LETTER 328. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Venice, May 15. 1819.
"I have got your extract, and the 'Vampire.' I need not say it is not mine. There is a rule to go by: you are my publisher (till we quarrel), and what is not published by you is not written by me.
"Next week I set out for Romagna—at least, in all probability. You had better go on with the publications, without waiting to hear farther, for I have other things in my head. 'Mazeppa' and the 'Ode' separate?—what think you? Juan anonymous, without the Dedication; for I won't be shabby, and attack Southey under cloud of night.
"Yours," &c.
In another letter on the subject of the Vampire, I find the following interesting particulars:—
"TO MR. ——.
"The story of Shelley's agitation is true.[31] I can't tell what seized him, for he don't want courage. He was once with me in a gale of wind, in a small boat, right under the rocks between Meillerie and St. Gingo. We were five in the boat—a servant, two boatmen, and ourselves. The sail was mismanaged, and the boat was filling fast. He can't swim. I stripped off my coat, made him strip off his, and take hold of an oar, telling him that I thought (being myself an expert swimmer) I could save him, if he would not struggle when I took hold of him—unless we got smashed against the rocks, which were high and sharp, with an awkward surf on them at that minute. We were then about a hundred yards from shore, and the boat in peril. He answered me with the greatest coolness, 'that he had no notion of being saved, and that I would have enough to do to save myself, and begged not to trouble me.' Luckily, the boat righted, and, bailing, we got round a point into St. Gingo, where the inhabitants came down and embraced the boatmen on their escape, the wind having been high enough to tear up some huge trees from the Alps above us, as we saw next day.