"Diodati, near Geneva, July 29. 1816.
"Do you recollect a book, Mathieson's Letters, which you lent me,
which I have still, and yet hope to return to your library? Well, I
have encountered at Copet and elsewhere Gray's correspondent, that
same Bonstetten, to whom I lent the translation of his
correspondent's epistles, for a few days; but all he could remember
of Gray amounts to little, except that he was the most 'melancholy
and gentlemanlike' of all possible poets. Bonstetten himself is a
fine and very lively old man, and much esteemed by his compatriots;
he is also a _littérateur_ of good repute, and all his friends have
a mania of addressing to him volumes of letters--Mathieson, Muller
the historian, &c.&c. He is a good deal at Copet, where I have met
him a few times. All there are well, except Rocca, who, I am sorry
to say, looks in a very bad state of health. Schlegel is in high
force, and Madame as brilliant as ever.
"I came here by the Netherlands and the Rhine route, and Basle,
Berne, Moral, and Lausanne. I have circumnavigated the Lake, and go
to Chamouni with the first fair weather; but really we have had
lately such stupid mists, fogs, and perpetual density, that one
would think Castlereagh had the Foreign Affairs of the kingdom of
Heaven also on his hands. I need say nothing to you of these parts,
you having traversed them already. I do not think of Italy before
September. I have read Glenarvon, and have also seen Ben.
Constant's Adolphe, and his preface, denying the real people. It is
a work which leaves an unpleasant impression, but very consistent
with the consequences of not being in love, which is, perhaps, as
disagreeable as any thing, except being so. I doubt, however,
whether all such _liens_ (as he calls them) terminate so wretchedly
as his hero and heroine's.
"There is a third Canto (a longer than either of the former) of
Childe Harold finished, and some smaller things,--among them a
story on the Château de Chillon; I only wait a good opportunity to
transmit them to the grand Murray, who, I hope, flourishes. Where
is Moore? Why is he not out? My love to him, and my perfect
consideration and remembrances to all, particularly to Lord and
Lady Holland, and to your Duchess of Somerset.
"Ever, &c.
"P.S. I send you a _fac-simile_, a note of Bonstetten's, thinking
you might like to see the hand of Gray's correspondent."
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