“‘’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,’ and in three hours more I have to set out on my way to Pisa—sitting up all night to be sure of rising. I have just made them take off my bed-clothes—blankets inclusive—in case of temptation from the apparel of sheets to my eyelids.
“Samuel Rogers is—or is to be—at Bologna, as he writes from Venice.
“I thought our Magnifico would ‘pound you,’ if possible. He is trying to ‘pound’ me, too; but I’ll specie the rogue—or, at least, I’ll have the odd shillings out of him in keen iambics.
“Your approbation of ‘Sardanapalus’ is agreeable, for more reasons than one. Hobhouse is pleased to think as you do of it, and so do some others—but the ‘Arimaspian,’ whom, like ‘a Gryphon in the wilderness,’ I will ‘follow for his gold,’ (as I exhorted you to do before) did or doth disparage it—‘stinting me in my sizings.’ His notable opinions on the ‘Foscari’ and ‘Cain’ he hath not as yet forwarded; or, at least, I have not yet received them, nor the proofs thereof, though promised by last post.
“I see the way that he and his Quarterly people are tending—they want a row with me, and they shall have it. I only regret that I am
| 548 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
‘They had better gall the devil, Salisbury.’ |
“I have that for two or three of them, which they had better not move me to put in motion;—and yet, after all, what a fool I am to disquiet myself about such fellows! It was all very well ten or twelve years ago, when I was a ‘curled darling,’ and minded such things. At present, I rate them at their true value; but, from natural temper and bile, am not able to keep quiet.
“Let me hear from you on your return from Ireland, which ought to be ashamed to see you, after her Brunswick blarney. I am of Longman’s opinion, that you should allow your friends to liquidate the Bermuda claim. Why should you throw away the two thousand pounds (of the non-guinea Murray) upon that cursed piece of treacherous inveiglement? I think you carry the matter a little too far and scrupulously. When we see patriots begging publicly, and know that Grattan received a fortune from his country, I really do not see why a man, in no whit inferior to any or all of them, should shrink from accepting that assistance from his private friends, which every tradesman receives from his connexions upon much less occasions. For, after all, it was not your debt—it was a piece of swindling against you. As to * * * *, and the ‘what noble creatures†! &c. &c.,’ it is all very fine and very well, but, till you can persuade me that there is no credit, and no self-applause to be obtained by being of use to a celebrated man, I must retain the same opinion of the human species, which I do of our friend Mr. Specie.”
