“Enclosed is the best account of the Doge Faliero, which was only sent to me from an old MS.
the other day. Get it translated, and append it as a note to the next edition. You will
perhaps be pleased to see that my conceptions of his character were correct, though I
regret not having met with this extract before. You will perceive that he himself said
exactly what he is made to say about the Bishop of
Treviso. You will see also that ‘he spoke very little, and those
only words of rage and
| 506 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
“In a former note to the Juans, speaking of Voltaire, I have quoted his famous ‘Zaire, tu pleures,’ which is an error; it should be ‘Zaire, vous pleurez.’ Recollect this.
“I am so busy here about those poor proscribed exiles, who are scattered about, and with trying to get some of them recalled, that I have hardly time or patience to write a short preface, which will be proper for the two plays. However, I will make it out on receiving the next proofs.
“P.S. Please to append the letter about the Hellespont as a note to your next opportunity of the verses on Leander, &c. &c. &c. in Childe Harold. Don’t forget it amidst your multitudinous avocations, which I think of celebrating in a Dithyrambic Ode to Albemarle-street.
“Are you aware that Shelley has written an Elegy on Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him?
|
‘Who kill’d John
Keats?’
‘I,’ says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
‘’Twas one of my feats.’
‘Who shot the arrow?
‘The poet-priest Milman,
(So ready to kill man),
|
“You know very well that I did not approve of Keats’s poetry, or principles of poetry, or of his abuse of Pope; but, as he is dead, omit all that is said about him in any MSS. of mine, or publication. His Hyperion is a fine monument, and will keep his name. I do not envy the man who wrote the article;—you Review-people have no more right to kill than any other footpads. However, he who would die of an article in a Review would probably have died of something else equally trivial. The same thing nearly happened to Kirke White, who died afterwards of a consumption”
