I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam’s, and with his wife, and with his son’s wife, who is the youngest of the party, and, I think, talks best of the three.  Then I revisit the Campo Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two—­but one the prettiest daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull, dated 1766, which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely features of Bologna—­noble and rich.  When I look at these, and at this girl—­when I think of what they were, and what she must be—­why then, my dear Murray, I won’t shock you by saying what I think.  It is little matter what becomes of us ‘bearded men’, but I don’t like the notion of a beautiful woman’s lasting less than a beautiful tree—­than her own picture—­her own shadow, which won’t change so to the sun as her face to the mirror.  I must leave off, for my head aches consumedly.  I have never been quite well since the night of the representation of Alfieri’s Mirra, a fortnight ago.

To PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

A trio of poets

Ravenna, 26 April, 1821.

The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and favourable.  It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Shelley do not disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary.

I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats—­is it actually true?  I did not think criticism had been so killing.  Though I differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner.  Poor fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably have not been very happy.  I read the review of Endymion in the Quarterly.  It was severe,—­but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others.

I recollect the effect on me of the Edinburgh on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress—­but not despondency nor despair.  I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of resistance before he goes into the arena.

  Expect not life from pain nor danger free,
  Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee.

You know my opinion of that second-hand school of poetry.  You also know my high opinion of your own poetry,—­because it is of no school.  I read Cenci—­but, besides that I think the subject essentially un dramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists, as models.  I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all.  Your Cenci, however, was a work of power, and poetry.  As to my drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been with yours.