was in friendship but once, in my nineteenth year, and LETTER CLX. TO MR. MOORE. "4, Benedictine-street, St. James's, July 8, 1813. *I presume by your silence that I have blundered into something noxious in my reply to your letter; for the which I beg leave to send, beforehand, a sweeping apology, which you may apply to any, or all, parts of that unfortunate epistle. If I err in my conjecture, I expect the like from you, in putting our correspondence so long in quarantine. God he knows what I have said; but he also knows, (if he is not as indifferent to mortals as the nonchalant deities of Lucretius,) that you are the last person want to offend. So, if I have,-why the devil don't you say it at once, and expectorate your spleen? pects. However, you know her; is she clever, or son sible, or good-tempered? either would do—I scratch out the will. I don't ask as to her beauty, that I see; but my circumstances are mending, and were not my othe prospects blackening, I would take a wife, and that should be the woman, had I a chance. I do not yet know her much, but better than I did. "I want to get away, but find difficulty in compassing a passage in a ship of war. They had better let me go; if I cannot, patriotism is the word-'nay, an' they'll mouth, I'll rant as well as they. Now, what are you doing? writing, we all hope, for our own sakes. Remember you must edite my posthumous works, with a Life of the Author, for which I will send you Confessions, dated 'Lazaretto,' Smyrna, Malta, or Palermoone can die any where. "There is to be a thing on Tuesday ycleped a national fête. The Regent and * * are to be there. and every body else, who has shillings enough for what was once a guinea. Vauxhall is the scene-there are six tickets issued for the modest women, and it is supposed there will be three to spare. The passports for the lax are beyond my arithmetic. LETTER CLXII. "Rogers is out of town with Madame de Staël, who "P. S. The Staël last night attacked me most hath published an Essay against Suicide, which, I pre-furiously-said that I had 'no right to make love-that sume, will make somebody shoot himself; as a sermon I had used ✶ ✶ barbarously-that I had no feeling, and by Blinkensop, in proof of Christianity, sent a hitherto was totally insensible to la belle passion, and had been most orthodox acquaintance of mine out of a chapel of all my life.' I am very glad to hear it, but did not ease a perfect atheist. Have you found or founded a know it before. Let me hear from you anon." residence yet? and have you begun or finished a Poem? If you won't tell me what I have done, pray say what you have done, or left undone, yourself. I am still in equipment for voyaging, and anxious to hear from, or of, you before I go, which anxiety you should remove more readily, as you think I shan't cogitate about you afterward. I shall give the lie to that calumny by fifty foreign letters, particularly from any place where the plague is rife, without a drop of vinegar or a whiff of sulphur to save you from infection. Pray write: I am sorry to say that * * TO MR. MOORE. "July 25, 1813 "I am not well versed enough in the ways of single women to make much matrimonial progress. * "I have been dining like the dragon of Wantley for this last week. My head aches with the vintage of various cellars, and my brains are muddled as their "The Oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my dregs. I met your friends, the D**s: she sung one of sister is in town, which is a great comfort-for, never your best songs so well, that, but for the appearance having been much together, we are naturally more atof affectation, I could have cried; he reminds me of tached to each other. I presume the illuminations have Hunt, but handsomer, and more musical in soul, perconflagrated to Derby (or wherever you are) by this haps. I wish to God he may conquer his horrible time. We are just recovering from tumult, and train anomalous complaint. The upper part of her face is oil, and transparent fripperies, and all the noise and beautiful, and she seems much attached to her husband. nonsense of victory. Drury-lane had a large M. W. which some thought was Marshal Wellington; others that it might be translated into Manager Whitbread; while the ladies of the vicinity and the saloon conceived the last letter to be complimentary to themselves. I leave this to the commentators to illuminate. If you do n't answer this, I shan't say what you deserve, but I think I deserve a reply. Do you conceive there is no PostBag but the Twopenny? Sunburn me, if you are not too bad." * Your letter set me at ease; for I really thought (as I hear of your susceptibility) that I had said-I know not what-but something I should have been very sorry for, had it, or I, offended you; though I do n't see how a man with a beautiful wife, his own children, quiet, fame, competency, and friends, (I will vouch for a thouBaud, which is more than I will for a unit in my own behalf) can be offended with any thing. He is right, nevertheless, in leaving this nauseous town. The first winter would infallibly destroy her complexion, and the second, very probably, every thing else. "I must tell you a story. M✶✶ (of indifferent memory) was dining out the other day, and complaining of the Prince's coldness to his old wassailers. D'** (a learned Jew) bored him with questions-why this? and why that? 