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PDFof the question, I know that there was every
disposition, on the part of the Sub-Committee, to
bring forward any production of his, were it feasible.
The play he offered, though poetical, did not
appear at all practicable, and Bertram did;—and
hence this long tirade, which is the last chapter
of his vagabond life.
“As for Bertram, Maturin may defend his own begotten, if he likes it well enough; I leave the Irish clergyman and the new Orator Henley to battle it out between them, satisfied to have done the best I could for both. I may say this to you, who know it.
“Mr. * * may console himself with the fervour,—the almost religious fervour of his and W * ’s disciples, as he calls it. If he means that as any proof of their merits, I will find him as much ‘fervour’ in behalf of Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcote as ever gathered over his pages or round his fire-side.
“My answer to your proposition about the fourth Canto you will have received, and I await yours;—perhaps we may not agree. I have since written a poem (of 84 octave stanzas), humorous, in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft (whom I take to be Frere), on a Venetian anecdote which amused me:—but till I have your answer, I can say nothing more about it.
“Mr. Hobhouse does not return to England in November, as he intended, but will winter here and as he is to convey the poem, or poems,—for there may perhaps be more than the two mentioned, (which, by the way, I shall not perhaps include in the same publication or agreement,) I shall not be able to publish so soon as expected; but I suppose there is no harm in the delay.
“I have _signed_ and sent your former _copyrights_ by Mr. Kinnaird, but _not_ the _receipt_, because the money is not yet paid. Mr. Kinnaird has a power of attorney to sign for me, and will, when necessary.
“Many thanks for the Edinburgh Review, which is very kind about Manfred, and defends its originality, which I did not know that any body had attacked. I _never read_, and do not know that I ever saw, the ‘Faustus of Marlow,’ and had, and have, no dramatic works by me in English, except the recent things you sent me; but I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of _Goethe’s Faust_ (which were, some good, and some bad) last summer;—which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of Manfred, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh (part of which you saw) when I went over first the Dent de Jaman, and then the Wengen or Wengeberg Alp and Sheideck, and made the giro of the Jungfrau, Shreckhorn, &c. &c. shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of Manfred before me as if it was but yesterday, and could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all.
“Of the Prometheus of AEschylus I was passionately fond as a boy (it was one
