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would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger productions,--not dramatic ones, to be sure. But, as I said before, I am mortified that Gifford don't like them; but I see no remedy, our notions on that subject being so different. How is he?-well, I hope? let me know. I regret his demur the more that he has been always my grand patron, and I know no praise which would compensate me in my own mind for his censure. I do not mind Reviews, as I can work them at their own weapons.

«Yours, etc.

« Address to me at Pisa, whither I am going. The reason is, that all my Italian friends here have been exiled, and are met there for the present, and I go to join them, as agreed upon, for the winter.»>

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<< I have been thinking over our late correspondence, and wish to propose to you the following articles for our future:

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Istly. That you shall write to me of yourself, of the health, wealth, and welfare of all friends; but of me (quoad me) little or nothing.

«2dly. That you shall send me soda-powders, toothpowder, tooth-brushes, or any such anti-odontalgic or chemical articles, as heretofore, 'ad libitum,' upon being reimbursed for the same.

«3dly. That you shall not send me any modern, or (as they are called) new publications, in English, whatsoever, save and excepting any writing, prose or verse,

of (or reasonably presumed to be of) Walter Scott, Crabbe, Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Gifford, Joanna Baillie, Irving (the American), Hogg, Wilson (Isle of Palms man), or any especial single work of fancy which is thought to be of considerable merit; Voyages and Travels, provided that they are neither in Greece, Spain, Asia Minor, Albania, nor Italy, will be welcome. Having travelled the countries mentioned, I know that what is said of them can convey nothing farther which I desire to know about them.-No other English works whatsoever.

«4thly. That you send me no periodical works whatsoever no Edinburgh, Quarterly, Monthly, nor any review, magazine, or newspaper, English or foreign, of any description.

«5thly. That you send me no opinions whatsoever, either good, bad, or indifferent, of yourself or your friends, or others, concerning any work, or works, of mine, past, present, or to come.

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6thly. That all negociations in matters of business between you and me pass through the medium of the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, my friend and trustee, or Mr Hobhouse, as 'Alter ego,' and tantamount to myself during my absence-or presence.

« Some of these propositions may at first seem strange, but they are founded. The quantity of trash I have received as books is incalculable, and neither amused nor instructed. Reviews and magazines are at the best but ephemeral and superficial reading:-who thinks of the grand article of last year in any given Review? In the next place, if they regard myself, they tend to increase egotism. If favourable, I do not deny that the praise elates, and if unfavourable, that the abuse irritates. The latter may conduct me to inflict a species of satire, which

would neither do good to you nor to your friends: they may smile now, and so may you ; but if I took you all in hand, it would not be difficult to cut you up like gourds. I did as much by as powerful people at nineteen years old, and I know little as yet in three-and-thirty, which should prevent me from making all your ribs gridirons for your hearts, if such were my propensity: but it is not; therefore let me hear none of your provocations. If any thing occurs so very gross as to require my notice, I shall hear of it from my legal friends. For the rest, I merely request to be left in ignorance.

« The same applies to opinions, good, bad, or indifferent, of persons in conversation or correspondence. These do not interrupt, but they soil the current of my mind. I am sensitive enough, but not till I am troubled; and here I am beyond the touch of the short arms of literary England, except the few feelers of the polypus that crawl over the channels in the way of extract.

« All these precautions in England would be useless; the libeller or the flatterer would there reach me in spite of all; but in Italy we know little of literary England, and think less, except what reaches us through some garbled and brief extract in some miserable gazette. For two years (excepting two or three articles cut out and sent to you by the post) I never read a newspaper which was not forced upon me by some accident, and know, upon the whole, as little of England as you do of Italy, and God knows that is little enough, with all your travels, etc. etc. etc. The English travellers know Italy as you know Guernsey: how much is that?

<< If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires notice, Mr Douglas Kinnaird will let me know; but of praise, I desire to hear nothing.

«You will say, 'to what tends all this?" I will answer

THAT;--to keep my mind free and unbiassed by all paltry and personal irritabilities of praise or censure-to let my genius take its natural direction, while my feelings are like the dead, who know nothing and feel nothing of all or aught that is said or done in their regard.

« If you can observe these conditions, you will spare yourself and others some pain: let me not be worked upon to rise up; for if I do, it will not be for a little. If you cannot observe these conditions, we shall cease to be correspondents,-but not friends, for I shall always be yours ever and truly,

« BYRON.

« P.S.-I have taken these resolutions not from any irritation against you or yours, but simply upon reflection that all reading, either praise or censure, of myself has done me harm. When I was in Switzerland and Greece, I was out of the way of hearing either, and how I wrote there!--In Italy I am out of the way of it too; but latterly, partly through my fault, and partly through your kindness in wishing to send me the newest and most periodical publications, I have had a crowd of Reviews, etc. thrust upon me, which have bored me with their jargon, of one kind or another, and taken off my attention from greater objects. You have also sent me a parcel of trash of poetry, for no reason that I can conceive, unless to provoke me to write a new 'English Bards.' Now this I wish to avoid; for if ever I do, it will be a strong production; and I desire peace as long as the fools will keep their nonsense out of my way.»1

It would be difficult to describe more strongly or more convincingly than Lord Byron has done in this letter the sort of petty, but thwarting obstructions and distractions which are at present thrown across the path of men of real talent, by that swarm of minor critics and pretenders with whom the want of a vent in other professions has crowded all the walks

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at any rate, you may keep the original, and give any copies you please. I send it, as written, and as I read it to you--I have no other copy.

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By last week's two posts, in two packets, I sent to your address, at Paris, a longish poem upon the late Irishism of your countrymen in their reception of ***. Pray, have you received it? It is in the high Roman fashion,' and full of ferocious phantasy. As you could not well take up the matter with Paddy (being of the same nest), I have;-but I hope still that I have done justice to his great men and his good heart. As for *** you will find it laid on with a trowel, I delight in your 'fact historical'-is it a fact?

<< Yours, etc.

,

« P.S.-You have not answered me about Schlegelwhy not? Address to me at Pisa, whither I am going, to join the exiles-a pretty numerous body, at present. Let me hear how you are, and what you mean to do.

of literature. Nor is it only the writers of the day that suffer from this multifarious rush into the mart;-the readers also, from having (as Lord Byron expresses it in another letter) « the superficies of too many things presented to them at once,» come to lose by degrees their powers of discrimination; and, in the same manner as the palate becomes confused in trying various wines, so the public taste declines in proportion as the impressions to which it is exposed multiply.

The lines «Oh Wellington," which I had missed in their original place at the opening of the Third Canto, and took for granted that they had been suppressed by his publisher.

VOL. IV.

9

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