'Why did the Prince act thus?' 'Why, sir, on account of Lord **, who ought to be ashamed of himself? of himself? * And why ought Lord * * to be ashamed * * And why, sir, did the Prince cut you? 'Because, G-d d-mme, sir, I stuck to my principles. And why did you stick to your principles?' "Is not this last question the best that ever was put, when you consider to whom? It nearly killed M * *. Perhaps you may think it stupid, but, as Goldsmith said about the peas, it was a very good joke when I heard it as I did from an ear-witness-and is only spoiled in my narration. "The season has closed with a Dandy Ball;-but have dinners with the Harrowbys, Rogers and Frere and Mackintosh, where I shall drink your health in a silent bumper, and regret your absence till 'too much canaries' wash away my memory, or render it "Do you know, Moore, I am amazingly inclined superfluous by a vision of you at the opposite side remember I say but inclined to be seriously enamoured of the table. Canning has disbanded his party by with Lady A. F.-but this has ruined all my pros- a speech from his * * * -the true throne "DEAR SIR, LETTER CLXV. TO MR. CROKER. "Bt. Str. August 2, 1813. of a Tory. Conceive his turning them off in a forma! harangue, and bidding them think for themselves. 'I have led my ragamuffins where they are well peppered. There are but three of the 150 left alive, and they are for the Town's-end (query, might not Falstaff mean the Bow-street officer? I dare say Malone's posthumous "I was honoured with your unexpected and very edition will have it so) for life. obliging letter when on the point of leaving London, "Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I which prevented me from acknowledging my obligation Journeyed by night-no incident or accident, but an as quickly as I felt it sincerely. I am endeavouring all alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in in my power to be ready before Saturday--and even if crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down I should not succeed, I can only blame my own tardihis purse before a mile-stone, with a glowworm in the ness, which will not the less enhance the benefit I have second figure of number XIX-mistaking it for a foot-lost. I have only to add my hope of forgiveness for all pad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to my trespasses on your time and patience, and with my a pair of new pistols, wherewith I had armed him; and best wishes for your public and private welfare, I have he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by call- the honour to be, most truly, ing out to me whenever we passed any thing-no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. I have scribbled you a fearfully long letter. This sheet must be blank, and is merely a wrapper, to preclude the tabellarians of the post from peeping. You once complained of my not writing-I will heap 'coals of fire upon your head' by not complaining of your not reading. Ever, my dear Moore, your'n, (isn't that the Staffordshire termination?) "BYRON." LETTER CLXIII. TO MR. MOORE. "July 27, 1813. "Your obliged and most obedient servant, "BYRON." The following notes to Mr. Murray, have reference to a fifth edition of the "Giaour" then in press. The poem first appeared in the May preceding, and contained originally but about four hundred lines, and was gradu ally increased through successive editions to its present number, nearly fourteen hundred. In a note which accompanied the manuscript of the paragraph commencing "Fair clime, where every season smiles," he says, 'I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for "When you next imitate the style of 'Tacitus,' pray add, 'de moribus Germanorum;-this last was a piece down to of barbarous silence, and could only be taken from the Woords, and, as such, I attribute it entirely to your sylvan "For there the rosa o'er crag and vale," "And turn to groans his roundelay," equestration at Mayfield Cottage. You will find, on was inserted during the revision of the proofs. casting up accounts, that you are my debtor by several sheets and one epistle. I shall bring my action;-if you do n't discharge, expect to hear from my attorney. I have forwarded your etter to Ruggiero; but do n't make a postman of me again, for fear I should be tempted to violate your sanctity of wax or wafer. "Believe me ever yours, indignantly, LETTER CLXIV. TO MR. MOORE. "BN." "July 28, 1813. "Can't you be satisfied with the pangs of my jealousy of Rogers, without actually making me the pander of your epistolary intrigue? This is the second letter you and have enclosed to my address, notwithstanding a miraculous long answer, and a subsequent short one or two of your own. you The passage stood originally thus: "Fair clime! where ceaseless summer smiles That wakes and wafts the fragrance there." The several passages beginning "He who hath bent him o'er the dead :" "My memory now is but the tomb:" If do so again, I can't tell to what