Your dwarf of a letter came yesterday. That is right;—keep to your ‘magnum opus’—magnoperate away. Now, if we were but together a little to combine our ‘Journal of Trevoux!’ But it is useless to sigh, and yet very natural,—for I think you and I draw better together, in the social line, than any two other living authors.
“I forgot to ask you, if you had seen your own panegyric in
the
| 494 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1821. |
“You say nothing of politics—but, alas! what can be said?
The world is a bundle of hay, Mankind are the asses who pull, Each tugs it a different way,— And the greatest of all is John Bull! |
“How do you call your new project? I have sent to Murray a new tragedy, ycleped ‘Sardanapalus,’ writ according to Aristotle—all, save the chorus—I could not reconcile me to that. I have begun another, and am in the second act;—so you see I saunter on as usual.
“Bowles’s answers have reached me; but I can’t go on disputing for ever,—particularly in a polite manner. I suppose he will take being silent for silenced. He has been so civil that I can’t find it in my liver to be facetious with him,—else I had a savage joke or two at his service.
“I can’t send you the little journal, because it is in boards, and I can’t trust it per post. Don’t suppose it is any thing particular; but it will show the intentions of the natives at that time—and one or two other things, chiefly personal, like the former one.
“So, Longman don’t bite.—It was my wish to have made that work of use. Could you not raise a sum upon it (however small), reserving the power of redeeming it on repayment?
“Are you in Paris, or a villaging? If you are in the city, you will never resist the Anglo-invasion you speak of. I do not see an Englishman in half a year; and, when I do I turn my horse’s head the other way; The fact, which you will find in the last note to the Doge, has given me a good excuse for quite dropping the least connexion with travellers.
| A. D. 1821. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 495 |
“I do not recollect the speech you speak of, but suspect it is not the Doge’s but one of Israel Bertuccio to Calendaro. I hope you think that Elliston behaved shamefully—it is my only consolation. I made the Milanese fellows contradict their lie, which they did with the grace of people used to it.
