“I have to thank you for a parcel of books, which are very welcome, especially Sir Walter’s gift of ‘Halidon Hill.’ You have sent me a copy of ‘Werner,’ but without the preface. If you have published it without, you will have plunged me into a very disagreeable dilemma, because I shall be accused of plagiarism from Miss Lee’s German’s Tale, whereas I have fully and freely acknowledged that the drama is entirely taken from the story.
“I return you the Quarterly Review, uncut and unopened, not from disrespect, or disregard, or pique, but it is a kind of reading which I have some time disused, as I think the periodical style of writing hurtful to the habits of the mind by presenting the superficies of too many things at once. I do not know that it contains any thing disagreeable to me—it may or it may not; nor do I return it on account that there may be an article which you hinted at in one of your late letters, but because I have left off reading these kind of works, and should equally have returned you any other number.
“I am obliged to take in one or two abroad because solicited to do so. The Edinburgh came before me by mere chance in Galignani’s picnic sort of gazette, where he had inserted a part of it.
“You will have received various letters from me lately, in a
style which I used with reluctance; but you left me no other choice by your
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“I hope that Mr. Kinnaird is better. It is strange that you never alluded to his accident, if it be true, as stated in the papers.
“I hope that you have a milder winter than we have had here. We have had inundations worthy of the Trent or Po, and the conductor (Franklin’s) of my house was struck (or supposed to be stricken) by a thunderbolt. I was so near the window that I was dazzled and my eyes hurt for several minutes, and every body in the house felt an electric shock at the moment. Madame Guiccioli was frightened, as you may suppose.
“I have thought since that your bigots would have ‘saddled me with a judgment,’ (as Thwackum did Square when he bit his tongue in talking metaphysics), if any thing had happened of consequence. These fellows always forget Christ in their Christianity, and what he said when ‘the tower of Siloam fell.’
“To-day is the 9th, and the 10th is my surviving daughter’s birthday. I have ordered, as a regale, a mutton chop and a bottle of ale. She is seven years old, I believe. Did I ever tell you that the day I came of age I dined on eggs and bacon and a bottle of ale? For once in a way they are my favourite dish and drinkable, but as neither of them agree with me, I never use them but on great jubilees—once in four or five years or so.
“I see somebody represents the Hunts and Mrs. Shelley as living in my house: it is a falsehood. They reside at some distance, and I do not see them twice in a month. I have not met Mr. Hunt a dozen times since I came to Genoa, or near it. “Yours ever, &c.”
