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PDF“I wonder if my ‘Cain’ has got safe to England. I have written since about sixty stanzas of a poem, in octave stanzas, (in the Pulci style, which the fools in England think was invented by Whistlecraft—it is as old as the hills in Italy,) called ’The Vision of of Judgment, by Quevedo Redivivus,’ with this motto—
“’A
Daniel come to judgment, yea, a Daniel:
I
thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.’
“In this it is
my intent to put the said George’s Apotheosis
in a
Whig point of view,
not forgetting the Poet Laureate for his
preface and his other
demerits.
“I am just got to the pass where Saint Peter, hearing that the royal defunct had opposed Catholic Emancipation, rises up, and, interrupting Satan’s oration, declares he will change places with Cerberus sooner than let him into heaven, while he has the keys thereof.
“I must go and ride, though rather feverish and chilly. It is the ague season; but the agues do me rather good than harm. The feel after the fit is as if one had got rid of one’s body for good and all.
“The gods go with you!—Address to Pisa.
“Ever yours.
“P.S. Since I came back I feel better, though I stayed out too late for this malaria season, under the thin crescent of a very young moon, and got off my horse to walk in an avenue with a Signora for an hour. I thought of you and
’When
at eve thou rovest
By
the star thou lovest.’
But it was not in a romantic mood, as I should have been once; and yet it was a new woman, (that is, new to me,) and, of course, expected to be made love to. But I merely made a few common-place speeches. I feel, as your poor friend Curran said, before his death, ‘a mountain of lead upon my heart,’ which I believe to be constitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the same remedy.”
* * * * *
LETTER 461. TO MR. MOORE.
“October 6. 1821.
“By this post I have sent my nightmare to balance the incubus of * * ’s impudent anticipation of the Apotheosis of George the Third. I should like you to take a look over it, as I think there are two or three things in it which might please ‘our puir hill folk.’
“By the last two or three posts I have written to you at length. My _ague_ bows to me every two or three days, but we are not as yet upon intimate speaking terms. I have an intermittent generally every two years, when the climate is favourable (as it is here), but it does me no harm. What I find worse, and cannot get rid of, is the growing depression of my spirits, without sufficient cause. I ride—I am not intemperate in eating or drinking—and my general health is as usual, except a slight
