Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV | Page 2

vol. iii. page 247. liv. viii.:--
"'De tous ces amusemens celui qui me plût davantage fut une
promenade autour du Lac, que je fis en bateau avec De Luc père, sa bru,
ses deux fils, et ma Therése. Nous mimes sept jours à cette tournée par
le plus beau temps du monde. J'en gardai le vif souvenir des sites qui
m'avoient frappé à l'autre extrémité du Lac, et dont je fis la description,
quelques années après, dans la Nouvelle Heloise'
"This nonagenarian, De Luc, must be one of the 'deux fils.' He is in
England--infirm, but still in faculty. It is odd that he should have lived
so long, and not wanting in oddness that he should have made this
voyage with Jean Jacques, and afterwards, at such an interval, read a
poem by an Englishman (who had made precisely the same
circumnavigation) upon the same scenery.
"As for 'Manfred,' it is of no use sending _proofs_; nothing of that kind
comes. I sent the whole at different times. The two first Acts are the
best; the third so so; but I was blown with the first and second heats.
You must call it 'a Poem,' for it is no Drama, and I do not choose to
have it called by so * * a name--a 'Poem in dialogue,' or--Pantomime, if
you will; any thing but a green-room synonyme; and this is your
motto--
"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt
of in your philosophy.'
"Yours ever, &c.
"My love and thanks to Mr. Gifford."
* * * * *

LETTER 273. TO MR. MOORE.
"Venice, April 11. 1817.
"I shall continue to write to you while the fit is on me, by way of
penance upon you for your former complaints of long silence. I dare
say you would blush, if you could, for not answering. Next week I set
out for Rome. Having seen Constantinople, I should like to look at
t'other fellow. Besides, I want to see the Pope, and shall take care to tell
him that I vote for the Catholics and no Veto.
"I sha'n't go to Naples. It is but the second best sea-view, and I have
seen the first and third, viz. Constantinople and Lisbon, (by the way,
the last is but a river-view; however, they reckon it after Stamboul and
Naples, and before Genoa,) and Vesuvius is silent, and I have passed by
Ætna. So I shall e'en return to Venice in July; and if you write, I pray
you to address to Venice, which is my head, or rather my heart,
quarters.
"My late physician, Dr. Polidori, is here on his way to England, with
the present Lord G * * and the widow of the late earl. Dr. Polidori has,
just now, no more patients, because his patients are no more. He had
lately three, who are now all dead--one embalmed. Horner and a child
of Thomas Hope's are interred at Pisa and Rome. Lord G * * died of an
inflammation of the bowels: so they took them out, and sent them (on
account of their discrepancies), separately from the carcass, to England.
Conceive a man going one way, and his intestines another, and his
immortal soul a third!--was there ever such a distribution? One
certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a
body is more than I can imagine. I only know if once mine gets out, I'll
have a bit of a tussle before I let it get in again to that or any other.
"And so poor dear Mr. Maturin's second tragedy has been neglected by
the discerning public! * * will be d----d glad of this, and d----d without
being glad, if ever his own plays come upon 'any stage.'
"I wrote to Rogers the other day, with a message for you. I hope that he
flourishes. He is the Tithonus of poetry--immortal already. You and I

must wait for it.
"I hear nothing--know nothing. You may easily suppose that the
English don't seek me, and I avoid them. To be sure, there are but few
or none here, save passengers. Florence and Naples are their Margate
and Ramsgate, and much the same sort of company too, by all accounts,
which hurts us among the Italians.
"I want to hear of Lalla Rookh--are you out? Death and fiends! why
don't you tell me where you are, what you are, and how you are? I shall
go to Bologna by Ferrara, instead of Mantua: because I would rather
see the cell where they caged Tasso, and where he became mad and * *,
than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace of that
harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer, whose cursed hexameters
were drilled