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but it adds to that of myself. He, and Gifford, and Moore, are the only regulars I ever knew who had nothing of the Garrison about their manner : no nonsense, nor affectation, look you! As for the rest whom I have known, there was always more or less of the author about them-the pen peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky, or so. (1817, March 25. Letter 639, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 85.)

If you see our republican friend, Leigh Hunt, pray present my remembrances. I saw about nine months ago that he was in a row (like my friend Hobhouse) with the Quarterly Reviewers. For my part, I never could understand these quarrels of authors with critics and with one another. "For God's sake, gentlemen, what do they mean?"

(1817, March 31. Letter 640, to Thomas Moore, Vol. IV., p. 89.)

Why you persist in saying nothing of the thing itself [i.e. Manfred], I am at a loss to conjecture. If it is for fear of telling me something disagreeable, you are wrong; because sooner or later I must know it, and I am not so new, nor so raw, nor so inexperienced, as not to be able to bear, not the mere paltry, petty disappointments of authorship, but things more serious, at least I hope so, and that what you may think irritability is merely mechanical, and only acts like Galvanism on a dead body, or the muscular motion which survives sensation.

(1817, August 12. Letter 668, to John

Murray, Vol. IV., p. 157.)

Your new Canto [Childe Harold, Canto 4th] has expanded to one hundred and sixty-seven stanzas. It will be long, you see; and as for the notes by Hobhouse, I suspect they will be of the heroic size. You must keep M Hol house in good humour, for he is devilishly touchy yet about your Review and all which it inherits, including the Editor, the Admiralty, and its bookseller [John Murray]. I used to think that I was a good deal of an author in amour propre and noli me tangere; but these prose fellows are worst, after all, about their little comforts. (1817, November 15. Letter 679, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 182.)

My correspondences with England are mostly on business, and chiefly with my attorney [John Hanson], who has no very exalted notion, or extensive conception, of an author's attributes; for he once took up an Edinburgh Review, and looking at it a minute, said to me, "So, I see you have got into the magazine," -which is the only sentence I ever heard him utter upon literary matters, or the men thereof.

(1818, September 19. Letter 715, to Thomas Moore, Vol. IV., p. 257.)

So you and Mr Foscolo [an Italian patriot and poet settled in London, contributor to the Quarterly], etc., want me to undertake what you call a "great work"? an Epic poem, I suppose, or some such pyramid. I'll try no such thing; I hate tasks. And then " seven or eight years!" God send us all well this day three months, let alone years. If one's years can't be better employed than in sweating

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poesy, a man had better be a ditcher. And works, too!-is Childe Harold nothing? You have so many divine" poems, is it nothing to have written a Human one? without any of your worn-out machinery. Why, man, I could have spun the thoughts of the four cantos of that poem into twenty, had I wanted to book-make, and its passion into as many modern tragedies. Since you want length, you shall have enough of Juan, for I'll make 50 cantos. . . . I mean to write my best work in Italian, and it will take me nine years more thoroughly to master the language ; and then if my fancy exist, and I exist too, I will try what I can do really. Neither will I make "Ladies books" al dilettar le femine e la plebe. I have written from the fulness of my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for their "sweet voices." I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few Scribblers have had more of it; and if I chose to swerve into their paths, I could retain it, or resume it, or increase it. But I neither love ye, nor fear ye; and though I buy with ye and sell with ye, and talk with ye, I will neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye.

(1819, April 6. Letter 730, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 283.)

I wrote to Mr Hobhouse the other day, and foretold that Juan would either fail entirely or succeed completely - there will be no medium: appearances are not favourable; but as you write the day after publication, it can hardly be decided what opinion will predominate. You seem in a fright, and doubtless with cause. Come what may, I never will

flatter the million's canting in any shape: circumstances may or may not have placed me at times in a situation to lead the public opinion, but the public opinion never led, nor ever shall lead, me. I will not sit "on a degraded throne;" so pray put Messrs Southey, or Sotheby, or Tom Moore, or Horace Twiss upon it-they will all of them be transported with their coronation.

(1819, August 1. Letter 744, to John Murray, Vol. IV., p. 327.)

He [i.e. Murray] told me the sale [of Don Juan, Cantos 1st and 2nd] had not been great-1200 out of 1500 quarto I believe (which is nothing after selling 13,000 of The Corsair in one day) but that the "best judges, etc.," had said it was very fine, and clever, and particularly good English, and poetry, and all those consolatory things which are not, however, worth a single copy to a bookseller;-and as to the author of course I am in a damned passion at the bad taste of the times, and swear there is nothing like posterity, who of course must know more of the matter than their Grandfathers.

(1819, October 29. Letter 759, to Richard

Belgrave Hoppner, Vol. IV., p. 371.)

You say that one half [of Don Juan] is very good: you are wrong; for, if it were, it would be the finest poem in existence. Where is the poetry of which one half is good? is it the Æneid? is it Milton's? is it Dryden's? is it any one's except Pope's and Goldsmith's, of which all is good? and yet these two last are the poets your pond poets would explode. But

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if one half of the two new Cantos [i.e. 3rd and 4th] be good in your opinion, what the devil would you have more? No-no; no poetry is generally good-only by fits and starts-and you are lucky to get a sparkle here and there. You might as well want a Midnight all stars as rhyme all perfect.

(1820, April 23.

Letter 794, to John

Murray, Vol. V., p. 18.)

If you don't answer my letters I shall resort to the Row-where I shall probably not find good manners or liberality-but at least I shall have an answer of some kind. You must not treat a blood horse as you do your hacks, otherwise he'll bolt out of the course. Do you think I lay a stress on the merits of my "poeshie." I assure you I have many other things to think of.

(1820, July 6. Letter 807, to John Murray, Vol. V., p. 46.)

I believe that (except Milman perhaps) I am still the youngest of the fifteen hundred first of living poets, as Wm. *worth is the oldest. Galley Knight is some Seasons my Senior: pretty Galley! so "amiable"!! You Goose, you-such fellows should be flung into Fleet Ditch. I would rather be a Galley Slave than a Galley Knight-so utterly do I despise the middling mountebank's mediocrity in everything but his Income.

(1820, August 31. Letter 821, to Jolin Murray, Vol. V., p. 68.)

As to reform, I did reform-what would you have?