by Thomas Moore
“Yours, &c.
“P.S. I have begun a tragedy on the subject of Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice; but you sha’n’t see it these six years, if you don’t acknowledge my packets with more quickness and precision. Always write, if but a line, by return of post, when any thing arrives, which is not a mere letter.
“Address direct to Ravenna; it saves a week’s time, and much postage.”
LETTER 368. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, April 16. 1820.
“Post after post arrives without bringing any acknowledgment from you of the different packets (excepting the first) which I sent within the last two months, all of which ought to be arrived long ere now; and as they were announced in other letters, you ought at least to say whether they are come or not. You are not expected to write frequent, or long letters, as your time is much occupied; but when parcels that have cost some pains in the composition, and great trouble in the copying, are sent to you, I should at least be put out of suspense, by the immediate acknowledgment, per return of post, addressed directly to Ravenna. I am naturally — knowing what continental posts are — anxious to hear that they are arrived; especially as I loathe the task of copying so much, that if there was a human being that could copy my blotted MSS. he should have all they can ever bring for his trouble. All I desire is two lines, to say, such a day I received such a packet. There are at least six unacknowledged. This is neither kind nor courteous.
“I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is THAT brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication, and set all your Anglo-travellers flying in every direction, with their usual fortitude in foreign tumults. The Spanish and French affairs have set the Italians in a ferment; and no wonder: they have been too long trampled on. This will make a sad scene for your exquisite traveller, but not for the resident, who naturally wishes a people to redress itself. I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, and perhaps to take a turn with them, like Dugald Dalgetty and his horse, in case of business; for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence. But they want union, and they want principle; and I doubt their success. However, they will try, probably, and if they do, it will be a good cause. No Italian can hate an Austrian more than I do: unless it be the English, the Austrians seem to me the most obnoxious race under the sky.
“But I doubt, if any thing be done, it won’t be so quietly as in Spain. To be sure, revolutions are not to be made with rose-water, where there are foreigners as masters.
“Write while you can; for it is but the toss up of a paul that there will not be a row that will somewhat retard the mail by and by.
“Yours,” &c.
LETTER 369. TO MR. HOPPNER.
“Ravenna, April 18. 1820.
“I have caused write to Siri and Willhalm to send with Vincenza, in a boat, the camp-beds and swords left in their care when I quitted Venice. There are also several pounds of Mantons best powder in a Japan case; but unless I felt sure of getting it away from V. without seizure, I won’t have it ventured. I can get it in here, by means of an acquaintance in the customs, who has offered to get it ashore for me; but should like to be certiorated of its safety in leaving Venice. I would not lose it for its weight in gold — there is none such in Italy, as I take it to be.
“I wrote to you a week or so ago, and hope you are in good plight and spirits. Sir Humphry Davy is here, and was last night at the Cardinal’s. As I had been there last Sunday, and yesterday was warm, I did not go, which I should have done, if I had thought of meeting the man of chemistry. He called this morning, and I shall go in search of him at Corso time. I believe to-day, being Monday, there is no great conversazione, and only the family one at the Marchese Cavalli’s, where I go as a relation sometimes, so that, unless he stays a day or two, we should hardly meet in public.
“The theatre is to open in May for the fair, if there is not a row in all Italy by that time, — the Spanish business has set them all a constitutioning, and what will be the end, no one knows — it is also necessary thereunto to have a beginning.
“Yours, &c.
“P.S. My benediction to Mrs. Hoppner. How is your little boy? Allegra is growing, and has increased in good looks and obstinacy.”
LETTER 370. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, April 23. 1820.
“The proofs don’t contain the last stanzas of Canto second, but end abruptly with the 105th stanza.
“I told you long ago that the new Cantos were not good, and I also told you a reason. Recollect, I do not oblige you to publish them; you may suppress them, if you like, but I can alter nothing. I have erased the six stanzas about those two impostors * * * * (which I suppose will give you great pleasure), but I can do no more. I can neither recast, nor replace; but I give you leave to put it all into the fire, if you like, or not to publish, and I think that’s sufficient.
“I told you that I wrote on with no good will — that I had been, not frightened, but hurt by the outcry, and, besides, that when I wrote last November, I was ill in body, and in very great distress of mind about some private things of my own; but you would have it: so I sent it to you, and to make it lighter, cut it in two — but I can’t piece it together again. I can’t cobble: I must ‘either make a spoon or spoil a horn,’ — and there’s an end; for there’s no remeid: but I leave you free will to suppress the whole, if you like it.
“About the Morgante Maggiore, I won’t have a line omitted. It may circulate, or it may not; but all the criticism on earth sha’n’t touch a line, unless it be because it is badly translated. Now you say, and I say, and others say, that the translation is a good one; and so it shall go to press as it is. Pulci must answer for his own irreligion: I answer for the translation only.
“Pray let Mr. Hobhouse look to the Italian next time in the proofs: this time, while I am scribbling to you, they are corrected by one who passes for the prettiest woman in Romagna, and even the Marches, as far as Ancona, be the other who she may.
