Chapter 106

"Pisa, July 12. 1822.

"I have written to you lately, but not in answer to your last letter of about a fortnight ago. I wish to know (and request an answer to _that_ point) what became of the stanzas to Wellington (intended to open a canto of Don Juan with), which I sent you several months ago. If they have fallen into Murray's hands, he and the Tories will suppress them, as those lines rate that hero at his real value. Pray be explicit on this, as I have no other copy, having sent you the original; and if you have them, let me have _that_ again, or a _copy_ correct.

"I subscribed at Leghorn two hundred Tuscan crowns to your Irishism committee; it is about a thousand francs, more or less. As Sir C.S., who receives thirteen thousand a year of the public money, could not afford more than a thousand livres out of his enormous salary, it would have appeared ostentatious in a private individual to pretend to surpass him; and therefore I have sent but the above sum, as you will see by the enclosed receipt.[82]

"Leigh Hunt is here, after a voyage of eight months, during which he has, I presume, made the Periplus of Hanno the Carthaginian, and with much the same speed. He is setting up a Journal, to which I have promised to contribute; and in the first number the 'Vision of Judgment, by Quevedo Redivivus,' will probably appear, with other articles.

"Can you give us any thing? He seems sanguine about the matter, but (entre nous) I am not. I do not, however, like to put him out of spirits by saying so; for he is bilious and unwell. Do, pray, answer _this_ letter immediately.

"Do send Hunt any thing in prose or verse, of yours, to start him handsomely--any lyrical, _irical_, or what you please.

"Has not your Potatoe Committee been blundering? Your advertisement says, that Mr. L. Callaghan (a queer name for a banker) hath been disposing of money in Ireland 'sans authority of the Committee.' I suppose it will end in Callaghan's calling out the Committee, the chairman of which carries pistols in his pocket, of course.

"When you can spare time from _duetting, coquetting_, and claretting with your Hibernians of both sexes, let me have a line from you. I doubt whether Paris is a good place for the composition of your new poesy."

[Footnote 82: "Received from Mr. Henry Dunn the sum of two hundred Tuscan crowns (for account of the Right Honourable Lord Noel Byron), for the purpose of assisting the Irish poor.

"Thomas Hall.

"Leghorn, 9th July, 1822. Tuscan crowns, 200."]

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