pitch were added to the fourth edition, between which and my fury may soar. I shall send you verse or arsenic, the first, only six weeks intervened. as likely as any thing,-four thousand couplets on sheets beyond the privilege of franking; that privilege, sir, of which you take an undue advantage over a too suscepti The verses commencing "The browsing camels' bells are tinkling: ble senator, by forwarding your lucubrations to every and the passage one but himself. I wont frank from you, or for you, or to you, may I be cursed if I do, unless you mend your "Yes, love indeed is light from heaven," manners. I disown you-I disclaim you-and by all were inserted in the fifth edition, and subsequently the the powers of Eulogy, I will write a panegyric upon you following- "P. S. I am in training to dine with Sheridan and Rogers this evening. I have a little spite against R. and will shed his Clary wines pottle-deep.' This is nearly my ultimate or penultimate letter; for I am quite equipped, and only wait a passage. Perhaps I may wait a few weeks for Sligo; but not if I can help it." "You must look the Giaour again over carefully; there are a few lapses, particularly in the last page.I know 't was false; she could not die;' it was, and ought to be-'I knew.' Pray observe this and similar mistakes. "Aug. 26, 1813. "I have looked over and corrected one proof, but not so carefully (God knows if you can read it through, but "I have received and read the British Review. I I can't) as to preclude your eye from discovering some really think the writer in most points very right. The omission of mine or commission of your printer. If you only mortifying thing is the accusation of imitation. have patience, look it over. Do you know any body Crabbe's passage I never saw, and Scott I no further who can stop-I mean point-commas, and so forth? meant to follow than in his lyric measure, which is for I am, I hear, a sad hand at your punctuation. I Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who likes it. The have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to Giaour is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous; this snake of a Poem, which has been lengthening its and I think his fate and his feelings will meet with few rattles every month. It is now fearfully long, being proselytes. I shall be very glad to hear from or of you, more than a canto and a half of Childe Harold, which when you please; but do n't put yourself out of your contains but 882 lines per book, with all late additions way on my account." inclusive. "The last lines Hodgson likes. It is not often he does, and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself. * * * * "I was quite sorry to hear you say you stayed in town on my account, and I hope sincerely you do not mean so superfluous a piece of politeness. "Our six critiques!-they would have made half a Quarterly by themselves; but this is the age of criticism." "As our late-I might say, deceased-correspondence had too much of the town-life leaven in it, we will now paulo majora,' prattle a little of literature in all its branches; and first of the first-criticism. The Prince is at Brighton, and Jackson, the boxer, gone to Margate, having, I believe, decoyed Yarmouth to see a milling in The following refer apparently to a still later edition. that polite neighbourhood. Mad. de Staël Holstein LETTER CLXVII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Stilton, Oct. 3, 1813. "I have just recollected an alteration you may make in the proof to be sent to Aston.-Among the lines on Hassan's Serai, not far from the beginning, is this "Unmeet for Solitude to share. Now to share implies more than one, and Solitude is a "For many a gilded chamber 's there, and so on. My address is Aston-Hall, Rotherham. a has lost one of her young barons, who has been carbonadoed by a vile Teutonic adjutant,―kilt and killed in a coffee-house at Scrawsenhawsen. Corinne is, of course, what all mothers must be,—but will, I venture to prophesy, do what few mothers could-write an Essay upon it. She cannot exist without a grievance-and somebody to see, or read, how much grief becomes her. I have not seen her since the event; but merely judge (not very charitably) from prior observation. "In a 'mail-coach copy' of the Edinburgh, I perceive the Giaour is 2d article. The numbers are still in the Leith smack-pray, which is the wind? The said way article is so very mild and sentimental, that it must be written by Jeffrey in love;-you know he is gone to America to marry some fair one, of whom he has been for several quarters, éperdument amoureux. Seriouslyas Winifred Jenkins says of Lismahago-Mr. Jeffrey (or his deputy) 'has done the handsome thing by me,' and I say nothing. But this I will say,—if you and I had knocked one another on the head in this quarrel, how he would have laughed, and what a mighty bad figure we should have cut in our posthumous works. *Note. To partake of food-to break bread and By-the-by, I was called in the other day to meditate taste salt with your host, ensures the safety of the between two gentlemen bent upon carnage, and,-after guest; even though an enemy, his person from