“I am glad that you and your friends approve of my letter of the 8th ultimo. You may give it what publicity you think proper in the circumstances. I have since written to you twice or thrice.
| A. D. 1822. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 589 |
“As to ‘a Poem in the old way,’ I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased: but this is nothing to my publisher, who must judge and act according to popularity.
“Therefore let the things take their chance: if they pay, you will pay me in proportion; and if they don’t, I must.
“The Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take advantage of my absence to abuse me. Further than this, I have no business nor connexion with England, nor desire to have, out of my own family and friends, to whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I have lived upon the whole so little in England (about five years since I was one-and-twenty), that my habits are too continental, and your climate would please me as little as the society.
“I saw the Chancellor’s Report in a French paper. Pray, why don’t they prosecute the translation of Lucretius? or the original with its
‘Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor,’ |
‘Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum?’ |
“You must really get something done for Mr. * *’s Commentary: what can I say to him?
