"Since I last wrote, I have changed my mind, and shall not come to England. The more I contemplate, the more I dislike the place and the prospect. You may, therefore, address to me as usual here, though I mean to go to another city. I have finished the third Canto of Don Juan, but the things I have read and heard discourage all further publication—at least for the present. You may try the copy question, but you'll lose it: the cry is up, and cant is up. I should have no objection to return the price of the copyright, and have written to Mr. Kinnaird by this post on the subject. Talk with him.
"I have not the patience, nor do I feel interest enough in the question, to contend with the fellows in their own slang; but I perceive Mr. Blackwood's Magazine and one or two others of your missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in their abuse. I like and admire W * *n, and he should not have indulged himself in such outrageous licence.[65] It is overdone and defeats itself. What would he say to the grossness without passion and the misanthropy without feeling of Gulliver's Travels?—When he talks of Lady's Byron's business, he talks of what he knows nothing about; and you may tell him that no one can more desire a public investigation of that affair than I do.
"I sent home by Moore (for Moore only, who has my Journal also) my Memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but not to publish, on any account. You may read it, and you may let W * *n read it, if he likes—not for his public opinion, but his private; for I like the man, and care very little about his Magazine. And I could wish Lady B. herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or mis-stated; as it may probably appear after my extinction, and it would be but fair she should see it,—that is to say, herself willing.
"Perhaps I may take a journey to you in the spring; but I have been ill and am indolent and indecisive, because few things interest me. These fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and now they are wroth that I am, or attempted to be, facetious. I have got such a cold and headach that I can hardly see what I scrawl:—the winters here are as sharp as needles. Some time ago, I wrote to you rather fully about my Italian affairs; at present I can say no more except that you shall hear further by and by.
"Your Blackwood accuses me of treating women harshly: it may be so, but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them. I mean to leave Venice in a few days, but you will address your letters here as usual. When I fix elsewhere, you shall know."
Soon after this letter to Mr. Murray he set out for Ravenna, from which place we shall find his correspondence for the next year and a half dated. For a short time after his arrival, he took up his residence at an inn; but the Count Guiccioli having allowed him to hire a suite of apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli itself, he was once more lodged under the same roof with the Countess Guiccioli.
LETTER 351. TO MR. HOPPNER.
"Ravenna, Dec. 31. 1819.