there is little or none.  We meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as I would be done by.  I do not know what world he has lived in, but I have lived in three or four; but none of them like his Keats and kangaroo terra incognita.  Alas! poor Shelley! how we would have laughed had he lived, and how we used to laugh now and then, at various things which are grave in the suburbs!

     “You are all mistaken about Shelley.  You do not know how mild, how
     tolerant, how good he was in society; and as perfect a gentleman as
     ever crossed a drawing-room, when he liked, and where liked.

“I have some thoughts of taking a run down to Naples (solus, or, at most, cum sola) this spring, and writing, when I have studied the country, a Fifth and Sixth Canto of Childe Harold:  but this is merely an idea for the present, and I have other excursions and voyages in my mind.  The busts[92] are finished:  are you worthy of them?

     “Yours, &c.  N.B.

“P.S.  Mrs. Shelley is residing with the Hunts at some distance from me.  I see them very seldom, and generally on account of their business.  Mrs. Shelley, I believe, will go to England in the spring.

“Count Gamba’s family, the father and mother and daughter, are residing with me by Mr. Hill (the minister’s) recommendation, as a safer asylum from the political persecutions than they could have in another residence; but they occupy one part of a large house, and I the other, and our establishments are quite separate.

“Since I have read the Quarterly, I shall erase two or three passages in the latter six or seven cantos, in which I had lightly stroked over two or three of your authors; but I will not return evil for good.  I liked what I read of the article much.

“Mr. J. Hunt is most likely the publisher of the new Cantos; with what prospects of success I know not, nor does it very much matter, as far as I am concerned; but I hope that it may be of use to him; he is a stiff, sturdy, conscientious man, and I like him; he is such a one as Prynne or Pym might be.  I bear you no ill-will for declining the Don Juans.

     “Have you aided Madame de Yossy, as I requested?  I sent her three
     hundred francs.  Recommend her, will you, to the Literary Fund, or
     to some benevolence within your circles.”

[Footnote 92:  Of the bust of himself by Bartollini he says, in one of the omitted letters to Mr. Murray:—­“The bust does not turn out a good one,—­though it may be like for aught I know, as it exactly resembles a superannuated Jesuit.”  Again:  “I assure you Bartollini’s is dreadful, though my mind misgives me that it is hideously like.  If it is, I cannot be long for this world, for it overlooks seventy.”]

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LETTER 507.  TO LADY ——.