“As Gifford has been ever my ‘Magnus Apollo.’ any approbation, such as you mention, would, of course, be more welcome than ’all Bokara’s vaunted gold, than all the gems of Samarkand.’  But I am sorry the MS. was shown to him in such a manner, and I had written to Murray to say as much, before I was aware that it was too late.

“Your objection to the expression ‘central line’ I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial.

“The other errors you mention, I must correct in the progress through the press.  I feel honoured by the wish of such men that the poem should be continued, but to do that, I must return to Greece and Asia; I must have a warm sun and a blue sky; I cannot describe scenes so dear to me by a sea-coal fire.  I had projected an additional Canto when I was in the Troad and Constantinople, and if I saw them again, it would go on; but under existing circumstances and sensations, I have neither harp, ‘heart, nor voice’ to proceed.  I feel that you are all right as to the metaphysical part; but I also feel that I am sincere, and that if I am only to write ‘ad captandum vulgus,’ I might as well edit a magazine at once, or spin canzonettas for Vauxhall. * * *

“My work must make its way as well as it can; I know I have every thing against me, angry poets and prejudices; but if the poem is a poem, it will surmount these obstacles, and if not, it deserves its fate.  Your friend’s Ode I have read—­it is no great compliment to pronounce it far superior to S * ’s on the same subject, or to the merits of the new Chancellor.  It is evidently the production of a man of taste, and a poet, though I should not be willing to say it was fully equal to what might be expected from the author of ‘_Horae Ionicae_.’  I thank you for it, and that is more than I would do for any other Ode of the present day.