LETTER 307.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “Venice, February 2. 1818.

“Your letter of December 8th arrived but this day, by some delay, common but inexplicable.  Your domestic calamity is very grievous, and I feel with you as much as I dare feel at all.  Throughout life, your loss must be my loss, and your gain my gain; and, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs.

“I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children.  Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since (to say nothing of one before[13]), and I look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach—­which I hope I never shall—­that desolating period.  I have a great love for my little Ada, though perhaps she may torture me, like * * *.

“Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish.  I don’t much care what the wretches of the world think of me—­all that’s past.  But I care a good deal what you think of me, and, so, say what you like.  You know that I am not sullen; and, as to being savage, such things depend on circumstances.  However, as to being in good humour in your society, there is no great merit in that, because it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be otherwise.

“I don’t know what Murray may have been saying or quoting.[14] I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers of present Poesy; and said, that I thought—­except them—­all of ‘us youth’ were on a wrong tack.  But I never said that we did not sail well.  Our fame will be hurt by admiration and imitation.  When I say our, I mean all (Lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans.  The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal and can ride.  But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manege, and learn to ride the ‘great horse.’

“Talking of horses, by the way, I have transported my own, four in number, to the Lido (beach in English), a strip of some ten miles along the Adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that I not only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gallop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits.

“I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past.  We are in the agonies of the Carnival’s last days, and I must be up all night again, as well as to-morrow.  I have had some curious masking adventures this