“Yours of the 29th ultimo hath arrived.  I must, really and seriously request that you will beg of Messrs. Harris or Elliston to let the Doge alone:  it is not an acting play; it will not serve their purpose; it will destroy yours (the sale); and it will distress me.  It is not courteous, it is hardly even gentlemanly, to persist in this appropriation of a man’s writings to their mountebanks.

“I have already sent you by last post a short protest[28] to the public (against this proceeding); in case that they persist, which I trust that they will not, you must then publish it in the newspapers.  I shall not let them off with that only, if they go on; but make a longer appeal on that subject, and state what I think the injustice of their mode of behaviour.  It is hard that I should have all the buffoons in Britain to deal with—­pirates who will publish, and players who will act—­when there are thousands of worthy men who can get neither bookseller nor manager for love nor money.

“You never answered me a word about Galignani.  If you mean to use the two documents, do; if not, burn them.  I do not choose to leave them in any one’s possession:  suppose some one found them without the letters, what would they think? why, that I had been doing the opposite of what I have done, to wit, referred the whole thing to you—­an act of civility at least, which required saying, ‘I have received your letter.’  I thought that you might have some hold upon those publications by this means; to me it can be no interest one way or the other.[29]

“The third canto of Don Juan is ‘dull,’ but you must really put up with it:  if the two first and the two following are tolerable, what do you expect? particularly as I neither dispute with you on it as a matter of criticism, nor as a matter of business.

“Besides, what am I to understand? you and Douglas Kinnaird, and others, write to me, that the two first published cantos are among the best that I ever wrote, and are reckoned so; Augusta writes that they are thought ‘execrable’ (bitter word that for an author—­eh, Murray?) as a composition even, and that she had heard so much against them that she would never read them, and never has.  Be that as it may, I can’t alter; that is not my forte.  If you publish the three new ones without ostentation, they may perhaps succeed.

“Pray publish the Dante and the Pulci (the Prophecy of Dante, I mean).  I look upon the Pulci as my grand performance.[30] The remainder of the ‘Hints,’ where be they?  Now, bring them all out about the same time, otherwise ‘the variety’ you wot of will be less obvious.

“I am in bad humour:  some obstructions in business with those plaguy trustees,