Chapter 95

"Ravenna, March 29. 1820.

"Herewith you will receive a note (enclosed) on Pope, which you will find tally with a part of the text of last post. I have at last lost all patience with the atrocious cant and nonsense about Pope, with which our present * *s are overflowing, and am determined to make such head against it as an individual can, by prose or verse; and I will at least do it with good will. There is no bearing it any longer; and if it goes on, it will destroy what little good writing or taste remains amongst us. I hope there are still a few men of taste to second me; but if not, I'll battle it alone, convinced that it is in the best cause of English literature.

"I have sent you so many packets, verse and prose, lately, that you will be tired of the postage, if not of the perusal. I want to answer some parts of your last letter, but I have not time, for I must 'boot and saddle,' as my Captain Craigengelt (an officer of the old Napoleon Italian army) is in waiting, and my groom and cattle to boot.

"You have given me a screed of metaphor and what not about _Pulci_, and manners, and 'going without clothes, like our Saxon ancestors.' Now, the _Saxons did not go without clothes_; and, in the next place, they are not my ancestors, nor yours either; for mine were Norman, and yours, I take it by your name, were _Gael_. And, in the next, I differ from you about the 'refinement' which has banished the comedies of Congreve. Are not the comedies of _Sheridan_? acted to the thinnest houses? I know (as _ex-committed_) that 'The School for Scandal' was the worst stock piece upon record. I also know that Congreve gave up writing because Mrs. Centlivre's balderdash drove his comedies off. So it is not decency, but stupidity, that does all this; for Sheridan is as decent a writer as need be, and Congreve no worse than Mrs. Centlivre, of whom Wilks (the actor) said, 'not only her play would be damned, but she too.' He alluded to 'A Bold Stroke for a Wife.' But last, and most to the purpose, Pulci is _not_ an _indecent_ writer--at least in his first Canto, as you will have perceived by this time.

"You talk of _refinement_:--are you all _more_ moral? are you _so_ moral? No such thing. _I_ know what the world is in England, by my own proper experience of the best of it--at least of the loftiest; and I have described it every where as it is to be found in all places.

"But to return. I should like to see the _proofs_ of mine answer, because there will be something to omit or to alter. But pray let it be carefully printed. When convenient let me have an answer.

"Yours."

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