"Pisa, November 3. 1821.
"The two passages cannot be altered without making Lucifer talk
like the Bishop of Lincoln, which would not be in the character of
the former. The notion is from Cuvier (that of the _old worlds_),
as I have explained in an additional note to the preface. The other
passage is also in character: if _nonsense_, so much the better,
because then it can do no harm, and the sillier Satan is made, the
safer for every body. As to 'alarms,' &c. do you really think such
things ever led any body astray? Are these people more impious than
Milton's Satan? or the Prometheus of Æschylus? or even than the
Sadducees of * *, the 'Fall of Jerusalem' * *? Are not Adam, Eve,
Adah, and Abel, as pious as the catechism?
"Gifford is too wise a man to think that such things can have any
_serious_ effect: _who_ was ever altered by a poem? I beg leave to
observe, that there is no creed nor personal hypothesis of mine in
all this; but I was obliged to make Cain and Lucifer talk
consistently, and surely this has always been permitted to poesy.
Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdom, &c. it would
_elate_ him: the object of the Demon is to _depress_ him still
further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him
infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame
of mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere _internal_
irritation, _not_ premeditation, or envy of _Abel_ (which would
have made him contemptible), but from the rage and fury against
the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions, and which
discharges itself rather against life, and the Author of life, than
the mere living.
"His subsequent remorse is the natural effect of looking on his
sudden deed. Had the _deed_ been _premeditated_, his repentance
would have been tardier.
"Either dedicate it to Walter Scott, or, if you think he would like
the dedication of 'The Foscaris' better, put the dedication to 'The
Foscaris.' Ask him which.
"Your first note was queer enough; but your two other letters, with
Moore's and Gifford's opinions, set all right again. I told you
before that I can never _recast_ any thing. I am like the tiger: if
I miss the first spring, I go grumbling back to my jungle again;
but if I do _hit_, it is crushing. * * * You disparaged the last
three cantos to me, and kept them back above a year; but I have
heard from England that (notwithstanding the errors of the press)
they are well thought of; for instance, by American Irving, which
last is a feather in my (fool's) cap.
"You have received my letter (open) through Mr. Kinnaird, and so,
pray, send me no more reviews of any kind. I will read no more of
evil or good in that line. Walter Scott has not read a review of
_himself_ for _thirteen years_.
"The bust is not _my_ property, but _Hobhouse_'s. I addressed it to
you as an Admiralty man, great at the Custom-house. Pray deduct the
expenses of the same, and all others.
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *