"Ravenna, February 7. 1820.
"I have had no letter from you these two months; but since I came
here in December, 1819, I sent you a letter for Moore, who is God
knows _where_--in Paris or London, I presume. I have copied and
cut the third Canto of Don Juan _into two_, because it was too
long; and I tell you this beforehand, because in case of any
reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as
this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not
longer than one of the first: so remember that I have not made this
division to _double_ upon _you_; but merely to suppress some
tediousness in the aspect of the thing. I should have served you a
pretty trick if I had sent you, for example, cantos of 50 stanzas
each.
"I am translating the first Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, and
have half done it; but these last days of the Carnival confuse and
interrupt every thing.
"I have not yet sent off the Cantos, and have some doubt whether
they ought to be published, for they have not the spirit of the
first. The outcry has not frightened but it has _hurt_ me, and I
have not written _con amore_ this time. It is very decent, however,
and as dull as 'the last new comedy.'
"I think my translations of Pulci will make you stare. It must be
put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse; and
you will see what was permitted in a Catholic country and a bigoted
age to a churchman, on the score of religion;--and so tell those
buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy.
"I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and
I must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just
gone with the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six to join the
cavalcade, and I must follow with all the rest of the Ravenna
world. Our old Cardinal is dead, and the new one not appointed yet;
but the masquing goes on the same, the vice-legate being a good
governor. We have had hideous frost and snow, but all is mild
again.
"Yours," &c.
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