Chapter 18

"Ravenna, February 2. 1821.

"Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter, but do not admit the excuses, except in courtesy; as when a man treads on your toes and begs your pardon, the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there be a corn upon it. However, I shall scold you presently.

"In the last speech of the Doge, there occurs (I think, from memory) the phrase

"'And Thou who makest and unmakest suns:'

change this to

"'And Thou who kindlest and who quenchest suns;

that is to say, if the verse runs equally well, and Mr. Gifford thinks the expression improved. Pray have the bounty to attend to this. You are grown quite a minister of state. Mind if some of these days you are not thrown out. * * will not be always a Tory, though Johnson says the first Whig was the devil.

"You have learnt one secret from Mr. Galignani's (somewhat tardily acknowledged) correspondence: this is, that an _English_ author may dispose of his exclusive copyright in _France_--a fact of some consequence (in _time of peace_), in the case of a popular writer. Now I will tell you what _you_ shall do, and take no advantage of you, though you were scurvy enough never to acknowledge my letter for three months. Offer Galignani the refusal of the copyright in France; if he refuses, appoint any bookseller in France you please, and I will sign any assignment you please, and it shall never cost you a _sou_ on _my_ account.

"Recollect that I will have nothing to do with it, except as far as it may secure the copyright to yourself. I will have no bargain but with the English booksellers, and I desire no interest out of that country.

"Now, that's fair and open, and a little handsomer than your _dodging_ silence, to see what would come of it. You are an excellent fellow, mio caro Moray, but there is still a little leaven of Fleet Street about you now and then--a crum of the old loaf. You have no right to act suspiciously with me, for I have given you no reason. I shall always be frank with you; as, for instance, whenever you talk with the votaries of Apollo arithmetically, it should be in guineas, not pounds--to poets, as well as physicians, and bidders at auctions.

"I shall say no more at this present, save that I am,

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. If you venture, as you say, to Ravenna this year, I will exercise the rites of hospitality while you live, and bury you handsomely (though not in holy ground), if you get 'shot or slashed in a creagh or splore,' which are rather frequent here of late among the native parties. But perhaps your visit may be anticipated; I may probably come to your country; in which case write to her Ladyship the duplicate of the epistle the King of France wrote to Prince John."

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