“I return you the revise of Werner, and expect the rest. With regard to the Lines to the Po, perhaps you had better put them quietly in a second edition (if you reach one, that is to say) than in the first; because, though they have been reckoned fine, and I wish them to be preserved, I do not wish them to attract immediate observation, on account of the relationship of the lady to whom they are addressed with the first families in Romagna and the Marches.
“The defender
of ‘Cain’ may or may not be, as
you term him, ‘a tyro in literature:’ however, I think both you and I are
under great obligation to him. I have read the Edinburgh Review in Galignani’s
Magazine, and have not yet decided whether to answer them or not; for, if I
do, it will be difficult for me not ‘to make sport for the Philistines’ by
pulling down a house or two; since, when I once take pen in hand, I must say what comes uppermost, or fling it away. I have not the hypocrisy to
pretend impartiality, nor the temper (as it is called) to keep always from saying what
may not be pleasing to the hearer or reader. What do they mean by ‘elaborate?’ ‘Why, you know that
they were written as fast as I could put pen to paper, and printed from the original MSS., and never revised but in the proofs: look at the dates and the MSS. themselves.
Whatever faults they have must spring from
| A. D. 1822. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 599 |
“You give me no explanation of your intention as to the ‘Vision of Quevedo Redivivus,’ one of my best things: indeed, you are altogether so abstruse and undecided lately, that I suppose you mean me to write ‘John Murray, Esq., a Mystery,’—a composition which would not displease the clergy nor the trade. I by no means wish you to do what you don’t like, but merely to say what you will do. The Vision must be published by some one. As to ‘clamours,’ the die is cast; and, ‘come one, come all,’ we will fight it out—at least one of us.”
