“Why don’t you write on Napoleon?  I have no spirits, nor ‘estro’ to do so.  His overthrow, from the beginning, was a blow on the head to me.  Since that period, we have been the slaves of fools.  Excuse this long letter. Ecco a translation literal of a French epigram.

        “Egle, beauty and poet, has two little crimes,
        She makes her own face, and does not make her rhymes.

     “I am going to ride, having been warned not to ride in a particular
     part of the forest, on account of the ultra-politicians.

“Is there no chance of your return to England, and of our Journal?  I would have published the two plays in it—­two or three scenes per number—­and, indeed, all of mine in it.  If you went to England, I would do so still.”

[Footnote 44:  There had been, a short time before, performed at the Court of Berlin a spectacle founded on the Poem of Lalla Rookh, in which the present Emperor of Russia personated Feramorz, and the Empress, Lalla Rookh.]

[Footnote 45:  This threat has been since acted upon;—­the critic in question having, to the great horror of the French literati, pronounced Moliere to be a “farceur.”]

* * * * *

About this time Mr. Shelley, who had now fixed his residence at Pisa, received a letter from Lord Byron, earnestly requesting to see him, in consequence of which he immediately set out for Ravenna; and the following extracts from letters, written during his stay with his noble friend, will be read with that double feeling of interest which is always sure to be excited in hearing one man of genius express his opinions of another.

     “Ravenna, August 7. 1821.

“I arrived last night at ten o’clock, and sat up talking with Lord Byron until five this morning:  I then went to sleep, and now awake at eleven; and having despatched my breakfast as quick as possible, mean to devote the interval until twelve, when the post departs, to you.

“Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted, to see me.  He has in fact completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the reverse of that which he led at Venice.  He has a permanent sort of liaison with the Contessa Guiccioli, who is now at Florence, and seems from her letters to be a very amiable woman.  She is waiting there until something shall be decided as to their emigration to Switzerland or stay in Italy, which is yet undetermined on either side.  She was compelled to escape from the Papal territory in great haste, as measures had already been taken to place her in a convent, where she would have been unrelentingly confined for life.  The oppression of the marriage contract as existing in the laws and opinions of Italy, though less frequently exercised, is far severer than that of England.

“Lord Byron had almost destroyed