“I am glad you like my answer to your enquiries about Italian society. It is fit you should like something, and be d —— d to you.
“My love to Scott. I shall think higher of knighthood ever after for his being dubbed. By the way, he is the first poet titled for his talent in Britain: it has happened abroad before now; but on the Continent titles are universal and worthless. Why don’t you send me Ivanhoe and the Monastery? I have never written to Sir Walter, for I know he has a thousand things, and I a thousand nothings, to do; but I hope to see him at Abbotsford before very long, and I will sweat his claret for him, though Italian abstemiousness has made my brain but a shilpit concern for a Scotch sitting ‘inter pocula.’ I love Scott, and Moore, and all the better brethren; but I hate and abhor that puddle of water-worms whom you have taken into your troop.
“Yours, &c.
“P.S. You say that one half is very good: you are wrong; for, if it were, it would be the finest poem in existence. Where is the poetry of which one half is good? is it the Æneid? is it Milton’s? is it Dryden’s? is it any one’s except Pope’s and Goldsmith’s, of which all is good? and yet these two last are the poets your pond poets would explode. But if one half of the two new Cantos be good in your opinion, what the devil would you have more? No — no; no poetry is generally good — only by fits and starts — and you are lucky to get a sparkle here and there. You might as well want a midnight all stars as rhyme all perfect.
“We are on the verge of a row here. Last night they have overwritten all the city walls with ‘Up with the republic!’ and ‘Death to the Pope!’ &c. &c. This would be nothing in London, where the walls are privileged. But here it is a different thing: they are not used to such fierce political inscriptions, and the police is all on the alert, and
the Cardinal glares pale through all his purple.
“April 24. 1820. 8 o’clock, P.M.
“The police have been, all noon and after, searching for the inscribers, but have caught none as yet. They must have been all night about it, for the ‘Live republics — Death to Popes and Priests,’ are innumerable, and plastered over all the palaces: ours has plenty. There is ‘Down with the Nobility,’ too; they are down enough already, for that matter. A very heavy rain and wind having come on, I did not go out and ‘skirr the country;’ but I shall mount to-morrow, and take a canter among the peasantry, who are a savage, resolute race, always riding with guns in their hands. I wonder they don’t suspect the serenaders, for they play on the guitar here all night, as in Spain, to their mistresses.
“Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my Ode on Waterloo, written in the year 1815, and, comparing it with the Duke de Berri’s catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of ‘Vates’ in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?
“‘Crimson tears will follow yet—’
and have not they?
“I can’t pretend to foresee what will happen among you Englishers at this distance, but I vaticinate a row in Italy; in whilk case, I don’t know that I won’t have a finger in it. I dislike the Austrians, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, I will recommend ‘the erection of a sconce upon Drumsnab,’ like Dugald Dalgetty.”
LETTER 371. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, May 8. 1820.
“From your not having written again, an intention which your letter of the 7th ultimo indicated, I have to presume that the ‘Prophecy of Dante’ has not been found more worthy than its predecessors in the eyes of your illustrious synod. In that case, you will be in some perplexity; to end which, I repeat to you, that you are not to consider yourself as bound or pledged to publish any thing because it is mine, but always to act according to your own views, or opinions, or those of your friends; and to be sure that you will in no degree offend me by ‘declining the article,’ to use a technical phrase. The prose observations on John Wilson’s attack, I do not intend for publication at this time; and I send a copy of verses to Mr. Kinnaird (they were written last year on crossing the Po) which must not be published either. I mention this, because it is probable he may give you a copy. Pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions. And, moreover, I can’t consent to any mutilations or omissions of Pulci: the original has been ever free from such in Italy, the capital of Christianity, and the translation may be so in England; though you will think it strange that they should have allowed such freedom for many centuries to the Morgante, while the other day they confiscated the whole translation of the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, and have persecuted Leoni, the translator — so he writes me, and so I could have told him, had he consulted me before his publication. This shows how much more politics interest men in these parts than religion. Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate Childe Harold in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing monks and knights, and church government, are let loose for centuries. I copy Leoni’s account.
“‘Non ignorerà forse che la mia versione del 4° Canto del Childe Harold fu confiscata in ogni parte: ed io stesso ho dovuto soffrir vessazioni altrettanto ridicole quanto illiberaii, ad arte che alcuni versi fossero esclusi dalla censura. Ma siccome il divieto non fa d’ordinario che accrescere la curiosita cos! quel carme sull’ Italia è ricercato più che mai, e penso di farlo ristampare in Inghil-terra senza nulla escludere. Sciagurata condizione di questa mia patria! se patria si può chiamare una terra così avvilita dalla fortuna, dagli uomini, da se medesima.’
“Rose will translate this to you. Has he had his letter? I enclosed it to you months ago.
“This intended piece of publication I shall dissuade him from, or he may chance to see the inside of St. Angelo’s. The last sentence of his letter is the common and pathetic sentiment of all his countrymen.
“Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth ascension to Mount Vesuvius, asked ‘if there was not a similar volcano in Ireland?’ My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but, on second thoughts, I divined that she alluded to Iceland and to Hecla — and so it proved, though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the amiable pertinacity of ‘the feminie.’ She soon after turned to me and asked me various questions about Sir Humphry’s philosophy, and I explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the Pompeian MSS. ‘But what do you call him?’ said she. ‘A great chemist,’ quoth I. ‘What can he do?’ repeated the lady. ‘Almost any thing,’ said I. ‘Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come off; and besides, they don’t grow; can’t he invent something to make them grow?’ All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated and clever. But they speak like children, when first out of their convents; and, after all, this is better than an English blue-stocking.
“I did not tell Sir Humphry of this last piece of philosophy, not knowing how he might take it. Davy was much taken with Ravenna, and the PRIMITIVE Italianism of the people, who are unused to foreigners: but he only stayed a day.
“Send me Scott’s novels and some news.
“P.S. I have begun and advanced into the second act of a tragedy on the subject of the Doge’s conspiracy (i.e. the story of Marino Faliero); but my present feeling is so little encouraging on such matters, that I begin to think I have mined my talent out, and proceed in no great phantasy of finding a new vein.
“P.S. I sometimes think (if the Italians don’t rise) of coming over to England in the autumn after the coronation, (at which I would not appear, on account of my family schism,) but as yet I can decide nothing. The place must be a great deal changed since I left it, now more than four years ago.”
LETTER 372. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, May 20. 1820.
“Murray, my dear, make my respects to Thomas Campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right in his poets: Firstly, he says Anstey’s Bath Guide characters are taken from Smollett. ’Tis impossible: — the Guide was published in 1766, and Humphrey Clinker in 1771 — dunque, ’tis Smollett who has taken from Anstey. Secondly, he does not know to whom Cowper alludes, when he says that there was one who ‘built a church to God, and then blasphemed his name:’ it was ‘Deo erexit Voltaire’ to whom that maniacal Calvinist and coddled poet alludes. Thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from Shakspeare, ‘to gild refined gold, to paint the lily,’ &c.; for lily he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole quotation.
“Now, Tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct; for the first is an injustice (to Anstey), the second an ignorance, and the third a blunder. Tell him all this, and let him take it in good part; for I might have rammed it into a review and rowed him — instead of which, I act like a Christian.
“Yours,” &c.
LETTER 373. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, May 20. 1820.
“First and foremost, you must forward my letter to Moore dated 2d January, which I said you might open, but desired you to forward. Now, you should really not forget these little things, because they do mischief among friends. You are an excellent man, a great man, and live among great men, but do pray recollect your absent friends and authors.
“In the first place, your packets; then a letter from Kinnaird, on the most urgent business; another from Moore, about a communication to Lady Byron of importance; a fourth from the mother of Allegra; and, fifthly, at R
avenna, the Countess G. is on the eve of being separated. But the Italian public are on her side, particularly the women, — and the men also, because they say that he had no business to take the business up now after a year of toleration. All her relations (who are numerous, high in rank, and powerful) are furious against him for his conduct. I am warned to be on my guard, as he is very capable of employing sicarii — this is Latin as well as Italian, so you can understand it; but I have arms, and don’t mind them, thinking that I could pepper his ragamuffins, if they don’t come unawares, and that, if they do, one may as well end that way as another; and it would besides serve you as an advertisement: —
“Man may escape from rope or gun, &c. But he who takes woman, woman, woman, &c.
“Yours.
“P.S. I have looked over the press, but heaven knows how. Think what I have on hand and the post going out to-morrow. Do you remember the epitaph on Voltaire?
“‘Ci-git l’enfant gâté,’ &c.
“‘Here lies the spoilt child Of the world which he spoil’d.’
The original is in Grimm and Diderot, &c. &c. &c.”
LETTER 374. TO MR. MOORE.
“Ravenna, May 24. 1820.
“I wrote to you a few days ago. There is also a letter of January last for you at Murray’s, which will explain to you why I am here. Murray ought to have forwarded it long ago. I enclose you an epistle from a countrywoman of yours at Paris, which has moved my entrails. You will have the goodness, perhaps, to enquire into the truth of her story, and I will help her as far as I can, — though not in the useless way she proposes. Her letter is evidently unstudied, and so natural, that the orthography is also in a state of nature.
“Here is a poor creature, ill and solitary, who thinks, as a last resource, of translating you or me into French! Was there ever such a notion? It seems to me the consummation of despair. Pray enquire, and let me know, and, if you could draw a bill on me here for a few hundred francs, at your banker’s, I will duly honour it, — that is, if she is not an impostor. If not, let me know, that I may get something remitted by my banker Longhi, of Bologna, for I have no correspondence myself, at Paris: but tell her she must not translate; — if she does, it will be the height of ingratitude.