Chapter 114

"Ravenna, Sept. 11. 1820.

"Here is another historical _note_ for you. I want to be as near truth as the drama can be.

"Last post I sent you a note fierce as Faliero himself[81], in answer to a trashy tourist, who pretends that he could have been introduced to me. Let me have a proof of it, that I may cut its lava into some shape.

"What Gifford says is very consolatory (of the first act). English, sterling _genuine English_, is a desideratum amongst you, and I am glad that I have got so much left; though Heaven knows how I retain it: I _hear_ none but from my valet, and his is _Nottinghamshire_: and I _see_ none but in your new publications, and theirs is _no_ language at all, but jargon. Even your * * * * is terribly stilted and affected, with '_very, very_' so soft and pamby.

"Oh! if ever I do come amongst you again, I will give you such a 'Baviad and Mæviad!' not as good as the old, but even _better merited_. There never was such a _set_ as your _ragamuffins_ (I mean _not_ yours only, but every body's). What with the Cockneys, and the Lakers, and the _followers_ of Scott, and Moore, and Byron, you are in the very uttermost decline and degradation of literature. I can't think of it without all the remorse of a murderer. I wish that Johnson were alive again to crush them!"

[Footnote 81: The angry note against English travellers appended to this tragedy, in consequence of an assertion made by some recent tourist, that he (or as it afterwards turned out, she) "had repeatedly declined an introduction to Lord Byron while in Italy."]

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