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.

that any

I can only say, Me, me; en adsum qui feci, 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 burthen. 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 which you please.

Yours ever,

BYRON.

P. S. You will now perceive that it was as well for you, that I have decided upon changing my publisher; though that was not my motive, but dissatisfaction at one or two things in your conduct, of no great moment perhaps even then. But now, all such things disappear in my regret at having been unintentionally the means of getting you into a scrape. Be assured that no momentary irritation (at real or supposed omissions or commissions) shall ever prevent me from doing you justice when you deserve it, or that I will allow you (if I can avoid it), to participate in any odium or persecution, which ought to fall on

me only. I had been laughing with some of my correspondents at the rumours, etc., till I saw this assault upon you; and I should at that too, if I did not think that it may perhaps hurt your feelings or your business.

When you re-publish (if you do so) The Foscari, etc., etc., to the note upon Southey add Mr. Southey's answer (which was in the papers): this is but fair play; and I do not desire it out of an affected contempt. What my rejoinder to him will be, is another concern, and is not for publication. Let me have your answer: remember me to Gifford, and do not forget to state that both you and he objected to publishing Cain in its present form. As for what the Clergyman says of Don Juan, you have brought it upon yourself by your absurd half and half prudery, which, I always foresaw, would bother you at last. An author's not putting his name, is nothing — it has been always the custom to publish a thousand anonymous things; but who ever heard before of a publisher's affecting such a Masquerade as yours was? However, now, you may put my name to the Juans, if you like it, though it is of the latest to be of use to you. I always stated to you, that my only objection was, in case of the law deciding against you, that they would annihilate my guardianship of the Child. But now (as you really seem in a damned scrape), they may do what they like with me, so that I can get you out of it: but, cheer up: though I have "led my ragamuffins where they are well 'peppered,' I will stick by them as long as they will keep the field.

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 we are before the least of these Stars!

With respect to "Religion," can I never convince you that I have no such opinions as the characters in that drama,1 which seems to have frightened everybody? Yet they are nothing to the expressions in Goethe's Faust (which are ten times hardier), and not a whit more bold than those of Milton's Satan. My ideas of a character may run away with me: like all imaginative men, I, of course, embody myself with the character while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from off the paper.

I am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. As a proof, I am educating my natural daughter a strict Catholic in a convent of Romagna; for I think people can never have enough of religion, if they are to have any. I incline, myself, very much to the Catholic doctrines; but if I am to write a drama, I must make my characters speak as I conceive them likely to argue.

As to poor Shelley, who is another bugbear to you and the world, he is, to my knowledge, the least selfish and the mildest of men a man who has made more sacrifices of his fortune and feelings for others than any

2 Moore had attributed the tone of "Cain " to Shelley's influence.

I ever heard of. With his speculative opinions I have nothing in common, nor desire to have.

The truth is, my dear Moore, you live near the stove of society, where you are unavoidably influenced by its heat and its I did so once vapours. - and too much and enough to give a colour to my whole future existence. As my success in society was not inconsiderable, I am surely not a prejudiced judge upon the subject, unless in its favour; but I think it, as now constituted, fatal to all great original undertakings of every kind. I never courted it then, when I was young and high in blood, and one of its "curled darlings "; and do you think I would do so now, when I am living in a clearer atmosphere? One thing only might lead me back to it, and that is, to try once more if I could do any good in politics; but not in the petty politics I see now preying upon our miserable country.

Do not let me be misunderstood, however. If you speak your own opinions, they ever had, and will have, the greatest weight with me. But if you merely echo the monde (and it is difficult not to do so, being in its favour and its ferment), I can only regret that you should ever repeat anything to which I cannot pay attention.

But I am prosing. The gods go with you, and as much immortality of all kinds as may suit your present and all other existence.

As to "a poem in the old way to interest the women," as you call it, I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering whether women or men are or are not to be pleased. But this is nothing to my publisher, who must judge and act according to popularity.

Therefore let the things take their chance: if they pay, you will pay me in proportion; and if they don't, I must.

The Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take advantage of my absence to abuse me. Further than this, I have no business nor connection with England, nor desire to have, out of my own family and friends, to whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I have lived upon the whole so little in England (about five years since I was one and twenty), that my habits are too continental, and your climate would please me as little as the Society. I saw the Chancellor's report in a French paper. Pray, why don't they prosecute the translation of Lucretius or the original with its

or

"Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor, "

"Tantum Religio potuit suadere Malorum ?

99

1 Concerning the prosecution for publication of "Cain."