"Ravenna, August 31. 1820.
"I have '_put my soul_' into the tragedy (as you _if_ it); but you
know that there are d----d souls as well as tragedies. Recollect
that it is not a political play, though it may look like it: it is
strictly historical. Read the history and judge.
"Ada's picture is her mother's. I am glad of it--the mother made a
good daughter. Send me Gifford's opinion, and never mind the
Archbishop. I can neither send you away, nor give you a hundred
pistoles, nor a better taste: I send you a tragedy, and you ask for
'facetious epistles;' a little like your predecessor, who advised
Dr. Prideaux to 'put some more humour into his Life of Mahomet.'
"Bankes is a wonderful fellow. There is hardly one of my school or
college contemporaries that has not turned out more or less
celebrated. Peel, Palmerstone, Bankes, Hobhouse, Tavistock, Bob
Mills, Douglas Kinnaird, &c. &c. have all talked and been talked
about.
"We are here going to fight a little next month, if the Huns don't
cross the Po, and probably if they do. I can't say more now. If any
thing happens, you have matter for a posthumous work, in MS.; so
pray be civil. Depend upon it, there will be savage work, if once
they begin here. The French courage proceeds from vanity, the
German from phlegm, the Turkish from fanaticism and opium, the
Spanish from pride, the English from coolness, the Dutch from
obstinacy, the Russian from insensibility, but the _Italian_ from
_anger_; so you'll see that they will spare nothing."
* * * * *