LETTER CCLXXXIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Nov. 4, 1815.

"When you have been enabled to form an opinion on Mr. Coleridge's MS., you will oblige me by returning it, as, in fact, I have no authority to let it out of my hands. I think most highly of it, and feel anxious that you should be the publisher; but if you are not, I do not despair of finding those who will.

have any, from you or yours, the suppression co curred (I am as sure as I can be of any thing) in the manner stated: I have never regretted that, but very often the composition, that is, the humeur of a great deal in it. As to the quotation you allude to, I have no right, nor indeed desire, to prevent it; but, on the contrary, in common with all other writers, I do and ought to take it as a compliment.

"The paper on the Methodists I redde, and agree with the writer on one point, in which you and "I have written to Leigh Hunt, stating your wil- he perhaps differ; that an addiction to poetry is lingness to treat with him, which, when I saw you, very generally the result of an uneasy mind in an I understood you to be. Terms and time I leave to uneasy body;' disease or deformity have been the his pleasure and your discernment; but this I will attendants of many of our best. Collins madsay, that I think it the safest thing you ever en- Chatterton, I think, mad-Cowper mad-Pope gaged in. I speak to you as a man of business; crooked-Milton blind-Gray (I have heard that the were I to talk to you as a reader or a critic, I should last was afflicted by an incurable and very griev say, it was a very wonderful and beautiful perform- ous distemper, though not generally known), and ance, with just enough of fault to make its beauties others-I have somewhere read, however, that poets more remarked and remarkable. rarely go mad. I suppose the writer means that their insanity effervesces and evaporates in versemay be so.

"And now to the last: my own, which I feel ashamed of after the others:-publish or not, as you like, I don't care one damn. If you don't, no one else shall, and I never thought or dreamed of it, except as one in the collection. If it is worth being in the fourth volume, put it there and nowhere else; and if not, put it in the fire. "Yours,

LETTER CCLXXXIV.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"N."

"Nov. 14, 1815.

I have not had time to attack your system, which ought to be done, were it only because it is a system. So, by-and-by, have at you. 66 Yours ever,

"BYRON."

"Of Rimini,' Sir Henry Englefield, a mighty man in the blue circles, and a very clever man any where, sent to Murray, in terms of the highest eulogy; and with regard to the common reader, my sister and cousin (who are now all my family, and the last since gone away to be married) were in fixed perusal and delight with it, and they are not

"I return you your bills not accepted, but cer- critical,' but fair, natural, unaffected, and undertainly not unhonored. Your present offer is a favor standing persons. Frere, and all the arch-literati, which I would accept from you, if I accepted such I hear, are also unanimous in a high opinion of the from any man. Had such been my intention, I can poem."

assure you I would have asked you fairly, and as freely as you would give; and I cannot say more of my confidence or your conduct.

The circumstances which induce me to part with my books, though sufficiently, are not immediately, pressing. I have made up my mind to them, and there's an end.

LETTER CCLXXXVI.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Jan. 5, 1816.

"Had I been disposed to trespass on your "I hope Mrs. M. is quite reëstablished. The kindness in this way, it would have been before little girl was born on the 10th of December last: now; but I am not sorry to have an opportunity of her name is Augusta Ada, (the second a very declining it, as it sets my opinion of you, and indeed of human nature, in a different light from that in which I have been accustomed to consider it. Believe me very truly, &c."

• In consequence of his pecuniary embarrassments at this time, he had ex

antique family name,-I believe not used since the reign of King John.) She was, and is, very flourishing and fat, and reckoned very large for her days-squalls and sucks incessantly. Are you answered? Her mother is doing very well, and up again.

"I have now been married a year on the second of this month-heigh-ho! I have seen nobody lately much worth noting, except S** and another general of the Gauls, once or twice at dinner out of doors. S is a fine, foreign, villainous-looking, intelligent, and very agreeable man; his com patriot is more of the petit-maitre, and younger, but I should think not at all of the same intellectual is, and a cousin of Napoleon's. calibre with the Corsican-which S**, you know,

"Are you never to be expected in town again? To be sure, there is no one here of the fifteen hun dred fillers of hot rooms, called the fashionable world. My approaching papa-ship detained us for advice, &c., &c.,-though I would as soon be here as any where else on this side of the straits of Gibraltar.

"I would gladly-or, rather, sorrowfully-comply with your request of a dirge for the poor girl you mention." But how can I write on one I have never

prossed an intention of parting with his books. On hearing this, Mr. Murray seen or known? Besides, you will do much better

instantly forwarded him 1500., with an assurance that another sum of the Dame amount should be at his service in a few weeks, and that if such assist

• 1 had mentioned to him, as a subject worthy of his best powers of pathos,

ance should not be sufficient, Mr. Murray was most ready to dispose of the a melancholy event which had just occurred in my neighborhood, and to spynights of all his past works for his use.

• See Poems, p. 569.

which I have myself made allusion in one of the Sacred Melodies- Weep not for her."-Moore.

835

yourself. I could not write upon any thing, with-which have struck me from a quarter whence I did out some personal experience and foundation; far not indeed expect them. But no matter, there less on a theme so peculiar. Now, you have both is a world elsewhere,' and I will cut my way through in this case; and, if you had neither, you have this as I can. more imagination, and would never fail.

"BN"

"If you write to Moore, will you tell him that I "This is but a dull scrawl, and I am but a dull shall answer his letter the moment I can mustor fellow. Just at present, I am absorbed in five time and spirits? "Ever yours, hundred contradictory contemplations, though with but one object in view-which will probably end in nothing, as most things we wish do. But never mind-as somebody says, 'for the blue sky bends over all.' I only could be glad, if it bent over me where it is a little bluer; like the skyish top of blue Olympus,' which, by-the-way, looked very white when I last saw it. "Ever, &c."

LETTER CCLXXXVII.

"DEAR HUNT,

TO MR. HUNT.

"Jan. 29, 1816.

"The said Murray and I are just at present in no good humor with each other; but he is not the worse for that: I feel sure that he will give your work as fair or a fairer chance in every way than your late publishers; and what he can't do for it, it will do for itself.

LETTER CCLXXXIX.

TO MR. MOORE.

"Feb, 29, 1816.

"I have not answered your letter for a time; and, at present, the reply to part of it might extend to such a length, that I shall delay it till it can be made in person, and then I will shorten it as much as I can.

"In the mean time, I am at war with all the world and his wife;' or rather, all the world and my wife' are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me, whatever they may do. I don't know "I return your extract with thanks for the peru- that in the course of a hair-breadth existence I was sal, and hope you are by this time on the verge of ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so compublication. My pencil-marks on the margin of pletely uprooting of present pleasure, or rational your former manuscripts I never thought worth the hope for the future, as this same. I say this, trouble of deciphering, but I had no such meaning because I think so, and feel it. But I shall not as you imagine for their being withheld from Mur- sink under it the more for that mode of considering ray, from whom I differ entirely as to the terms of the question. I have made up my mind. your agreement; nor do I think you asked a piastre "By-the-way, however, you must not believe all too much for the poem. However, I doubt not he you hear on the subject; and don't attempt to will deal fairly by you on the whole; he is really a defend me. If you succeeded in that, it would be a very good fellow, and his faults are merely the mortal, or an immortal, offence-who can bear leaven of his trade'-'the trade!' the slave-trade refutation? I have but a very short answer for of many an unlucky writer. those whom it concerns; and all the activity of myself and some vigorous friends have not yet fixed on any tangible ground or personage, on which or with whom I can discuss matters, in a summary way, with a fair pretext, though I nearly had nailed one yesterday, but he evaded by-what was judged by others-a satisfactory explanation. I speak of "Continual business and occasional indisposition circulators-against whom I have no enmity, though have been the causes of my negligence (for I deny I must act according to the common code of usage, neglect) in not writing to you immediately. These when I hit upon those of the serious order. are excuses; I wish they may be more satisfactory "Now for other matters-Poesy, for instance. to you than they are to me. I opened my eyes Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good one-quaint, yesterday morning on your compliment of Sunday. here and there, but with the substratum of origiIf you knew what a hopeless and lethargic den of nality, and with poetry about it that will stand the dulness and drawling our hospital is during a test. I do not say this because he has inscribed it debate; and what a mass of corruption in its to me, which I am sorry for, as I should otherwise patients, you would wonder, not that very seldom have begged you to review it in the Edinburgh. It speak, but that I ever attempted it, feeling, as I is really deserving of much praise, and a favorable trust I do, independently. However, when a proper critique in the E. R. would but do it justice, and spirit is manifested without doors,' I will endeavor set it up before the public eye where it ought to be. not to be idle within. Do you think such a time is coming? Methinks there are gleams of it. My forefathers were of the other side of the question in Charles' days, and the fruit of it was a title and the loss of an enormous property.

