mimes sept jours à
cette tournée par le plus beau temps du monde. J'en gardai le vif
souvenir des sites qui m'avoient frappé à l'autre extrémité du Lac,
et dont je fis la description, quelques années après, dans la
Nouvelle Heloise'
"This nonagenarian, De Luc, must be one of the 'deux fils.' He is
in England--infirm, but still in faculty. It is odd that he should
have lived so long, and not wanting in oddness that he should have
made this voyage with Jean Jacques, and afterwards, at such an
interval, read a poem by an Englishman (who had made precisely the
same circumnavigation) upon the same scenery.
"As for 'Manfred,' it is of no use sending _proofs_; nothing of
that kind comes. I sent the whole at different times. The two first
Acts are the best; the third so so; but I was blown with the first
and second heats. You must call it 'a Poem,' for it is _no Drama_,
and I do not choose to have it called by so * * a name--a 'Poem in
dialogue,' or--Pantomime, if you will; any thing but a green-room
synonyme; and this is your motto--
"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'
"Yours ever, &c.
"My love and thanks to Mr. Gifford."
* * * * *