Chapter 83

"Pisa, February 8. 1822.

"Attacks upon me were to be expected, but I perceive one upon _you_ in the papers, which I confess that I did not expect. How, or in what manner, _you_ can be considered responsible for what _I_ publish, I am at a loss to conceive.

"If 'Cain' be 'blasphemous,' Paradise Lost is blasphemous; and the very words of the Oxford gentleman, 'Evil, be thou my good,' are from that very poem, from the mouth of Satan, and is there any thing more in that of Lucifer in the Mystery? Cain is nothing more than a drama, not a piece of argument. If Lucifer and Cain speak as the first murderer and the first rebel may be supposed to speak, surely all the rest of the personages talk also according to their characters--and the stronger passions have ever been permitted to the drama.

"I have even avoided introducing the Deity as in Scripture, (though Milton does, and not very wisely either,) but have adopted his angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings on the subject by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence of Jehovah. The old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and all this is avoided in the new one.

"The attempt to _bully you_, because they think it won't succeed with me, seems to me as atrocious an attempt as ever disgraced the times. What! when Gibbon's, Hume's, Priestley's, and Drummond's publishers have been allowed to rest in peace for seventy years, are you to be singled out for a work of _fiction_, not of history or argument? There must be something at the bottom of this--some private enemy of your own: it is otherwise incredible.

"I can only say, 'Me, me; en adsum qui feci;'--that any proceedings directed against you, I beg, may be transferred to me, who am willing, and _ought_, to endure them all;--that if you have lost money by the publication, I will refund any or all of the copyright;--that I desire you will say that both _you_ and _Mr. Gifford_ remonstrated against the publication, as also Mr. Hobhouse;--that _I_ alone occasioned it, and I alone am the person who, either legally or otherwise, should bear the burden. If they prosecute, I will come to England--that is, if, by meeting it in my own person, I can save yours. Let me know. You sha'n't suffer for me, if I can help it. Make any use of this letter you please.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. I write to you about all this row of bad passions and absurdities with the _summer_ moon (for here our winter is clearer than your dog-days) lighting the winding Arno, with all her buildings and bridges,--so quiet and still!--What nothings are we before the least of these stars!"

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