"If the old struggle comes on, I may lose the one, and shall never regain the other, but no matter; there are things, even in this world, better than either. Very truly, ever yours, "B."

66

LETTER CCLXXXVIII.

MR. ROGERS.

"Feb. 8, 1816.

"How are you? and where? I have not the most distant idea what I am going to do myself, or with myself-or where-or what. I had, a few weeks ago, some things to say, that would have made you laugh; but they tell me now that I must not laugh, and so I have been very serious-and am.

"I have not been very well-with a liver complaint-but am much better within the last fortnight, though still under Iatrical advice. I have latterly seen a little of

*

"I must go and dress to dine. My little girl is in the country, and, they tell me, is a very fine child, and now nearly three months old. Lady Noel (my mother-in-law, or rather, at law) is at present overlooking it. Her daughter (Miss Milbanke that was) is, I believe, in London with her father. A Mrs. Charlmont, (now a kind of house

"Do not mistake me-I really returned your keeper and spy of Lady N.'s,) who, in her better book for the reason assigned, and no other. It is days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be-by too good for so careless a fellow. I have parted the learned-very much the occult cause of our late with all my own books, and positively won't deprive domestic discrepancies. ou of so valuable 'a drop of that immortal man.' "I shall be very glad to see you, if you like to rall, though I am at present contending with 'the ings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' some of

"In all this business, I am the sorriest for Sir Ralph. He and I are equally punished, though

See Poems, p. 550.

magis pares quem similes in our affliction. Yet it is in my choice' (unless in choosing at all)—for I de hard for both to suffer for the fault of one, and so not believe, and I must say it, in the very dregs of it is I shall be separated from my wife; he will all this bitter business, that there ever was a better, retain his. "Ever, &c."

LETTER CCXC.

TO MR. HUNT.

"Feb. 26, 1816.

or even a brighter, a kinder, or a more amiable and agreeable being than Lady B. I never had, nor can have, any reproach to make her, while with me. Where there is blame, it belongs to myself; and, il I cannot redeem, I must bear it.

"Her nearest relatives are a *-my circumstances have been and are in a state of great confusion-my health has been a good deal disordered, "DEAR HUNT, and my mind ill at ease for a considerable period. "Your letter would have been answered before, Such are the causes (I do not name them as excuses) had I not thought it probable that, as you were in which have frequently driven me into excess, and town for a day or so, I should have seen you;-I disqualified my temper for comfort. Something don't mean this as a hint at reproach for not call- also may be attributed to the strange and desultory ing, but merely that of course I should have been habits which, becoming my own master at an early very glad if you had called in your way, home or age, and scrambling about, over and through the abroad, as I always would have been, and always world, may have induced. I still, however, think shall be. With regard to the circumstances to which that, if I had had a fair chance, by being placed in you allude, there is no reason why you should not even a tolerable situation, might have gone on speak openly to me on a subject already sufficiently fairly. But that seems hopeless, and there is nothrife in the mouths and minds of what is called the ing more to be said. At present-except my health, world.' Of the fifty reports,' it follows that forty- which is better (it is odd, but agitation or contest of nine must have more or less exaggeration; but I any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me am sorry to say, that on the main and essential up for the time)-I have to battle with all kinds of point of an intended, and, it may be, an inevitable unpleasantnesses, including private and pecuniary separation, I can contradict none. At present I difficulties, &c., &c.

