Chapter 55

"Ravenna, September 3. 1821.

"By Mr. Mawman (a paymaster in the corps, in which you and I are privates) I yesterday expedited to your address, under cover one, two paper books, containing the _Giaour_-nal, and a thing or two. It won't _all_ do--even for the posthumous public--but extracts from it may. It is a brief and faithful chronicle of a month or so--parts of it not very discreet, but sufficiently sincere. Mr. Mawman saith that he will, in person or per friend, have it delivered to you in your Elysian fields.

"If you have got the new Juans, recollect that there are some very gross printer's blunders, particularly in the fifth Canto,--such as 'praise' for 'pair'--'precarious' for 'precocious'--'Adriatic' for 'Asiatic'--'case' for 'chase'--besides gifts of additional words and syllables, which make but a cacophonous rhythmus. Put the pen through the said, as I would mine through * *'s ears, if I were alongside him. As it is, I have sent him a rattling letter, as abusive as possible. Though he is publisher to the 'Board of _Longitude_,' he is in no danger of discovering it.

"I am packing for Pisa--but direct your letters _here_, till further notice. Yours ever," &c.

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One of the "paper-books" mentioned in this letter as intrusted to Mr. Mawman for me, contained a portion, to the amount of nearly a hundred pages, of a prose story, relating the adventures of a young Andalusian nobleman, which had been begun by him, at Venice, in 1817. The following passage is all I shall extract from this amusing Fragment:--

"A few hours afterwards we were very good friends, and a few days after she set out for Arragon, with my son, on a visit to her father and mother. I did not accompany her immediately, having been in Arragon before, but was to join the family in their Moorish château within a few weeks.

"During her journey I received a very affectionate letter from Donna Josepha, apprising me of the welfare of herself and my son. On her arrival at the château, I received another still more affectionate, pressing me, in very fond, and rather foolish, terms, to join her immediately. As I was preparing to set out from Seville, I received a third--this was from her father, Don Jose di Cardozo, who requested me, in the politest manner, to dissolve my marriage. I answered him with equal politeness, that I would do no such thing. A fourth letter arrived--it was from Donna Josepha, in which she informed me that her father's letter was written by her particular desire. I requested the reason by return of post--she replied, by express, that as reason had nothing to do with the matter, it was unnecessary to give any--but that she was an injured and excellent woman. I then enquired why she had written to me the two preceding affectionate letters, requesting me to come to Arragon. She answered, that was because she believed me out of my senses--that, being unfit to take care of myself, I had only to set out on this journey alone, and making my way without difficulty to Don Jose di Cardozo's, I should there have found the tenderest of wives and--a strait waistcoat.

"I had nothing to reply to this piece of affection but a reiteration of my request for some lights upon the subject. I was answered that they would only be related to the Inquisition. In the mean time, our domestic discrepancy had become a public topic of discussion: and the world, which always decides justly, not only in Arragon but in Andalusia, determined that I was not only to blame, but that all Spain could produce nobody so blamable. My case was supposed to comprise all the crimes which could, and several which could not, be committed, and little less than an auto-da-fé was anticipated as the result. But let no man say that we are abandoned by our friends in adversity--it was just the reverse. Mine thronged around me to condemn, advise, and console me with their disapprobation.--They told me all that was, would, or could be said on the subject. They shook their heads--they exhorted me--deplored me, with tears in their eyes, and--went to dinner."

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