for, when we were alone, he said that he had a particular favour to request of me—would I grant it? I said I should be happy to oblige him, and he enjoined me to the flattering task of painting the Countess Guiccioli's portrait for him. On the following morning I began it, and, after, they sat alternately. He gave me the whole history of his connexion with her, and said that he hoped it would last for ever; at any rate, it should not be his fault if it did not. His other attachments had been broken off by no fault of his.

"I was by this time sufficiently intimate with him to answer his question as to what I thought of him before I had seen him. He laughed much at the idea which I had formed of him, and said, 'Well, you find me like other people, do you not?" He often afterwards repeated, 'And so you thought me a finer fellow, did you?" I remember once telling him, that notwithstanding his vivacity, I thought myself correct in at least one estimate which I had made of him, for I still conceived that he was not a happy man. He inquired earnestly what reason I had for thinking so, and I asked him if he had never observed in little children, after a paroxysm of grief, that they had at intervals a convulsive or tremulous manner of drawing in a long breath. Wherever I had observed this, in persons of whatever age, I had always found that it came from sorrow. He said the thought was new to him, and that he would make use of it.

«Lord Byron, and all the party, left Villa Rossa (the name of their house) in a few days, to pack up their things in their house at Pisa. He told me that he should remain a few days there, and desired me, if I could do any thing more to the pictures, to come and stay with him. He seemed at a loss where to go, and was, I thought, on

the point of embarking for America. I was with him at Pisa for a few days, but he was so annoyed by the police, and the weather was so hot, that I thought it doubtful whether I could improve the pictures, and, taking my departure one morning before he was up, I wrote him an excuse from Leghorn. Upon the whole, I left him with an impression that he possessed an excellent heart, which had been misconstrued on all hands from little else than a reckless levity of manners, which he took a whimsical pride in opposing to those of other people."

<< I return you the revise. I have softened the part to which Gifford objected, and changed the name of Michael to Raphael, who was an angel of gentler sympathies. By the way, recollect to alter Michael to Raphael in the scene itself throughout, for I have only had time to do so in the list of the dramatis personæ, and scratch out all the pencil-marks, to avoid puzzling the printers. I have given the 'Vision of Quevedo Redivivus' to John Hunt, which will relieve you from a dilemma. He must publish it at his own risk, as it is at his own desire. Give him the corrected copy which Mr Kinnaird had, as it is mitigated partly, and also the preface.

«Yours, etc.">

<< Last week I returned you the packet of proofs. You had, perhaps, better not publish in the same volume the Po and Rimini translation.

<< I have consigned a letter to Mr John Hunt for the 'Vision of Judgment,' which you will hand over to him. Also the 'Pulci,' original and Italian, and any prose tracts of mine; for Mr Leigh Hunt is arrived here, and thinks of commencing a periodical work, to which I shall contribute. I do not propose to you to be the publisher, because I know that you are unfriends; but all things in your care, except the volume now in the press, and the manuscript purchased of Mr Moore, can be given for this purpose, according as they are wanted.

« With regard to what you say about your 'want of memory,' I can only remark, that you inserted the note to Marino Faliero against my positive revocation, and that you omitted the Dedication of Sardanapalus to Goëthe (place it before the volume now in the press), both of which were things not very agreeable to me, and which I could wish to be avoided in future, as they might be with a very little care, or a simple memorandum in your pocket-book.

<< It is not impossible that I may have three or four cantos of Don Juan ready by autumn, or a little later, as I obtained a permission from my dictatress to continue it, provided always it was to be more guarded and decorous and sentimental in the continuation than in the commencement. How far these conditions have

been fulfilled may be seen, perhaps, by-and-by; but the embargo was only taken off upon these stipulations. You can answer at your leisure.

<< I have written to you lately, but not in answer to your last letter of about a fortnight ago. I wish to know (and request an answer to that point) what became of the stanzas to Wellington (intended to open a canto of Don Juan with), which I sent you several months ago. If they have fallen into Murray's hands, he and the Tories will suppress them, as those lines rate that hero at his real value. Pray be explicit on this, as I have no other copy, having sent you the original; and if you have them let me have that again, or a copy correct.

*

*

<< I subscribed at Leghorn two hundred Tuscan crowns to your Irishism committee: it is about a thousand francs, more or less. As Sir C. S., who receives thirteen thousand a year of the public money, could not afford more than a thousand livres out of his enormous salary, it would have appeared ostentatious in a private individual to pretend to surpass him; and therefore I have sent but the above sum, as you will see by the enclosed receipt.'

«Received from Mr Henry Dunn the sum of two hundred Tuscan crowns (for account of the Right Honourable Lord Noel Byron), for the purpose of assisting the Irish poor. « Thomas Hall.

« Leghorn, 9th July, 1822. Tuscan crowns, 200."

"

<< Leigh Hunt is here after a voyage of eight months, during which he has, I presume, made the Periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, and with much the same speed. He is setting up a Journal, to which I have promised to contribute; and in the first number the 'Vision of Judgment, by Quevedo Redivivus,' will probably appear, with other articles.

« Can you give us any thing? He seems sanguine about the matter, but (entre nous) I am not. I do not, however, like to put him out of spirits by saying so; for he is bilious and unwell. Do, pray, answer this letter immediately.

« Do send Hunt any thing, in prose, of yours, to start him handsomely—any lyrical, irical, or what you please.

<«<Has not your Potatoe Committee been blundering? Your advertisement says, that Mr L. Callaghan (a queer name for a banker) hath been disposing of money in Ireland 'sans authority of the Committee.' I suppose it will end in Callaghan's calling out the Committee, the chairman of which carries pistols in his pocket, of

course.

« When you can spare time from duetting, coquetting, and claretting with your Hibernians of both sexes, let me have a line from you. I doubt whether Paris is a good place for the composition of your new poesy."

<< You will have heard by this time that Shelley and another gentleman (Captain Williams) were drowned