shall say no more, but this is not from want of con- "I believe I may have said this before to you,fidence; in the mean time I shall merely request a but I risk repeating it. It is nothing to bear the suspension of opinion. Your prefatory letter to privations of adversity, or, more properly, ill forRimini' I accepted as it was meant, as a public tune; but my pride recoils from its indignities. compliment and a private kindness. I am only However, I have no quarrel with that same pride, sorry that it may perhaps operate against you as an which will, I think, buckler me through every inducement, and, with some, a pretext for attack thing. If my heart could have been broken, it on the part of the political and personal enemies of would have been so years ago, and by events more both; not that this can be of much consequence, afflicting than these. for in the end the work must be judged by its "I agree with you (to turn from this topic to our merits, and, in that respect, you are well armed. shop) that I have written too much. The last Murray tells me it is going on well, and, you may things were, however, published very reluctantly by depend upon it, there is a substratum of poetry, me, and for reasons I will explain when me meet. which is a foundation for solid and durable fame. I know not why I have dwelt so much on the same The objections (if there be objections, for this is a scenes, except that I find them fading, or confusing presumption, and not an assumption) will be merely (if such a word may be) in my memory, in the as to the mechanical part, and such, as I stated midst of present turbulence and pressure, and I felt before, the usual consequences of either novelty or anxious to stamp before the die was worn out. 1 revival. I desired Murray to forward to you a now break it. With those countries, and events pamphlet with two things of mine in it, the most connected with them, all my really poetical feelings part of both of them, and of one in particular, begin and end. Were I to try, I could make noth written before others of my composing, which have ing of any other subject, and that I have apparently preceded them in publication; they are neither of exhausted. 'Wo to him,' says Voltaire, who says them of much pretension, nor intended for it. You all he could say on any subject.' There are some will perhaps wonder at my dwelling so much and so on which, perhaps, I could have said still more: frequently on former subjects and scenes; but the but I leave them all, and not too soon. fact is, that I found them fading fast from my Do you remember the lines I sent you early last memory; and I was, at the same time, so partial to year, which you still have? I don't wish (like Mr. their place, (and events connected with it,) that I Fitzgerald, in the Morning Post) to claim the charhave stamped them while I could, in such colors as acter of Vates' in all its translations; but were I could trust to now, but might have confused and they not a little prophetic? I mean those begin misplaced hereafter, had I longer delayed the ning There's not a joy the world can,'* &c., &c., attempted delineation."

LETTER CCXCI.

TO MR. MOORE.

"March 8, 1816.

on which I rather pique myself as being the truest, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote.

"What a scrawl have I sent you! You say nothing of yourself, except that you are a Lancasterian churchwarden, and an encourager of mendicants. When are you out? and how is your family? My child is very well and flourishing, I hear; but I must see also. I feel no disposition to resign it to the contagion of its grandmother's society, though I am unwilling to take it from the mother's. It is weaned, however, and something about it must be "Ever, &c."

"I rejoice in your promotion as Chairman and Charitable Steward, &c., &c. These be dignities which await only the virtuous. But then, recollect, decided. you are six-and-thirty, (I speak this enviously-not of your age, but the honor-love-obediencetroops of friends,' which accompany it,) and I have [The letter that follows was in answer to one eight years good to run before I arrive at such received from Mr. Murray, in which he had enclosed hoary perfection; by which time,-if I am at all,him a draft for a thousand guineas for the copy. it will probably be in a state of grace or progressing right of his two poems, the Siege of Corinth and Parisina.]

merits.

"I must set you right in one point, however. The fault was not-no, nor even the misfortune,

• See Poems, p. 549.

LETTER CCXCII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Jan. 2, 1816.

it was large, I admitted and admit; and that made part of my consideration in refusing it, till I knew better what you were likely to make of it. With regard to what is past, or is to pass, about Mr. * "Your offer is liberal in the extreme, (you see I the case is in no respect different from the transfer use the word to you and of you, though I would not of former copyrights to Mr. Dallas. Had I taken consent to your using it of yourself to Mr. *,) you at your word, that is, taken your money, I and much more than the two poems can possibly be might have used it as I pleased; and it could be in worth; but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You no respect different to you whether I paid it to a are most welcome to them as additions to the col-w, or a hospital, or assisted a man of talent in lected volumes, without any demand or expectation distress. The truth of the matter seems this: you on my part whatever. But I cannot consent to offered more than the poems are worth. I said so, their separate publication. I do not like to risk and I think so; but you know, or at least ought to any fame (whether merited or not) which I have know, your own business best; and when you recolbeen favored with, upon compositions which I do lect what passed between you and me upon pecunot feel to be at all equal to my own notions of niary subjects before this occurred, you will acquit what they should be, (and as I flatter myself some me of any wish to take advantage of your impruhave been, here and there,) though they may do dence. very well as things without pretension, to add to "The things in question shall not be published at the publication with the lighter pieces. all, and there is an end of the matter.

