“By the papers of Thursday, and two letters of Mr. Kinnaird, I perceive that the Italian gazette had lied most Italically, and that the drama had not been hissed, and that my friends had interfered to prevent the representation.  So it seems they continue to act it, in spite of us all:  for this we must ’trouble them at ‘size.’  Let it by all means be brought to a plea:  I am determined to try the right, and will meet the expenses.  The reason of the Lombard lie was that the Austrians—­who keep up an Inquisition throughout Italy, and a list of names of all who think or speak of any thing but in favour of their despotism—­have for five years past abused me in every form in the Gazette of Milan, &c.  I wrote to you a week ago on the subject.

“Now I should be glad to know what compensation Mr. Elliston would make me, not only for dragging my writings on the stage in five days, but for being the cause that I was kept for four days (from Sunday to Thursday morning, the only post-days) in the belief that the tragedy had been acted and ‘unanimously hissed;’ and this with the addition that I ‘had brought it upon the stage,’ and consequently that none of my friends had attended to my request to the contrary.  Suppose that I had burst a blood-vessel, like John Keats, or blown my brains out in a fit of rage,—­neither of which would have been unlikely a few years ago.  At present I am, luckily, calmer than I used to be, and yet I would not pass those four days over again for—­I know not what[38].

“I wrote to you to keep up your spirits, for reproach is useless always, and irritating—­but my feelings were very much hurt, to be dragged like a gladiator to the fate of a gladiator by that ‘retiarius,’ Mr. Elliston.  As to his defence and offers of compensation, what is all this to the purpose?  It is like Louis the Fourteenth, who insisted upon buying at any price Algernon Sydney’s horse, and, on his refusal, on taking it by force, Sydney shot his horse.  I could not shoot my tragedy, but I would have flung it into the fire rather than have had it represented.

“I have now written nearly three acts of another (intending to complete it in five), and am more anxious than ever to be preserved from such a breach of all literary courtesy and gentlemanly consideration.

“If we succeed, well:  if not, previous to any future publication, we will request a promise not to be acted, which I would even pay for (as money is their object), or I will not publish—­which, however, you will probably not much regret.

“The Chancellor has behaved nobly.  You have also conducted yourself in the most satisfactory manner; and I have no fault to find with any body but the stage-players and their proprietor.  I was always so civil to Elliston personally, that he ought to have been the last to attempt