“Recollect, that if you put my name to ‘Don Juan’ in these canting days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in Chancery, on the plea of its containing the parody;—­such are the perils of a foolish jest.  I was not aware of this at the time, but you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the Noels would not let it slip.  Now I prefer my child to a poem at any time, and so should you, as having half a dozen.

     “Let me know your notions.

“If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days.  I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of John and Henry, and gave it to my daughter.  It was also the name of Charlemagne’s sister.  It is in an early chapter of Genesis, as the name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of Adam.  It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reason I gave it to my daughter.”

[Footnote 82:  The paragraph is left thus imperfect in the original.]

* * * * *

LETTER 391.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Ravenna, 8bre 12 deg., 1820.

“By land and sea carriage a considerable quantity of books have arrived; and I am obliged and grateful:  but ’medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid,’ &c. &c.; which, being interpreted, means,

        “I’m thankful for your books, dear Murray;
        But why not send Scott’s Monast_ery_?

the only book in four living volumes I would give a baioccolo to see—­’bating the rest of the same author, and an occasional Edinburgh and Quarterly, as brief chroniclers of the times.  Instead of this, here are Johnny Keats’s * * poetry, and three novels by God knows whom, except that there is Peg * * ’s name to one of them—­a spinster whom I thought we had sent back to her spinning.  Crayon is very good; Hogg’s Tales rough, but RACY, and welcome.

“Books of travels are expensive, and I don’t want them, having travelled already; besides, they lie.  Thank the author of ’The Profligate’ for his (or her) present.  Pray send me _no more_ poetry but what is rare and decidedly good.  There is such a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables that I am ashamed to look at them.  I say nothing against your parsons, your S s and your C s—­it is all very fine—­but pray dispense me from the pleasure.  Instead of poetry, if you will favour me with a few soda-powders, I shall be delighted:  but all prose (’bating _travels_ and novels NOT by Scott) is welcome, especially Scott’s Tales of my Landlord, and so on.