“You and Leigh Hunt have quarrelled then, it seems?  I introduce him and his poem to you, in the hope that (malgre politics) the union would be beneficial to both, and the end is eternal enmity; and yet I did this with the best intentions:  I introduce * * *, and * * * runs away with your money:  my friend Hobhouse quarrels, too, with the Quarterly:  and (except the last) I am the innocent Istmhus (damn the word!  I can’t spell it, though I have crossed that of Corinth a dozen times) of these enmities.

“I will tell you something about Chillon.—­A Mr. De Luc, ninety years old, a Swiss, had it read to him, and is pleased with it,—­so my sister writes.  He said that he was with Rousseau at Chillon, and that the description is perfectly correct.  But this is not all:  I recollected something of the name, and find the following passage in ‘The Confessions,’ vol. iii. page 247. liv. viii.:—­

“’De tous ces amusemens celui qui me plut davantage fut une promenade autour du Lac, que je fis en bateau avec De Luc pere, sa bru, ses deux fils, et ma Therese.  Nous mimes sept jours a cette tournee par le plus beau temps du monde.  J’en gardai le vif souvenir des sites qui m’avoient frappe a l’autre extremite du Lac, et dont je fis la description, quelques annees apres, dans la Nouvelle Heloise’

“This nonagenarian, De Luc, must be one of the ‘deux fils.’  He is in England—­infirm, but still in faculty.  It is odd that he should have lived so long, and not wanting in oddness that he should have made this voyage with Jean Jacques, and afterwards, at such an interval, read a poem by an Englishman (who had made precisely the same circumnavigation) upon the same scenery.

“As for ‘Manfred,’ it is of no use sending proofs; nothing of that kind comes.  I sent the whole at different times.  The two first Acts are the best; the third so so; but I was blown with the first and second heats.  You must call it ‘a Poem,’ for it is no Drama, and I do not choose to have it called by so * * a name—­a ’Poem in dialogue,’ or—­Pantomime, if you will; any thing but a green-room synonyme; and this is your motto—­

        “’There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
        Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

     “Yours ever, &c.

     “My love and thanks to Mr. Gifford.”

* * * * *

LETTER 273.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “Venice, April 11. 1817.

“I shall continue to write to you while the fit is on me, by way of penance upon you for your former complaints of long silence.  I dare say you would blush, if you could, for not answering.  Next week I set out for Rome.  Having seen Constantinople, I should like to look at t’other fellow.  Besides, I want to see the Pope, and shall take care to tell