[Footnote 76:  It should have been mentioned before, that to the courtesy of Lord Byron’s executor, Mr. Hobhouse, who had the kindness to restore to me such letters of mine as came into his hands, I am indebted for the power of producing these and other extracts.]

The notices of Cain, in my letters to him, were, according to their respective dates, as follow:—­

“September 30. 1821.

“Since writing the above, I have read Foscari and Cain.  The former does not please me so highly as Sardanapalus.  It has the fault of all those violent Venetian stories, being unnatural and improbable, and therefore, in spite of all your fine management of them, appealing but remotely to one’s sympathies.  But Cain is wonderful—­terrible—­never to be forgotten.  If I am not mistaken, it will sink deep into the world’s heart; and while many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall prostrate before its grandeur.  Talk of AEschylus and his Prometheus!—­here is the true spirit both of the Poet—­and the Devil.”

“February 9. 1822.

“Do not take it into your head, my dear B. that the tide is at all turning against you in England.  Till I see some symptoms of people forgetting you a little, I will not believe that you lose ground.  As it is, ’te veniente die, te, decedente,’—­nothing is hardly talked of but you; and though good people sometimes bless themselves when they mention you, it is plain that even they think much more about you than, for the good of their souls, they ought.  Cain, to be sure, has made a sensation; and, grand as it is, I regret, for many reasons, you ever wrote it. * * For myself, I would not give up the poetry of religion for all the wisest results that philosophy will ever arrive at.  Particular sects and creeds are fair game enough for those who are anxious enough about their neighbours to meddle with them; but our faith in the Future is a treasure not so lightly to be parted with; and the dream of immortality (if philosophers will have it a dream) is one that, let us hope, we shall carry into our last sleep with us."[77]

[Footnote 77:  It is to this sentence Lord Byron refers at the conclusion of his letter, March 4.]

“February 19. 1822.