“You need not tie yourself down to a day with Toderini, but send him at your leisure, having anatomized him into such annotations as you want; I do not believe that he has ever undergone that process before, which is the best reason for not sparing him now.
“ * * has returned to town, but not yet recovered of the Quarterly. What fellows these reviewers are! ‘these bugs do fear us all.’ They made you fight, and me (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by making * * madder than Ajax. I have been reading Memory again, the other day, and Hope together, and retain all my preference of the former. His elegance is really wonderful—there is no such thing as a vulgar line in his book. * * * * * * * * *
“What say you to Buonaparte? Remember, I back him against the field, barring Catalepsy and the Elements. Nay, I almost wish him success against all countries but this,—were it only to choke the Morning Post, and his undutiful father-in-law, with that rebellious bastard of Scandinavian adoption, Bernadotte. Rogers wants me to go with him on a crusade to the Lakes, and to besiege you on our way. This last is a great temptation, but I fear it will not be in my power, unless you would go on with one of us somewhere—no matter where. It is too late for Matlock, but we might hit upon some scheme, high life or low,—the last would be much the best for amusement. I am so sick of the other, that I quite sigh for a cider-cellar, or a cruise in a smuggler’s sloop.
“You cannot wish more than I do that the Fates were a little
more accommodating to our parallel lines, which prolong ad infinitum without coming a
jot the nearer. I almost wish I were married, too—which is saying much. All my friends,
seniors and juniors, are in for it and ask
| A. D. 1813. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 427 |
“No letter.—n’importe. R. thinks the Quarterly will be at me this time: if so, it shall be a war of extermination—no quarter. From the youngest devil down to the oldest woman of that Review, all shall perish by one fatal lampoon. The ties of nature shall be torn asunder, for I will not even spare my bookseller; nay, if one were to include readers also, all the better.”
