“There is a most rattling thunder-storm pelting away at this present writing; so that I write neither by day, nor by candle, nor torchlight, but by lightning light:  the flashes are as brilliant as the most gaseous glow of the gas-light company.  My chimney-board has just been thrown down by a gust of wind:  I thought that it was the ‘Bold Thunder’ and ‘Brisk Lightning’ in person.—­Three of us would be too many.  There it goes—­flash again! but

        “I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness;
        I never gave ye franks, nor call’d upon you;

     as I have done by and upon Mr. Elliston.

     “Why do you not write?  You should at least send me a line of
     particulars:  I know nothing yet but by Galignani and the Honourable
     Douglas.

     “Well, and how does our Pope controversy go on? and the pamphlet? 
     It is impossible to write any news:  the Austrian scoundrels rummage
     all letters.

“P.S.  I could have sent you a good deal of gossip and some real information, were it not that all letters pass through the Barbarians’ inspection, and I have no wish to inform them of any thing but my utter abhorrence of them and theirs.  They have only conquered by treachery, however.”

[Footnote 38:  The account given, by Madame Guiccioli, of his anxiety on this occasion, fully corroborates his own:—­“His quiet was, in spite of himself, often disturbed by public events, and by the attacks which, principally in his character of author, the journals levelled at him.  In vain did he protest that he was indifferent to those attacks.  The impression was, it is true, but momentary, and he, from a feeling of noble pride, but too much disdained to reply to his detractors.  But, however brief his annoyance was, it was sufficiently acute to occasion him much pain, and to afflict those who loved him.  Every occurrence relative to the bringing Marino Faliero on the stage caused him excessive inquietude.  On, the occasion of an article in the Milan Gazette, in which mention was made of this affair, he wrote to me in the following manner:—­’You will see here confirmation of what I told you the other day!  I am sacrificed in every way, without knowing the why or the wherefore.  The tragedy in question is not (nor ever was) written for, or adapted to, the stage; nevertheless, the plan is not romantic; it is rather regular than otherwise;—­in point of unity of time, indeed, perfectly regular, and failing but slightly in unity of place.  You well know whether it was ever my intention to have it acted, since it was written at your side, and at a period assuredly rather more tragical to me as a man than as an author; for you were in affliction and peril.  In the mean time, I learn from your Gazette that a cabal and party has