"Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.
"Besides this letter, you will receive _three_ packets, containing,
in all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, I fear, will cost you
more in postage than they will ever produce by being printed in the
next century. Instead of waiting so long, if you could make any
thing of them _now_ in the way of _reversion_, (that is, after _my_
death,) I should be very glad,--as, with all due regard to your
progeny, I prefer you to your grandchildren. Would not Longman or
Murray advance you a certain sum _now_, pledging themselves _not_
to have them published till after _my_ decease, think you?--and
what say you?
"Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary
power[13]; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is
too sincere for the public. If I consent to your disposing of their
reversion _now_, where would be the harm? Tastes may change. I
would, in your case, make my essay to dispose of them, _not_
publish, now; and if _you_ (as is most likely) survive me, add what
you please from your own knowledge; and, _above all, contradict_
any thing, if I have _mis_-stated; for my first object is the
truth, even at my own expense.
"I have some knowledge of your countryman Muley Moloch, the
lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to
convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian already, I should
probably have been now, in consequence. I thought there was
something of wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of
absurdity,--as there must be in all talent, let loose upon the
world, without a martingale.
"The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen * * * but they
_won't_ go out, the sons of b----es. Damn Reform--I want a
place--what say you? You must applaud the honesty of the
declaration, whatever you may think of the intention.
"I have quantities of paper in England, original and
translated--tragedy, &c. &c. and am now copying out a fifth Canto
of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near _three thin_
Albemarle, or _two thick_ volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean
to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about
me like a dragon till I make manure of * * * for the top of
Parnassus.
"These rogues are right--_we do_ laugh at _t'others_--eh?--don't
we?[14] You shall see--you shall see what things I'll say, an' it
pleases Providence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are
all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a
constitution--when they can get them. But I won't talk politics--it
is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her
bottle--that's the only _motley_ nowadays.
"If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests
here are trying to persecute me,--but no matter. Yours," &c.
[Footnote 13: The power here meant is that of omitting passages that
might be thought objectionable. He afterwards gave me this, as well as
every other right, over the whole of the manuscript.]
[Footnote 14: He here alludes to a humorous article, of which I had told
him, in Blackwood's Magazine, where the poets of the day were all
grouped together in a variety of fantastic shapes, with "Lord Byron and
little Moore laughing behind, as if they would split," at the rest of
the fraternity.]
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