[27] The following passage from the letter of mine, to which the above was an answer, will best explain what follows:—With respect to the newspaper, it is odd enough that Lord * * * * and myself had been (about a week or two before I received your letter) speculating upon your assistance in a plan somewhat similar, but more literary and less regularly-periodical in its appearance. Lord * *, as you will see by his volume of Essays, if it reaches you, has a very sly, dry, and pithy way of putting sound truths, upon politics and manners, and whatever scheme we adopt, he will be a very useful and active ally in it, as he has a pleasure in writing quite inconceivable to a poor hack scribe like me, who always feel, about my art, as the French husband did when he found a man making love to his (the Frenchman's) wife:—' Comment, Monsieur,—sans y être obligé!' When I say this, however, I mean it only of the executive part of writing; for the imagining, the shadowing out of the future work is, I own, a delicious fool's paradise."
[28] To the letter which enclosed this protest, and which has been omitted to avoid repetitions, he had subjoined a passage from Spence's Anecdotes (p. 197. of Singer's edition), where Pope says, speaking of himself, "I had taken such strong resolutions against any thing of that kind, from seeing how much every body that did write for the stage was obliged to subject themselves to the players and the town."—Spence's Anecdotes, p. 22.
In the same paragraph, Pope is made to say, "After I had got acquainted with the town, I resolved never to write any thing for the stage, though solicited by many of my friends to do so, and particularly Betterton."
[29] No further step was ever taken in this affair; and the documents, which were of no use whatever, are, I believe, still in Mr. Murray's possession.
[30] The self-will of Lord Byron was in no point more conspicuous than in the determination with which he thus persisted in giving the preference to one or two works of his own which, in the eyes of all other persons, were most decided failures. Of this class was the translation from Pulci, so frequently mentioned by him, which appeared afterwards in the Liberal, and which, though thus rescued from the fate of remaining unpublished, roust for ever, I fear, submit to the doom of being unread.
[31] Already given in his Journal.
[32] To the above letter, which was published at the time, Mr. Turner wrote a reply, but, for reasons stated by himself, did not print it. At his request, I give insertion to his paper in the Appendix.
[33] These lines—perhaps from some difficulty in introducing them—were never inserted in the Tragedy.
[34] With such anxiety did he look to this essential part of his daughter's education, that notwithstanding the many advantages she was sure to derive from the kind and feminine superintendence of Mrs. Shelley, his apprehensions, lest her feeling upon religious subjects might be disturbed by the conversation of Shelley himself, prevented him from allowing her to remain under his friend's roof.
[35] "Aye, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are," &c. &c.