that a long struggle between the natural desire of destroying "B." "Ever yours, "Nor there will weary traveller halt, moment becomes sacred. * one's fellow-creatures, and the dislike of seeing men "There is another additional note sent yesterday-play the fool for nothing, I got one to make an apology, on the Priest in the Confessional, and the other to take it, and left them to live happy "P. S. I leave this to your discretion; if any body ever after. One was a peer, the other a friend untitled, thinks the old line a good one, or the cheese a bad one, and both fond of high play-and one, I can swear for, do n't accept either. But, in that case, the word share though very mild, 'not fearful,' and so dead a shot, that, is repeated soon after in the line "To share the master's bread and salt; • This is written on a separate slip of paper enclosed. though the other is the thinnest of men, ne would have split him like a cane. They both conducted themselves • See Don Juan. Canto X. Start 10 * very well, and I put them out of pain as soon as 1 poem in MS. and he really surpasses every thing be could. neath Tasso. Hodgson is translating him against another bard. You and (I believe, Rogers) Scott, Gifford, "There is an American Life of G. F. Cooke, Scurra and myself, are to be referred to as judges between the deceased, lately published. Such a book!-I believe, twain,--that is, if you accept the office. Conceive our since Drunken Barnaby's Journal, nothing like it has different opinions! I think we, most of us (I am talking drenched the press. All green-room and tap-room-very impudently, you will think-us, indeed!) have a drams and the drama-brandy, whisky-punch, and, lat-way of our own, at least, you and Scott certainly terly, toddy, overflow every page. Two things are have." rather marvellous-first, that a man should live so long drunk, and, next, that he should have found a sober biographer. There are some very laughable things in it, nevertheless:-but the pints he swallowed, and the parts he performed, are too regularly registered. LETTER CLXX. TO MR. MOORE. "Aug. 28, 1813. All this time you wonder I am not gone: so do I; "Ay, my dear Moore, there was a time-I have put the accounts of the plague are very perplexing-not heard of your tricks when you was campaigning at the so much for the thing itself as the quarantine established king of Bohemy.' I am much mistaken if, some fine in all ports, and from all places, even from England. It London spring, about the year 1815, that time does not is true the forty or sixty days would, in all probability, come again. After all we must end in marriage; and be as foolishly spent on shore as in the ship; but one I can conceive nothing more delightful than such a state likes to have one's choice, nevertheless. Town is in the country, reading the county newspaper, &c. and awfully empty; but not the worse for that. I am really kissing one's wife's maid. Seriously, I would incorpopuzzled with my perfect ignorance of what I mean to rate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrowdo;-not stay, if I can help it, but where to go? Sigo that 's, I would a month ago, but, at present, is for the North,-a pleasant place, Petersburgh, in September, with one's ears and nose in a muff, or else tumbling into one's neckcloth or pocket handkerchief! If the winter treated Buonaparte with so little ceremony, what would it inflict upon your solitary traveller? give me a sun, I care not how hot, and sherbet, I care not how cool, and my Heaven is as easily made as your Persian's. The Giaour is now 1000 and odd lines. 'Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day,' eh, Moore?-thou wilt needs be a wag, but I forgive it. "Yours ever, "BN. "P.S. I perceive I have written a flippant and rather cold-hearted letter let it go, however. I have said nothing, either, of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, I am, at this moment, in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape than any of the last twelvemonth, and that is * * * saying a good deal. It is unlucky we can. neither live with or without these women. * * "Why do n't you 'parody that Ode?*-Do you think I should be tetchy? or have you done it, and won't tell me ?-You are quite right about Giamschid, and I have reduced it to a dissyllable within this half-hour.t I am glad to hear you talk of Richardson, because it tells me what you won't-that you are going to beat Lucien. At least, tell me how far you have proceeded. Do you think me less interested about your works, or less sincere than our friend Ruggiero? I am not-and never was. In that thing of mine, the English Bards, at the time when I was angry with all the world, I never 'disparaged your parts,' although I did not know you give us an entire work, and not sprinkle yourself in depersonally;-and have always regretted that you do n't ached pieces-beautiful, I allow, and quite alone in our language, but still giving us a right to expect a Shuh Nameh (is that the name?) as well as Gazels. Stick I am now thinking and regretting that just as I have to the East; the oracle, Staël, told me it was the only left Newstead, you reside near it. Did you