Chapter 52

"Ravenna, August 24. 1821.

"Yours of the 5th only yesterday, while I had letters of the 8th from London. Doth the post dabble into our letters? Whatever agreement you make with Murray, if satisfactory to _you_, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)--'that, like a Spartan, I would sell my _life_ as _dearly_ as possible'--it never was my intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to bequeath it to a friend--yourself--in the event of survivorship. I anticipated that period, because we happened to meet, and I urged you to make what was possible _now_ by it, for reasons which are obvious. It has been no possible _privation_ to me, and therefore does not require the acknowledgments you mention. So, for God's sake, don't consider it like * * *

"By the way, when you write to Lady Morgan, will you thank her for her handsome speeches in her book about _my_ books? I do not know her address. Her work is fearless and excellent on the subject of Italy--pray tell her so--and I know the country. I wish she had fallen in with _me_, I could have told her a thing or two that would have confirmed her positions.

"I am glad you are satisfied with Murray, who seems to value dead lords more than live ones. I have just sent him the following answer to a proposition of his,

"For Orford and for Waldegrave, &c.

"The argument of the above is, that he wanted to 'stint me of my sizings,' as Lear says,--that is to say, _not_ to propose an extravagant price for an extravagant poem, as is becoming. Pray take his guineas, by all means--_I_ taught him that. He made me a filthy offer of _pounds_ once, but I told him that, like physicians, poets must be dealt with in guineas, as being the only advantage poets could have in the association with _them_, as votaries of Apollo. I write to you in hurry and bustle, which I will expound in my next.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. You mention something of an attorney on his way to me on legal business. I have had no warning of such an apparition. What can the fellow want? I have some lawsuits and business, but have not heard of any thing to put me to the expense of a _travelling_ lawyer. They do enough, in that way, at home.

"Ah, poor Queen I but perhaps it is for the best, if Herodotus's anecdote is to be believed.

"Remember me to any friendly Angles of our mutual acquaintance. What are you doing? Here I have had my hands full with tyrants and their victims. There never _was_ such oppression, even in Ireland, scarcely!"

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