“I have received your letter, and as you explain it, I have no objection, on your account, to omit those passages in the new Mystery (which were marked in the half-sheet sent the other day to Pisa), or the passage in Cain;—but why not be open, and say so at first? You should be more straight-forward on every account.
“I have been very unwell—four days confined to my bed in ‘the worst inn’s worst room,’ at Lerici, with a violent rheumatic and bilious attack, constipation, and the devil knows what:—no physician, except a young fellow, who, however, was kind and cautious, and that’s enough.
“At last I seized Thompson’s book of prescriptions (a donation of yours), and physicked myself with the first dose I found in it; and after undergoing the ravages of all kinds of decoctions, sallied from bed on the fifth day to cross the Gulf to Sestri. The sea revived me instantly; and I ate the sailors’ cold fish, and drank a gallon of country wine, and got to Genoa the same night after landing at Sestri, and have ever since been keeping well, but thinner, and with an occasional cough towards evening.
“I am afraid the Journal is a bad business, and won’t do; but in it I am sacrificing myself for others—I can have no advantage in it. I believe the brothers Hunts to be honest men; I am sure that they are
| 618 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1822. |
“So Douglas Kinnaird is out of the way? He was so the last time I sent him a parcel, and he gives no previous notice. When is he expected again?
“P.S. Will you say at once—do you publish Werner and the Mystery or not? You never once allude to them.
“That curst advertisement of Mr. J. Hunt is out of the limits. I did not lend him my name to be hawked about in this way.
“However, I believe—at least, hope—that after all you may be a good fellow at bottom, and it is on this presumption that I now write to you on the subject of a poor woman of the name of Yossy, who is, or was, an author of yours, as she says, and published a book on Switzerland in 1816, patronized by the ‘Court and Colonel M’Mahon.’ But it seems that neither the Court nor the Colonel could get over the portentous price of ‘three pounds, thirteen, and sixpence,’ which alarmed the too susceptible public; and, in short, ‘the book died away,’ and, what is worse, the poor soul’s husband died too, and she writes with the man a corpse before her; but instead of addressing the bishop or Mr. Wilberforce, she hath recourse to that proscribed, atheistical, syllogistical, phlogistical person, mysen, as they say in Notts. It is strange enough, but the rascaille English, who calumniate me in every direction and on every score, whenever they are in great distress recur to me for assistance. If I have had one example of this, I have had letters from a thousand, and as far as is in my power have tried to repay good for evil, and purchase a shilling’s worth of salvation as long as my pocket can hold out.
“Now, I am willing to do what I can for this unfortunate
person: but her situation and her wishes (not unreasonable, however) require
| A. D. 1822. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 619 |