ever see it? poetical policy. The North, South, and West, have ail do but do n't tell me that you like it. If I had known been exhausted; but from the East, we have nothing of such intellectual neighbourhood, I do n't think I should but Southey's unsaleables,--and these he has contrived have quitted it. You could have come over so often, as to spoil, by adopting only their most outrageous fictions. a bachelor,—for it was a thorough bachelor's mansion His personages do n't interest us, and yours will. You plenty of wine and such sordid sensualities with books enough, room enough, and an air of antiquity about all (except the lasses) that would have suited you, when pensive, and served you to laugh at when in glee. I had built myself a bath and a vault—and now I shan't even be buried in it. It is odd that we can't even be certain of a grave, at least a particular one. I remember, when about fifteen, reading your poems there, which I can repeat almost now, and asking all kinds of questions about the author, when I heard that he was not dead according to the preface; wondering if I should ever see him—and though, at that time, without the smallest poetical propensity myself, very much taken, as you may imagine, with that volume. Adieu-I commit you to the care of the gods-Hindoo, Scandinavian, and Hellenic! "P. S. 2d. There is an excellent review of Grimm's Correspondence and Made. de Staël in this No. of the Edinburgh Review. Jetirey, himself, was my critic last year; but this is, I believe, by another hand. I hope you are going on with your grand coup-pray do-or that damned Lucien Buonaparte will beat us all. I have seen much of his "A Persian's Heav'n is easily made "fis but black eves and lernonade "-Moure. will have no competitor; and if you had, you ought to be glad of it. The little I have done in that way is merely a'voice in the wilderness' for you; and, if it has had any success, that also will prove that the public are orientalizing, and pave the path for you. "I have been thinking of a story, grafted on the amours of a Peri and a mortal- something like, only more philanthropical, than Cazotte's Diable Amoureux. It would require a good deal of poesy; and tenderness is not my forte. For that, and other reasons, I have given up the idea, and merely suggest it to you, because, in intervals of your greater work, I think it a subject you might make much of. If you want any more books, • The Ode of Horace, ion to some of his late adventures: "Natis in usum lætitiæ," &c. some passages of which Mr. Moore told him might be parodied, in all'a. "Quanta laboras in Charybdi! Digue puer meliore flamma!" ↑ In his first edition of the Giaour he had used this word as a trisylity ble, Bright as the gem of Giamschid,"-but on Mr. Moore's remark ing to him, upon the authority of Richardson's Persian Dictionary, that was incorrect, he altered it to "Bright as the ruby of Giamachid." Ou seeing this, however, Mir. M. wrote to him that, as the comparison of his heroine's eye to a ruby might unluckily call up the idea of its being bloodshot, he had better change the line to Bright as the jewel of Giamschid;'"--which he accordingly did in the following edition. 1 See Heaven and Earth, page 338. there is 'Castellan's Mours des Ottomans,' the best "P. S. This letter was written to me on account of a compendium of the kind I ever met with, in six small different story circulated by some gentle vomen of our tomes. I am really taking a liberty by talking in this acquaintance, a little too close to the text. The part style to my elders and my betters;'-pardon it, and erased contained merely some Turkish names, and cirdo n't Rochefoucault my motives." cumstantial evidence of the girl's detection, not very un. portant or decorous." LETTER CLXXI. TO MR. MOORE. LETTER CLXXII. TO MR. MOORE. "Sept. 5, 1813. "August-September, I mean-1, 1813. "I send you, begging your acceptance, Castellan, and "You need not tie yourself down to a day with Tode three vols. on Turkish Literature, not yet looked into. rini, but send him at your leisure, having anatomized him The last I will thank you to read, extract what you into such annotations as you want; I do not believe that want, and return in a week, as they are lent to me by he has ever undergone that process before, which is the that brightest of northern constellations, Mackintosh,best reason for not sparing him now. among many other kind things into which India has warmed him, for I am sure your home Scotsman is of a less genial description. "Rogers has returned to town, but not yet recovered of the Quarterly. What fellows these reviewers are! these bugs do fear us all.' They made you fight, and "Your Peri, my dear M., is sacred and inviolable; Ime (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by makhave no idea of touching the hem of her petticoat. ing Rogers madder than Ajax. I have been reading Your affectation of a dislike to encounter me is so flat- Memory again, the other day, and Hope together, and tering, that I begin to think myself a very fine fellow. retain all my preference of the former. His elegance is But you are laughing at me-stap my vitals, Tam! | really