66 am very glad that the handwriting was a favorable omen of the morale of the piece: but you must not trust to that, for my copyist would write out any thing I desired in all the ignorance of innocence-I hope, however, in this instance, with no great peril to either.

"P. S. I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of accidents by the way-I wish you would not throw temptation in mine. It is not from a disdain of the universal idol, not from a present superfluity of his treasures, I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances."

LETTER CCXCIII.

TO MR. ROGERS.

"Feb. 20, 1816.

LETTER CCXCV

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Yours, &c."

"March 6, 1816.

"I sent to you to-day for this reason-the books you purchased are again seized, and, as matters stand, had much better be sold at once by public auction. I wish to see you, to return your bill for them; which, thank God, is neither due nor paid. That part, as far as you are concerned, being settled, (which it can be, and shall be, when I see you to-morrow,) I have no further delicacy about the matter. This is about the tenth execution in as many months; so I am pretty well hardened; but it is fit I should pay the forfeit of my forefather's extravagance and my own; and whatever my faults may be, I suppose they will be pretty well explained in time-or eternity. "Ever, &c.

"P. S. I need hardly say that I knew nothing till this day of the new seizure. I had released them from former ones, and thought, when you took them, that they were yours.

"You shall have your bill again to-morrow

"

"I wrote to you hastily this morning by Murray, to say that I was glad to do as Mackintosh and you suggested about Mr. * *. It occurs to me now, that as I have never seen Mr. but once, and consequently have no claim to his acquaintance, that you or Sir J. had better arrange it with him in such a manner as may be least offensive to his feelings, and so as not to have the appearance of officiousness nor obtrusion on my part. I hope you will be able to do this, as I should be very sorry to do any thing by him that may be deemed indelicate. The sum Murray offered and offers was and is one thousand and fifty pounds: this I refused before, because I thought it more than the two things were worth to Murray, and from other objections, which are of no consequence. I have, however, closed "I sent for Marmion,' which I return, because with M., in consequence of Sir J.'s and your sug- it occurred to me, there might be a resemblance gestion, and propose the sum of six hundred pounds between part of Parisina' and a similar scene in to be transferred to Mr. ** in such manner as may seem best to your friend,-the remainder I think of for other purposes.

"As Murray has offered the money down for the copyrights, it may be done directly. I am ready to sign and seal immediately, and perhaps it had better not be delayed. I shall feel very glad if it can be of any use to**; only don't let him be plagued, nor think himself obliged and all that, which makes people hate one another, &c.

"Yours, very truly,

"B."

LETTER CCXCVI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Feb. 3, 1816.

canto II. of Marmion.' I fear there is, though I never thought of it before, and could hardly wish to imitate that which is inimitable. I wish you would ask Mr. Gifford whether I ought to say any thing upon it;-I had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind: but it comes upon me not very comfortably.

"There are a few words and phrases I want to alter in the MS., and should like to do it before you print, and will return it in an hour. "Yours ever.

"When the sum offered by you, and even pressed

by you, was declined, it was with reference to a sep

"To return to our business-your epistles are

Arate publication, as you know and I know. That vastly agreeable. With regard to the observations

on carelessness, &c., I think, with all humility, in my boat round the lake; and I enclose you a that the gentle reader has considered a rather un- sprig of Gibbon's acacia and some rose leaves from common, and designedly irregular, versification for his garden, which, with part of his house, I have haste and negligence. The measure is not that of just seen. You will find honorable mention, in his any of the other poems, which (I believe) were Life, made of this acacia,' when he walked out on allowed to be tolerably correct, according to Bysshe the night of concluding his history. The garden and the fingers-or ears-by which bards write, and and summer-house, where he composed, are nereaders reckon. Great part of the Siege' is in glected, and the last utterly decayed; but they still (I think) what the learned called Anapests, (though show it as his 'cabinet,' and seem perfectly aware I am not sure, being heinously forgetful of my of his memory. metres and my Gradus,') and many of the lines intentionally longer or shorter than its rhyming companion; and rhyme also occurring at greater or less intervals of caprice or convenience.

"My route, through Flanders, and by the Rhine, to Switzerland, was all I expected and more.

