"Ravenna, September 12. 1821.
"By Tuesday's post, I forwarded, in three packets, the drama of
Cain in three acts, of which I request the acknowledgment when
arrived. To the last speech of _Eve_, in the last act (_i.e._ where
she curses Cain), add these three lines to the concluding one--
"May the grass wither from thy foot! the woods
Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust
A grave! the sun his light! and Heaven her God!
"There's as pretty a piece of imprecation for you, when joined to
the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course
of your business. But don't forget the addition of the above three
lines, which are clinchers to Eve's speech.
"Let me know what Gifford thinks (if the play arrives in safety);
for I have a good opinion of the piece, as poetry; it is in my gay
metaphysical style, and in the Manfred line.
"You must at least commend my facility and variety, when you
consider what I have done within the last fifteen months, with my
head, too, full of other and of mundane matters. But no doubt you
will avoid saying any good of it, for fear I should raise the price
upon you: that's right: stick to business. Let me know what your
other ragamuffins are writing, for I suppose you don't like
starting too many of your vagabonds at once. You may give them the
start, for any thing I care.
"Why don't you publish my _Pulci_--the best thing I ever
wrote,--with the Italian to it? I wish I was alongside of you;
nothing is ever done in a man's absence; every body runs counter,
because they _can_. If ever I _do_ return to England, (which I
sha'n't, though,) I will write a poem to which 'English Bards,' &c.
shall be new milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of
mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar. But I am not yet
quite bilious enough: a season or two more, and a provocation or
two, will wind me up to the point, and then have at the whole set!
"I have no patience with the sort of trash you send me out by way
of books; except Scott's novels, and three or four other things, I
never saw such work, or works. Campbell is lecturing--Moore
idling--S * * twaddling--W * * drivelling--C * * muddling--* *
piddling--B * * quibbling, squabbling, and snivelling. * * will
_do_, if he don't cant too much, nor imitate Southey; the fellow
has poesy in him; but he is envious, and unhappy, as all the
envious are. Still he is among the best of the day. B * * C * *
will do better by-and-by, I dare say, if he don't get spoiled by
green tea, and the praises of Pentonville and Paradise Row. The
pity of these men is, that they never lived in _high life_, nor in
_solitude_: there is no medium for the knowledge of the _busy_ or
the _still_ world. If admitted into high life for a season, it is
merely as spectators--they form no part of the mechanism thereof.
Now Moore and I, the one by circumstances, and the other by birth,
happened to be free of the corporation, and to have entered into
its pulses and passions, _quarum partes fuimus_. Both of us have
learnt by this much which nothing else could have taught us.
"Yours.
"P.S. I saw one of your brethren, another of the allied sovereigns
of Grub Street, the other day, Mawman the Great, by whom I sent due
homage to your imperial self. To-morrow's post may perhaps bring a
letter from you, but you are the most ungrateful and ungracious of
correspondents. But there is some excuse for you, with your
perpetual levee of politicians, parsons, scribblers, and loungers.
Some day I will give you a poetical catalogue of them."
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