LETTER 450.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Ravenna, September 4. 1821.

“By Saturday’s post, I sent you a fierce and furibund letter upon the subject of the printer’s blunders in Don Juan.  I must solicit your attention to the topic, though my wrath hath subsided into sullenness.

“Yesterday I received Mr. ——­, a friend of yours, and because he is a friend of yours; and that’s more than I would do in an English case, except for those whom I honour.  I was as civil as I could be among packages even to the very chairs and tables, for I am going to Pisa in a few weeks, and have sent and am sending off my chattels.  It regretted me[49] that, my books and every thing being packed, I could not send you a few things I meant for you; but they were all sealed and baggaged, so as to have made it a month’s work to get at them again.  I gave him an envelope, with the Italian scrap in it[50], alluded to in my Gilchrist defence.  Hobhouse will make it out for you, and it will make you laugh, and him too, the spelling particularly.  The ‘Mericani,’ of whom they call me the ‘Capo’ (or Chief), mean ‘Americans,’ which is the name given in Romagna to a part of the Carbonari; that is to say, to the popular part, the troops of the Carbonari.  They are originally a society of hunters in the forest, who took the name of Americans, but at present comprise some thousands, &c.; but I shan’t let you further into the secret, which may be participated with the postmasters.  Why they thought me their Chief, I know not:  their Chiefs are like ’Legion, being many.  However, it is a post of more honour than profit, for, now that they are persecuted, it is fit that I should aid them; and so I have done, as far as my means would permit.  They will rise again some day, for these fools of the government are blundering:  they actually seem to know nothing; for they have arrested and banished many of their own party, and let others escape who are not their friends.

     “What think’st thou of Greece?

     “Address to me here as usual, till you hear further from me.

     “By Mawman I have sent a Journal to Moore; but it won’t do for the
     public,—­at least a great deal of it won’t;—­parts may.

“I read over the Juans, which are excellent.  Your squad are quite wrong; and so you will find by and by.  I regret that I do not go on with it, for I had all the plan for several cantos, and different countries and climes.  You say nothing of the note I enclosed to you[51], which will explain why I agreed to discontinue it (at Madame G——­’s request); but you are so grand, and sublime, and occupied, that one would think, instead of publishing for ’the Board of Longitude,’ that you were trying to discover it.

     “Let me hear that Gifford is better.  He can’t be spared either by
     you or me.”