"Ravenna, June 22. 1821.
"Your dwarf of a letter came yesterday. That is right;--keep to
your 'magnum opus '--magnoperate away. Now, if we were but together
a little to combine our 'Journal of Trevoux!' But it is useless to
sigh, and yet very natural,--for I think you and I draw better
together, in the social line, than any two other living authors.
"I forgot to ask you, if you had seen your own panegyric in the
correspondence of Mrs. Waterhouse and Colonel Berkeley? To be sure
_their_ moral is not quite exact; but _your passion_ is fully
effective; and all poetry of the Asiatic kind--I mean Asiatic, as
the Romans called _Asiatic_ oratory,' and not because the scenery
is Oriental--must be tried by that test only. I am not quite sure
that I shall allow the Miss Byrons (legitimate or illegitimate) to
read Lalla Rookh--in the first place, on account of this said
_passion_; and, in the second, that they mayn't discover that there
was a better poet than papa.
"You say nothing of politics--but, alas! what can be said?
"The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull,
Each tugs it a different way,--
And the greatest of all is John Bull!
"How do you call your new project? I have sent Murray a new
tragedy, ycleped 'Sardanapalus,' writ according to Aristotle--all,
save the chorus--could not reconcile me to that. I have begun
another, and am in the second act;--so you see I saunter on as
usual.
"Bowles's answers have reached me; but I can't go on disputing for
ever,--particularly in a polite manner. I suppose he will take
being _silent_ for _silenced_. He has been so civil that I can't
find it in my liver to be facetious with him,--else I had a savage
joke or two at his service. * * *
"I can't send you the little journal, because it is in boards, and
I can't trust it per post. Don't suppose it is any thing
particular; but it will show the _intentions_ of the natives at
that time--and one or two other things, chiefly personal, like the
former one.
"So, Longman don't _bite_.--It was my wish to have made that work
of use. Could you not raise a sum upon it (however small),
reserving the power of redeeming it, on repayment?
"Are you in Paris, or a villaging? If you are in the city, you will
never resist the Anglo-invasion you speak of. I do not see an
Englishman in half a year, and, when I do, I turn my horse's head
the other way. The fact, which you will find in the last note to
the Doge, has given me a good excuse for quite dropping the least
connection with travellers.
"I do not recollect the speech you speak of, but suspect it is not
the Doge's, but one of Israel Bertuccio to Calendaro. I hope you
think that Elliston behaved shamefully--it is my only consolation.
I made the Milanese fellows contradict their lie, which they did
with the grace of people used to it.
"Yours, &c.
"B."
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