him as the greatest name in our poetry.  Depend upon it, the rest are barbarians.  He is a Greek Temple, with a Gothic Cathedral on one hand, and a Turkish Mosque and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him.  You may call Shakspeare and Milton pyramids, if you please, but I prefer the Temple of Theseus or the Parthenon to a mountain of burnt brick-work.

“The Murray has written to me but once, the day of its publication, when it seemed prosperous.  But I have heard of late from England but rarely.  Of Murray’s other publications (of mine), I know nothing,—­nor whether he has published.  He was to have done so a month ago.  I wish you would do something,—­or that we were together.

     “Ever yours and affectionately,

     “B.”

[Footnote 35:  “Aye, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are,” &c. &c.]

[Footnote 36:  I had not, when I wrote, seen this pamphlet, as he supposes, but had merely heard from some friends, that his pen had “run a-muck” in it, and that I myself had not escaped a slight graze in its career.]

[Footnote 37:  It may be sufficient to say of the use to which both Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles thought it worth their while to apply my name in this controversy, that, as far as my own knowledge of the subject extended, I was disposed to agree with neither of the extreme opinions into which, as it appeared to me, my distinguished friends had diverged;—­neither with Lord Byron in that spirit of partisanship which led him to place Pope above Shakspeare and Milton, nor with Mr. Bowles in such an application of the “principles” of poetry as could tend to sink Pope, on the scale of his art, to any rank below the very first.  Such being the middle state of my opinion on the question, it will not be difficult to understand how one of my controversial friends should be as mistaken in supposing me to differ altogether from his views, as the other was in taking for granted that I had ranged myself wholly on his side.]

* * * * *

It was at this time that he began, under the title of “Detached Thoughts,” that Book of Notices or Memorandums, from which, in the course of these pages, I have extracted so many curious illustrations of his life and opinions, and of which the opening article is as follows:—­

“Amongst various Journals, Memoranda, Diaries, &c. which I have kept in the course of my living, I began one about three months ago, and carried it on till I had filled one paper-book (thinnish), and two sheets or so of another.  I then left off, partly because I thought we should have some business here, and I had furbished up my arms and got my apparatus ready for taking a turn with the patriots, having my drawers full of their proclamations, oaths, and resolutions, and my lower rooms of their hidden weapons, of most calibres,—­and partly because I had filled my paper-book.