"Ravenna, August 31, 1820.
"D----n your 'mezzo cammin[79]'--you should say 'the prime of
life,' a much more consolatory phrase. Besides, it is not correct.
I was born in 1788, and consequently am but thirty-two. You are
mistaken on another point. The 'Sequin Box' never came into
requisition, nor is it likely to do so. It were better that it had,
for then a man is not _bound_, you know. As to reform, I did
reform--what would you have? 'Rebellion lay in his way, and he
found it.' I verily believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical
temperament, can avoid a strong passion of some kind. It is the
poetry of life. What should I have known or written, had I been a
quiet, mercantile politician, or a lord in waiting? A man must
travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence. Besides, I only
meant to be a Cavalier Servente, and had no idea it would turn out
a romance, in the Anglo fashion.
"However, I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy--more than Lady
Morgan has picked up in her posting. What do Englishmen know of
Italians beyond their museums and saloons--and some hack * *, _en
passant_? Now, I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts
of Italy freshest and least influenced by strangers,--have seen and
become (_pars magna fui_) a portion of their hopes, and fears, and
passions, and am almost inoculated into a family. This is to see
men and things as they are.
"You say that I called you 'quiet [80]'--I don't recollect any
thing of the sort. On the contrary, you are always in scrapes.
"What think you of the Queen? I hear Mr. Hoby says, 'that it makes
him weep to see her, she reminds him so much of Jane Shore.'
"Mr. Hoby the bootmaker's heart is quite sore,
For seeing the Queen makes him think of Jane Shore;
And, in fact, * *
Pray excuse this ribaldry. What is your poem about? Write and tell
me all about it and you.
"Yours, &c.
"P.S. Did you write the lively quiz on Peter Bell? It has wit
enough to be yours, and almost too much to be any body else's now
going. It was in Galignani the other day or week."
[Footnote 79: I had congratulated him upon arriving at what Dante calls
the "mezzo cammin" of life, the age of thirty-three.]
[Footnote 80: I had mistaken the concluding words of his letter of the
9th of June.]
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