"Ravenna, May 25. 1821.
"Mr. Moray,
"Since I wrote the enclosed a week ago, and for some weeks before,
I have not had a line from you: now, I should be glad to know upon
what principle of common or _un_common feeling, you leave me
without any information but what I derive from garbled gazettes in
English, and abusive ones in Italian (the Germans hating me as a
_coal-heaver_), while all this kick-up has been going on about the
play? You SHABBY fellow!!! Were it not for two letters from Douglas
Kinnaird, I should have been as ignorant as you are negligent.
"So, I hear Bowles has been abusing Hobhouse? If that's the case,
he has broken the truce, like Morillo's successor, and I will cut
him out, as Cochrane did the Esmeralda.
"Since I wrote the enclosed packet, I have completed (but not
copied out) four acts of a new tragedy. When I have finished the
fifth, I will copy it out. It is on the subject of 'Sardanapalus,'
the last king of the Assyrians. The words _Queen_ and _Pavilion_
occur, but it is not an allusion to his Britannic Majesty, as you
may tremulously imagine. This you will one day see (if I finish
it), as I have made Sardanapalus _brave_, (though voluptuous, as
history represents him,) and also as _amiable_ as my poor powers
could render him:--so that it could neither be truth nor satire on
any living monarch. I have strictly preserved all the unities
hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but
_not_ for _the stage_. Yours, in haste and hatred, you shabby
correspondent! N."
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