wonderful-there is no such thing as a vulgar line thou art a very impudent person;' and, if you are not in his book. laughing at me, you deserve to be laughed at. Serious- "What say you to Buonaparte? Remember, I back ly, what on earth can you, or have you, to dread from him against the field, barring Catalepsy and the Eleany poetical flesh breathing? It really puts me out of ments. Nay, I almost wish him success against all humour to hear you talk thus. * * * * * countries but this,-were it only to choke the Morning *Post, and his undutiful father-in-law, with that rebellious "The 'Giaour' I have added to a good deal; but still bastard of Scandinavian adoption, Bernadotte. Rogers in foolish fragments. It contains about 1200 lines, or wants me to go with him on a crusade to the Lakes, and rather more-now printing. You will allow me to send to besiege you on our way. This last is a great tempyou a copy. You delight me much by telling me that I tation, but I fear it will not be in my power, unless you am in your good graces, and more particularly as to would go on with one of us somewhere-no matter temper; for, unluckily, I have the reputation of a very where. It is too late for Matlock, but we might hit upon bad one. But they say the devil is amusing when pleased, some scheme, high life or low, the last would be much and I must have been more venomous than the old ser- the best for amusement. I am so sick of the other, that pent, to have hissed or stung in your company. It may I quite sigh for a cider-cellar, or a cruise in a smuggler's be, and would appear to a third person, an incredible sloop. thing, but I know you will believe me when I say that I "You cannot wish more than I do that the Fates am as anxious for your success as one human being can were a little more accommodating to our parallel lines, be for another's, as much as if I had never scribbled a which prolong ad infinitum without coming a jot the line. Surely the field of fame is wide enough for all; nearer. I almost wish I were married too-which is and if it were not, I would not willingly rob my neighbour saying much. All my friends, seniors and juniors, are of a rood of it. Now you have a pretty property of in for it, and ask me to be godfather, the only species come thousand acres there, and when you have passed of parentage which, I believe, will ever come to my share your present Enclosure Bill, your income will be doubled in a lawful way; and, in an unlawful one, by the blessing (there's a metaphor, worthy of a Templar, namely, pert of Lucina, we can never be certain,-though the parish and low,) while my wild common is too remote to incommode you, and quite incapable of such fertility. I send you (which return per post, as the printer would say) a curious letter from a friend of mine, which will let you into the origin of the Giaour.' Write soon. Ever, dear Moore, yours most entirely, &c. • The following letter of Lord Sligo. "Albany, Monday, Aug. 31, 1813. "My dear Byron, "You have requested me to tell you all that I heard at Athens about the a fair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to mention every circumstance, in the remotest degree relating to it, which I heard. In compliance with your wishes, I write to you all I heard, and I cannot imagine it to be very far from the fact, as the circumstance happened only a day or two before I arrived at Athens, and consequently was a matter of common conversation at the time. may. I suppose I shall hear from you to-morrow. If not, this goes as it is; but I leave room for a P. S., in case any thing requires an answer. Ever, &c. "No letter-n'importe. Rogers thinks the Quarterly will be at me this time: if so, it shall be a war of extermination—no quarter. From the youngest devil down to the oldest woman of that Review, all shall perish by one fatal lampoon. The ties of nature shall be torn asunder, for I will not even spare my bookseller; nay, if one were to include readers also all the better." LETTER CLXXIII. TO MR. MOORE. "Sept. 8, 1813 "I am sorry to see Tod, again so soon, for fear your "The new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the Christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous Turkish ideas with regard to women. In consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the Mahommedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea,-as is, indeed, quite customary at Constantinople. As you were returning from bathing in the Pirans, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate girl. Report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, You were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force should make him comply;-that, ou farther hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the Age's house, you would shoot him dead. On this, the man turned shout and went with you to the governor's house; here you suc- "I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but I am wo ceeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty,hurried with the preparations for my journey, that you must excuse is.' to procure her pardon on condition of her leaving Athens. I was told "yours, very sincerely, "SLIGO. |