of a man, who, for half a century, has led the literature of a great nation, and will go down to posterity as the first literary character of his age.

“You have been fortunate, Sir, not only in the writings which have illustrated your name, but in the name itself, as being sufficiently musical for the articulation of posterity.  In this you have the advantage of some of your countrymen, whose names would perhaps be immortal also—­if any body could pronounce them.

“It may, perhaps, be supposed, by this apparent tone of levity, that I am wanting in intentional respect towards you; but this will be a mistake:  I am always flippant in prose.  Considering you, as I really and warmly do, in common with all your own, and with most other nations, to be by far the first literary character which has existed in Europe since the death of Voltaire, I felt, and feel, desirous to inscribe to you the following work,—­not as being either a tragedy or a poem, (for I cannot pronounce upon its pretensions to be either one or the other, or both, or neither,) but as a mark of esteem and admiration from a foreigner to the man who has been hailed in Germany ‘THE GREAT GOETHE.’

     “I have the honour to be,

     “With the truest respect,

     “Your most obedient and

     “Very humble servant,

     “BYRON.

     “Ravenna, 8bre 14 deg., 1820.

“P.S.  I perceive that in Germany, as well as in Italy, there is a great struggle about what they call ‘Classical’ and ’Romantic,’—­terms which were not subjects of classification in England, at least when I left it four or five years ago.  Some of the English scribblers, it is true, abused Pope and Swift, but the reason was that they themselves did not know how to write either prose or verse; but nobody thought them worth making a sect of.  Perhaps there may be something of the kind sprung up lately, but I have not heard much about it, and it would be such bad taste that I shall be very sorry to believe it.”

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.