"Venice, December 10. 1819.
"Since I last wrote, I have changed my mind, and shall not come to
England. The more I contemplate, the more I dislike the place and
the prospect. You may, therefore, address to me as usual _here_,
though I mean to go to another city. I have finished the third
Canto of Don Juan, but the things I have read and heard discourage
all further publication--at least for the present. You may try the
copy question, but you'll lose it: the cry is up, and cant is up. I
should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and
have written to Mr. Kinnaird by this post on the subject. Talk with
him.
"I have not the patience, nor do I feel interest enough in the
question, to contend with the fellows in their own slang; but I
perceive Mr. Blackwood's Magazine and one or two others of your
missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in
their abuse. I like and admire W * *n, and _he_ should not have
indulged himself in such outrageous licence.[65] It is overdone and
defeats itself. What would he say to the grossness without passion
and the misanthropy without feeling of Gulliver's Travels?--When he
talks of Lady's Byron's business, he talks of what he knows nothing
about; and you may tell him that no one can more desire a public
investigation of that affair than I do.
"I sent home by Moore (_for_ Moore only, who has my Journal also)
my Memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to
whom he pleased, but _not to publish_, on any account. You may
read it, and you may let W * *n read it, if he likes--not for his
_public_ opinion, but his private; for I like the man, and care
very little about his Magazine. And I could wish Lady B. herself to
read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing
mistaken or mis-stated; as it may probably appear after my
extinction, and it would be but fair she should see it,--that is to
say, herself willing.
"Perhaps I may take a journey to you in the spring; but I _have_
been ill and _am_ indolent and indecisive, because few things
interest me. These fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and
now they are wroth that I am, or attempted to be, facetious. I have
got such a cold and headach that I can hardly see what I
scrawl:--the winters here are as sharp as needles. Some time ago, I
wrote to you rather fully about my Italian affairs; at present I
can say no more except that you shall hear further by and by.
"Your Blackwood accuses me of treating women harshly: it may be so,
but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed
_to_ them and _by_ them. I mean to leave Venice in a few days, but
you will address your letters _here_ as usual. When I fix
elsewhere, you shall know."
[Footnote 65: This is one of the many mistakes into which his distance
from the scene of literary operations led him. The gentleman, to whom
the hostile article in the Magazine is here attributed, has never,
either then or since, written upon the subject of the noble poet's
character or genius, without giving vent to a feeling of admiration as
enthusiastic as it is always eloquently and powerfully expressed.]
* * * * *
Soon after this letter to Mr. Murray he set out for Ravenna, from which
place we shall find his correspondence for the next year and a half
dated. For a short time after his arrival, he took up his residence at
an inn; but the Count Guiccioli having allowed him to hire a suite of
apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli itself, he was once more lodged
under the same roof with the Countess Guiccioli.
* * * * *