Chapter 37

"Ravenna, May 25. 1821.

"Mr. Moray,

"Since I wrote the enclosed a week ago, and for some weeks before, I have not had a line from you: now, I should be glad to know upon what principle of common or _un_common feeling, you leave me without any information but what I derive from garbled gazettes in English, and abusive ones in Italian (the Germans hating me as a _coal-heaver_), while all this kick-up has been going on about the play? You SHABBY fellow!!! Were it not for two letters from Douglas Kinnaird, I should have been as ignorant as you are negligent.

"So, I hear Bowles has been abusing Hobhouse? If that's the case, he has broken the truce, like Morillo's successor, and I will cut him out, as Cochrane did the Esmeralda.

"Since I wrote the enclosed packet, I have completed (but not copied out) four acts of a new tragedy. When I have finished the fifth, I will copy it out. It is on the subject of 'Sardanapalus,' the last king of the Assyrians. The words _Queen_ and _Pavilion_ occur, but it is not an allusion to his Britannic Majesty, as you may tremulously imagine. This you will one day see (if I finish it), as I have made Sardanapalus _brave_, (though voluptuous, as history represents him,) and also as _amiable_ as my poor powers could render him:--so that it could neither be truth nor satire on any living monarch. I have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but _not_ for _the stage_. Yours, in haste and hatred, you shabby correspondent! N."

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