“The police have been, all noon and after, searching for the inscribers, but have caught none as yet.  They must have been all night about it, for the ’Live republics—­Death to Popes and Priests,’ are innumerable, and plastered over all the palaces:  ours has plenty.  There is ‘Down with the Nobility,’ too; they are down enough already, for that matter.  A very heavy rain and wind having come on, I did not go out and ‘skirr the country;’ but I shall mount to-morrow, and take a canter among the peasantry, who are a savage, resolute race, always riding with guns in their hands.  I wonder they don’t suspect the serenaders, for they play on the guitar here all night, as in Spain, to their mistresses.

“Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my Ode on Waterloo, written in the year 1815, and, comparing it with the Duke de Berri’s catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of ‘Vates’ in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?

        “‘Crimson tears will follow yet—­’

     and have not they?

“I can’t pretend to foresee what will happen among you Englishers at this distance, but I vaticinate a row in Italy; in whilk case, I don’t know that I won’t have a finger in it.  I dislike the Austrians, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, I will recommend ’the erection of a sconce upon Drumsnab,’ like Dugald Dalgetty.”

[Footnote 72:  Of Don Juan.]

* * * * *

LETTER 371.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Ravenna, May 8. 1820.

“From your not having written again, an intention which your letter of the 7th ultimo indicated, I have to presume that the ’Prophecy of Dante’ has not been found more worthy than its predecessors in the eyes of your illustrious synod.  In that case, you will be in some perplexity; to end which, I repeat to you, that you are not to consider yourself as bound or pledged to publish any thing because it is mine, but always to act according to your own views, or opinions, or those of your friends; and to be sure that you will in no degree offend me by ‘declining the article,’ to use a technical phrase.  The prose observations on John Wilson’s attack, I do not intend for publication at this time; and I send a copy of verses to Mr. Kinnaird (they were written last year on crossing the Po) which must not be published either.  I mention this, because it is probable he may give you a copy.  Pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions.  And, moreover, I can’t consent to any mutilations or omissions of Pulci:  the original has been ever free from such in Italy, the capital of Christianity, and the translation may be so in