such things) time only can permit to be noticed or explained, though some are to my credit.  The task will, of course, require delicacy; but that will not be wanting, if Moore and Hobhouse survive me, and, I may add, yourself; and that you may all three do so, is, I assure you, my very sincere wish.  I am not sure that long life is desirable for one of my temper and constitutional depression of spirits, which of course I suppress in society; but which breaks out when alone, and in my writings, in spite of myself.  It has been deepened, perhaps, by some long-past events (I do not allude to my marriage, &c.—­on the contrary, that raised them by the persecution giving a fillip to my spirits); but I call it constitutional, as I have reason to think it.  You know, or you do not know, that my maternal grandfather (a very clever man, and amiable, I am told) was strongly suspected of suicide (he was found drowned in the Avon at Bath), and that another very near relative of the same branch took poison, and was merely saved by antidotes.  For the first of these events there was no apparent cause, as he was rich, respected, and of considerable intellectual resources, hardly forty years of age, and not at all addicted to any unhinging vice.  It was, however, but a strong suspicion, owing to the manner of his death and his melancholy temper.  The second had a cause, but it does not become me to touch upon it:  it happened when I was far too young to be aware of it, and I never heard of it till after the death of that relative, many years afterwards.  I think, then, that I may call this dejection constitutional.  I had always been told that I resembled more my maternal grandfather than any of my father’s family—­that is, in the gloomier part of his temper, for he was what you call a good-natured man, and I am not.

“The Journal here I sent to Moore the other day; but as it is a mere diary, only parts of it would ever do for publication.  The other Journal, of the Tour in 1816, I should think Augusta might let you have a copy of.

“I am much mortified that Gifford don’t take to my new dramas.  To be sure, they are as opposite to the English drama as one thing can be to another; but I have a notion that, if understood, they will in time find favour (though not on the stage) with the reader.  The simplicity of plot is intentional, and the avoidance of rant also, as also the compression of the speeches in the more severe situations.  What I seek to show in ‘The Foscaris’ is the suppressed passions, rather than the rant of the present day.  For that matter—­

                      “Nay, if thou’lt mouth,
        I’ll rant as well as thou—­

would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger productions—­not dramatic ones, to be sure.  But, as I said before, I am mortified that Gifford don’t like them; but I see no remedy, our notions on that subject being so different.  How is he?—­well, I hope? let me know.  I regret his demur the more that he has been always my grand patron, and I know no praise which would compensate me in my own mind for his censure.  I do not mind Reviews, as I can work them at their own weapons.

     “Yours, &c.