Chapter 8

"Ravenna, Dec. 9. 1820.

"Besides this letter, you will receive _three_ packets, containing, in all, 18 more sheets of Memoranda, which, I fear, will cost you more in postage than they will ever produce by being printed in the next century. Instead of waiting so long, if you could make any thing of them _now_ in the way of _reversion_, (that is, after _my_ death,) I should be very glad,--as, with all due regard to your progeny, I prefer you to your grandchildren. Would not Longman or Murray advance you a certain sum _now_, pledging themselves _not_ to have them published till after _my_ decease, think you?--and what say you?

"Over these latter sheets I would leave you a discretionary power[13]; because they contain, perhaps, a thing or two which is too sincere for the public. If I consent to your disposing of their reversion _now_, where would be the harm? Tastes may change. I would, in your case, make my essay to dispose of them, _not_ publish, now; and if _you_ (as is most likely) survive me, add what you please from your own knowledge; and, _above all, contradict_ any thing, if I have _mis_-stated; for my first object is the truth, even at my own expense.

"I have some knowledge of your countryman Muley Moloch, the lecturer. He wrote to me several letters upon Christianity, to convert me: and, if I had not been a Christian already, I should probably have been now, in consequence. I thought there was something of wild talent in him, mixed with a due leaven of absurdity,--as there must be in all talent, let loose upon the world, without a martingale.

"The ministers seem still to persecute the Queen * * * but they _won't_ go out, the sons of b----es. Damn Reform--I want a place--what say you? You must applaud the honesty of the declaration, whatever you may think of the intention.

"I have quantities of paper in England, original and translated--tragedy, &c. &c. and am now copying out a fifth Canto of Don Juan, 149 stanzas. So that there will be near _three thin_ Albemarle, or _two thick_ volumes of all sorts of my Muses. I mean to plunge thick, too, into the contest upon Pope, and to lay about me like a dragon till I make manure of * * * for the top of Parnassus.

"These rogues are right--_we do_ laugh at _t'others_--eh?--don't we?[14] You shall see--you shall see what things I'll say, an' it pleases Providence to leave us leisure. But in these parts they are all going to war; and there is to be liberty, and a row, and a constitution--when they can get them. But I won't talk politics--it is low. Let us talk of the Queen, and her bath, and her bottle--that's the only _motley_ nowadays.

"If there are any acquaintances of mine, salute them. The priests here are trying to persecute me,--but no matter. Yours," &c.

[Footnote 13: The power here meant is that of omitting passages that might be thought objectionable. He afterwards gave me this, as well as every other right, over the whole of the manuscript.]

[Footnote 14: He here alludes to a humorous article, of which I had told him, in Blackwood's Magazine, where the poets of the day were all grouped together in a variety of fantastic shapes, with "Lord Byron and little Moore laughing behind, as if they would split," at the rest of the fraternity.]

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