“Pray get well. I do not like your complaint. So, let me have a line to say you are up and doing again. To-day I am 33 years of age.
‘Through life’s road, &c. &c.*’ |
“Have you heard that the ‘Braziers’ Company’ have, or mean to present an address at Brandenburgh-house, ‘in armour,’ and with all possible variety, and splendour of brazen apparel?
“The Braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass An address, and present it themselves all in brass— A superfluous pageant—for, by the Lord Harry They’ll find where they’re going much more than they carry. |
“ Of * * * *, the
grand metaquizzical poet, A man of vast merit, though few people know it; The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mestri) I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry. |
“Mestri and Fusina are the ‘trajects, or common ferries,’ to Venice; but it was from Fusina that you and I embarked, though ‘the wicked necessity of rhyming’ has made me press Mestri into the voyage.
“So, you have had a book dedicated to you? I am glad of it, and shall be very happy to see the volume.
“I am in a peck of troubles about a tragedy of mine, which is fit only for the (* * * * * *) closet, and which it seems that the managers, assuming a right over published poetry, are determined to enact, whether I will or no, with their own alterations by Mr. Dibdin, I presume. I have written to Murray, to the Lord Chamberlain, and to others, to interfere and preserve me from such an exhibition. I want neither the
* Already given in his Journal. |
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 443 |
“Now, if you would also write to our friend Perry, to beg of him to mediate with Harris and Elliston to forbear this intent, you will greatly oblige me. The play is quite unfit for the stage, as a single glance will show them, and, I hope, has shown them; and, if it were ever so fit, I will never have any thing to do willingly with the theatres.
