and, as to success! those who succeed will console me for a failure—­excepting yourself and one or two more, whom luckily I love too well to wish one leaf of their laurels a tint yellower.  This is the work of a week, and will be the reading of an hour to you, or even less,—­and so, let it go * * * *.

     “P.S.  Ward and I talk of going to Holland.  I want to see how a
     Dutch canal looks after the Bosphorus.  Pray respond.”

[Footnote 86:  The Bride of Abydos.]

* * * * *

LETTER 142.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “December 8. 1813.

“Your letter, like all the best, and even kindest things in this world, is both painful and pleasing.  But, first, to what sits nearest.  Do you know I was actually about to dedicate to you,—­not in a formal inscription, as to one’s elders,—­but through a short prefatory letter, in which I boasted myself your intimate, and held forth the prospect of your poem; when, lo! the recollection of your strict injunctions of secrecy as to the said poem, more than once repeated by word and letter, flashed upon me, and marred my intents.  I could have no motive for repressing my own desire of alluding to you (and not a day passes that I do not think and talk of you), but an idea that you might, yourself, dislike it.  You cannot doubt my sincere admiration, waving personal friendship for the present, which, by the by, is not less sincere and deep rooted.  I have you by rote and by heart; of which ’ecce signum!’ When I was at * *, on my first visit, I have a habit, in passing my time a good deal alone, of—­I won’t call it singing, for that I never attempt except to myself—­but of uttering, to what I think tunes, your ‘Oh breathe not,’ ‘When the last glimpse,’ and ‘When he who adores thee,’ with others of the same minstrel;—­they are my matins and vespers.  I assuredly did not intend them to be overheard, but, one morning, in comes, not La Donna, but Il Marito, with a very grave face, saying, ’Byron, I must request you won’t sing any more, at least of those songs.’  I stared, and said, ‘Certainly, but why?’—­’To tell you the truth,’ quoth he, ’they make my wife cry, and so melancholy, that I wish her to hear no more of them.’

“Now, my dear M., the effect must have been from your words, and certainly not my music.  I merely mention this foolish story to show you how much I am indebted to you for even your pastimes.  A man may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which pleases—­at least, in composition.  Though I think no one equal to you in that department, or in satire,—­and surely no one was ever so popular in both,—­I certainly am of opinion that you have not yet done all you can do, though more than enough for any one else.  I want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and I see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence