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* * * * *
LETTER 294. TO MR. MURRAY.
“La Mira, near Venice, August 21. 1817.
“I take you at your word about Mr. Hanson, and will feel obliged if you will go to him, and request Mr. Davies also to visit him by my desire, and repeat that I trust that neither Mr. Kinnaird’s absence nor mine will prevent his taking all proper steps to accelerate and promote the sale of Newstead and Rochdale, upon which the whole of my future personal comfort depends. It is impossible for me to express how much any delays upon these points would inconvenience me; and I do not know a greater obligation that can be conferred upon me than the pressing these things upon Hanson, and making him act according to my wishes. I wish you would speak out, at least to me, and tell me what you allude to by your cold way of mentioning him. All mysteries at such a distance are not merely tormenting but mischievous, and may be prejudicial to my interests; so, pray expound, that I may consult with Mr. Kinnaird when he arrives; and remember that I prefer the most disagreeable certainties to hints and innuendoes. The devil take every body: I never can get any person to be explicit about any thing or any body, and my whole life is passed in conjectures of what people mean: you all talk in the style of C * * L * ’s novels.
“It is not Mr. St. John, but _Mr. St. Aubyn_, son of Sir John St. Aubyn. _Polidori_ knows him, and introduced him to me. He is of Oxford, and has got my parcel. The Doctor will ferret him out, or ought. The parcel contains many letters, some of Madame de Stael’s, and other people’s, besides MSS., &c. By ——, if I find the gentleman, and he don’t find the parcel, I will say something he won’t like to hear.
“You want a ‘civil
and delicate declension’ for the medical
tragedy? Take it—
“Dear
Doctor, I have read your play,
Which
is a good one in its way,—
Purges
the eyes and moves the bowels,
And
drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With
tears, that, in a flux of grief,
Afford
hysterical relief
To
shatter’d nerves and quicken’d pulses,
Which
your catastrophe convulses.
“I
like your moral and machinery;
Your
plot, too, has such scope for scenery!
Your
dialogue is apt and smart;
The
play’s concoction full of art;
Your
hero raves, your heroine cries,
All
stab, and every body dies.
In
short, your tragedy would be
The
very thing to hear and see:
And
for a piece of publication,
If
I decline on this occasion,
It
is not that I am not sensible
To
merits in themselves ostensible,
But—and
