about a month ago (a month yesterday), in a squall off the Gulf of Spezia. There is thus another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly, and ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. It will, perhaps, do him justice now, when he can be no better for it. 2 «I have not seen the thing you mention, and only heard of it casually, nor have I any desire. The price is, as I saw in some advertisements, fourteen shillings, which is too much to pay for a libel on oneself. Some one said in a letter, that it was a Doctor Watkins, who deals in the life and libel line. It must have diminished your natural pleasure, as a friend (vide Rochefoucault), to see yourself in it. « With regard to the Blackwood fellows, I never published any thing against them; nor indeed, have seen their magazine (except in Galignani's extracts) for these three years past. I once wrote, a good while ago, some remarks on their review of Don Juan, but saying very little about themselves,—and these were not published. If you think that I ought to follow your example 4 (and I like to be in your company when I can) in contradicting their impudence, you may shape this declaration In a letter to Mr Murray, of an earlier date, which has been omitted to avoid repetitions, he says on the same subject:-« You were all mistaken about Shelley, who was, without exception, the best and least selfish man I ever knew. There is also another passage in the same letter which, for its perfect truth, I must quote :—« I have received your scrap, with Henry Drury's letter enclosed. It is just like him—always kind and ready to oblige his old friends.» 2 A book which had just appeared, entitled « Memoirs of the Right Hon. Lord Byron. » 3 The remarkable pamphlet from which extracts have been already given in this volume. 4 It had been asserted, in a late Number of Blackwood, that both Lord Byron and myself were employed in writing satires against that Maga of mine into a similar paragraph for me. It is possible that you may have seen the little I did write (and never published) at Murray's;—it contained much more about Southey than about the Blacks. « If you think that I ought to do any thing about Watkins's book, I should not care much about publishing my Memoir now, should it be necessary to counteract the fellow. But in that case, I should like to look over the press myself. Let me know what you think, or whether I had better not;—at least, not the second part, which touches on the actual confines of still existing matters. «I have written three more Cantos of Don Juan, and am hovering on the brink of another (the ninth). The reason I want the stanzas again which I sent you is, that as these cantos contain a full detail (like the storm in Canto Second) of the siege and assault of Ismael, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your mercenary soldiery, it is a good opportunity of gracing the poem with *. With these things and these fellows, it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I know it is against fearful odds; but the battle must be fought; and it will be eventually for the good of mankind, whatever it may be for the individual who risks himself. * * "What do you think of your Irish bishop? Do you remember Swift's line, ‘Let me have a barrack—a fig for the clergy.' This seems to have been his reverence's «It is boring to trouble you with 'such small gear;' but it must be owned that I should be glad if you would inquire whether my Irish subscription ever reached the Committee in Paris from Leghorn. My reasons, like Vellum's, 'are threefold:' First, I doubt the accuracy of all almoners, or remitters of benevolent cash; second, I do suspect that the said Committee, having in part served its time to time-serving, may have kept back the acknowledgment of an obnoxious politician's name in their lists; and, third, I feel pretty sure that I shall one day be twitted by the government scribes for having been a professor of love for Ireland, and not coming forward. with the others in her distresses. << It is not, as you may opine, that I am ambitious of having my name in the papers, as I can have that any day in the week gratis. All I want is to know if the Reverend Thomas Hall did or did not remit my subscription (200 scudi of Tuscany, or about a thousand francs, more or less) to the Committee at Paris. « The other day, at Viareggio, I thought proper to swin off to my schooner (the Bolivar) in the offing, and thence to shore again—about three miles, or better, in all. As it was at mid-day, under a broiling sun, the consequence has been a feverish attack, and my whole skin's coming off, after going through the process of one large continuous blister, raised by the sun and sea together. I have suffered much pain; not being able to lie on my back, or even side; for my shoulders and arms were equally St Bartholomewed. But it is over, and I have got a new skin, and am as glossy as a snake in its new suit. « We have been burning the bodies of Shelley and Williams on the sea-shore, to render them fit for removal and regular interment. You can have no idea what an extraordinary effect such a funeral pile has, on a desolate shore, with mountains in the back-ground and the sea before, and the singular appearance the salt and frankincense gave to the flame. All of Shelley was consumed, except his heart, which would not take the flame, and is now preserved in spirits of wine. «Your old acquaintance Londonderry has quietly died at North Cray! and the virtuous De Witt was torn in pieces by the populace! What a lucky * * * * * the Irishman has been in his life and end.1 your Irish Franklin est mort! In him «Leigh Hunt is sweating articles for his new Journal; and both he and I think it somewhat shabby in you not to contribute. Will you become one of the properrioters? 'Do, and we go snacks." I recommend you to think twice before you respond in the negative. I have nearly (quite three) four new cantos of Don Juan ready. I obtained permission from the female Censor Morum of my morals to continue it, provided it were immaculate; so I have been as decent as need be. There is a deal of war-a siege, and all that, in the style, graphical and technical, of the shipwreck in Canto Second, which 'took,' as they say, in the Row. « Yours, etc. Galignani has about ten lies « P.S.-That * * *. in one paragraph. It was not a Bible that was found The particulars of this event had, it is evident, not yet reached him. in Shelley's pocket, but John Keats's poems. However, it would not have been strange, for he was a great admirer of Scripture as a composition. I did not send my bust to the academy of New York; but I sat for my picture to young West, an American artist, at the request of some members of that Academy to him that he would take my portrait,-for the Academy, I believe. «I had, and still have, thoughts of South America, but am fluctuating between it and Greece. I should have gone, long ago, to one of them, but for my liaison with the Countess G.; for love, in these days, is little compatible with glory. She would be delighted to go too; but I do not chuse to expose her to a long voyage, and a residence in an unsettled country, where I shall probably take a part of some sort.” Soon after the above letters were written, Lord Byron removed to Genoa, having taken a house, called the Villa Saluzzo, at Albaro, one of the suburbs of that city. From the time of the unlucky squabble with the serjeantmajor at Pisa, his tranquillity had been considerably broken in upon, as well by the judicial inquiries consequent upon that event, as by the many sinister rumours and suspicions to which it gave rise. Though the wounded man had recovered, his friends all vowed vengeance with the dagger: and the sensation which the affair and its various consequences had produced was, -to Madame Guiccioli, more particularly, from the situation in which her family stood, in regard to politics,-distressing and alarming. While the impression, too, of this event was still recent, another circumstance occurred which, though comparatively unimportant, had the unlucky effect of again drawing the attention of the Tuscans to their new visitors. During Lord |