“By this post (or next at farthest) I send you in two other covers, the new Third Act of ‘Manfred.’ I have re-written the greater part, and returned what is not altered in the proof you sent me. The Abbot is become a good man, and the Spirits are brought in at the death. You will find, I think, some good poetry in this new act, here and there; and if so, print it, without sending me farther proofs, under Mr. Gifford’s correction, if he will have the goodness to overlook it. Address all answers to Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in ten days.
“‘The Lament of Tasso,’ which I sent from Florence, has, I trust, arrived: I look upon it as a ‘these be good rhymes,’ as Pope’s papa said to him when he was a boy. For the two—it and the Drama—you will disburse to me (via Kinnaird) six hundred guineas. You will perhaps be surprised that I set the same price upon this as upon the Drama; but, besides that I look upon it as good, I won’t take less than three hundred guineas for any thing. The two together will make you a larger publication than the ‘Siege’ and ‘Parisina;’ so you may think yourself let off very easy: that is to say, if these poems are good for any thing, which I hope and believe.
“I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am seeing
sights, and have done nothing else, except the new Third Act for you. I have this
morning seen a live pope and a dead cardinal: Pius VII. has been
burying Cardinal Bracchi, whose body I saw in
state at the Chiesa
| 108 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1817. |
“P.S. I have got my saddle-horses here, and have ridden, and am riding, all about the country.”