"I have traversed all Rousseau's ground, with the Heloise before me, and am struck to a degree "I mean not to say that this is right or good, but that I cannot express with the force and accuracy merely that I could have been smoother, had it of his descriptions, and the beauty of their reality. appeared to me of advantage; and that I was not Meillerie, Clarens, and Vevay, and the Chateau de otherwise without being aware of the deviation, Chillon, are places of which I shall say little, be though I now feel sorry for it, as I would undoubt- cause all I could say must fall short of the impres edly rather please than not. My wish has been to sions they stamp. try at something different from my former efforts; Three days ago, we were nearly wrecked in a as I endeavored to make them differ from each squall off Meillerie, and driven to shore. I ran no other. The versification of the Corsair' is not risk, being so near the rocks, and a good swimmer; that of Lara; nor the Giaour' that of the but our party were wet, and incommoded a good 'Bride;' 'Childe Harold' is again varied from deal. The wind was strong enough to blow down these; and I strove to vary the last somewhat some trees, as we found at landing; however, all is from all of the others.

"Excuse all this d-d nonsense and egotism. The fact is, that I am rather trying to think on the subject of this note, than really thinking on it.-I did not know you had called: you are always admitted and welcome when you choose.

"Yours, &c., &c.

righted and right, and we are thus far on our return. "Dr. Polidori is not here, but at Diodati, left behind in the hospital with a sprained ankle, which he acquired in tumbling from a wall-he can't jump.

"I shall be glad to hear you are well, and have received for me certain helms and swords, sent from Waterloo which I rode over with pain and pleasure.

"I have finished a third canto of Childe Harold,

"P. S. You need not be in any apprehension or grief on my account: were I to be beaten down by (consisting of one hundred and seventeen stanzas,) the world and its inheritors, I should have suc- longer than either of the two former, and in some cumbed to many things years ago. You must not parts, it may be, better; but of course on that I mistake my not bullying for dejection; nor imagine cannot determine. I shall send it by the first safethat because I feel, I am too faint:-but enough for looking opportunity. the present.

"I am sorry for Sotheby's row. What the devil is it about? I thought it all settled; and if I can do any thing about him or Ivan still, I am ready and willing. I do not think it proper for me just now to be much behind the scenes, but I will see the committee and move upon it, if Sotheby likes.

"If you see Mr. Sotheby, will you tell him that I wrote to Mr. Coleridge, on getting Mr. Sotheby's note, and have, I hope, done what Mr. S. wished on that subject?"

LETTER CCXCVIII.

TO MR. ROGERS.

"March 25, 1815.

LETTER CCC.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ever, &c."

"Diodati, near Geneva, July 22, 1816, "I wrote to you a few weeks ago, and Dr. Polidori received your letter; but the packet has not made its appearance, nor the epistle, of which you gave notice therein. I enclose you an advertise ment, which was copied by Dr. Polidori, and which appears to be about the most impudent imposition that ever issued from Grub street. I need hardly say that I know nothing of all this trash, nor whence it may spring,-'Odes to St. He "You are one of the few persons with whom I lena,' Farewells to England, &c., &c.,-and if it have lived in what is called intimacy, and have can be disavowed, or is worth disavowing, you have heard me at times conversing on the untoward full authority to do so. I never wrote nor conceived topic of my recent family disquietudes. Will you a line on any thing of the kind, any more than of two have the goodness to say to me at once, whether other things with which I was saddled-something you ever heard me speak of her with disrespect, and as to the Lily of France,' I should as soon think about Gaul,' and another about Mrs. La Valette;" with unkindness, or defending myself at her expense by any serious imputation of any description of celebrating a turnip. On the morning of my against her? Did you never hear me say, that daughter's birth,' I had other things to think of when there was a right or a wrong, she had the right?'-The reason I put these questions to you or others of my friends is, because I am said, by her and hers, to have resorted to such means of exculpation. "Ever very truly yours,

LETTER CCXCIX

TO MR. MURRAY.

"B."

"Ouchy, near Lausanne, June 27, 1816. "I am thus far (kept by stress of weather) on my way back to Diodati, (near Geneva,) from a voyage

than verses; and should never have dreamed of such an invention, till Mr. Johnston and his pamphlet's advertisement broke in upon me with a new light on the crafts and subtleties of the demon of printing, or rather publishing.

"I did hope that some succeeding lie would have superseded the thousand and one which were accu