'inconceivable how he could be so absurd as to 'imagine us serious with him.

'Recollect, that if you put my name to "Don Juan" in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody; -such are the perils of a foolish jest. I was not ' aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, 'I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels 'would not let it slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half ' a dozen.

'Let me know your notions.

If

you

turn over the earlier pages of the Hunting" don peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of John and Henry, and gave it to my daughter. It was also the name ' of Charlemagne's sister. It is in an early chapter of 'Genesis, as the name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of Adam. It is short, 'ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for 'which reason I gave it to my daughter.'

LETTER 391.

By land and sea carriage a considerable quantity of books have arrived; and I am obliged and grateful: but "medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid,' &c. &c.; which, being interpreted, means,

'I'm thankful for your books, dear Murray;

'But why not send Scott's Monastery?

'the only book in four living volumes I would give 'a baioccolo to see-'bating the rest of the same

author, and an occasional Edinburgh and Quarterly, 'as brief chroniclers of the times. Instead of this, here are Johnny Keats's ** poetry, and three ' novels by God knows whom, except that there is 'Peg * *'s name to one of them-a spinster whom 'I thought we had sent back to her spinning. Crayon is very good; Hogg's Tales rough, but RACY, ' and welcome.

**

'Books of travels are expensive, and I don't want 'them, having travelled already; besides, they lie. 'Thank the author of "the Profligate" for his (or 'her) present. Pray send me no more poetry but 'what is rare and decidedly good. There is such a 'trash of Keats and the like upon my tables that I ' am ashamed to look at them. I say nothing against your parsons, your S**s and your C✶✶ s-it is all very fine-but pray dispense me from the pleasure. Instead of poetry, if you will favour me 'with a few soda-powders, I shall be delighted: but 'all prose ('bating travels and novels NOT by Scott) is 'welcome, especially Scott's Tales of my Landlord, ' and so on.

'

In the notes to Marino Faliero, it may be as well to say that" Benintende" was not really of the Ten, 'but merely Grand Chancellor, a separate office (although important); it was an arbitrary altera'tion of mine. The Doges too were all buried in St. 'Mark's before Faliero. It is singular that when his 'predecessor, Andrea Dandolo, died, the Ten made a law that all the future Doges should be buried with 'their families, in their own churches,-one would think by a kind of presentiment. So that all that is said of 'his ancestral Doges, as buried at St. John's and 'Paul's, is altered from the fact, they being in St.

VOL. III.

D

Mark's. Make a note of this, and put Editor as the 'subscription to it.

'As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be twitted even with such trifles on that " score. Of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and dram. pers., they having been real existences.

I omitted Foscolo in my list of living Venetian 'worthies, in the notes, considering him as an Italian ' in general, and not a mere provincial like the rest; and as an Italian I have spoken of him in the pre'face to canto 4th of Childe Harold.

The French translation of us!!! oime! oime!'the German; but I don't understand the latter, and 'his long dissertation at the end about the Fausts. Excuse haste. Of politics it is not safe to speak, but nothing is decided as yet.

'I am in a very fierce humour at not having Scott's "Monastery. You are too liberal in quantity, and 'somewhat careless of the quality, of your missives. All the Quarterlies (four in number) I had had before 'from you, and two of the Edinburgh; but no mat'ter; we shall have new ones by and by. No more 'Keats, I entreat :-flay him alive; if some of you 'don't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing 'the drivelling idiotism of the manikin.

'I don't feel inclined to care further about "Don Juan." What do you think a very pretty Italian 'lady said to me the other day? She had read it in the French, and paid me some compliments, with 'due DRAWBACKS, upon it. I answered that what ' she said was true, but that I suspected it would live 'longer than Childe Harold. "Ah but" (said she)

"I would rather have the fume of Childe Harold for