to drag me forth as a gladiator in the theatrical arena is a violation of all the courtesies of literature, I trust that the impartial part of the press will step between me and this pollution.  I say pollution, because every violation of a right is such, and I claim my right as an author to prevent what I have written from being turned into a stage-play.  I have too much respect for the public to permit this of my own free will.  Had I sought their favour, it would have been by a pantomime.

“I have said that I write only for the reader.  Beyond this I cannot consent to any publication, or to the abuse of any publication of mine to the purposes of histrionism.  The applauses of an audience would give me no pleasure; their disapprobation might, however, give me pain.  The wager is therefore not equal.  You may, perhaps, say, ’How can this be? if their disapprobation gives pain, their praise might afford pleasure?’ By no means:  the kick of an ass or the sting of a wasp may be painful to those who would find nothing agreeable in the braying of the one or the buzzing of the other.

     “This may not seem a courteous comparison, but I have no other
     ready; and it occurs naturally.”

* * * * *

LETTER 416.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Ravenna, Marzo, 1821.

     “Dear Moray,

“In my packet of the 12th instant, in the last sheet (not the half sheet), last page, omit the sentence which (defining, or attempting to define, what and who are gentlemen) begins, ’I should say at least in life that most military men have it, and few naval; that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers,’ &c. &c.  I say, omit the whole of that sentence, because, like the ’cosmogony, or creation of the world,’ in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ it is not much to the purpose.

“In the sentence above, too, almost at the top of the same page, after the words ’that there ever was, or can be, an aristocracy of poets,’ add and insert these words—­’I do not mean that they should write in the style of the song by a person of quality, or parle euphuism; but there is a nobility of thought and expression to be found no less in Shakspeare, Pope, and Burns, than in Dante, Alfieri,’ &c. &c. and so on.  Or, if you please, perhaps you had better omit the whole of the latter digression on the vulgar poets, and insert only as far as the end of the sentence on Pope’s Homer, where I prefer it to Cowper’s, and quote Dr. Clarke in favour of its accuracy.

     “Upon all these points, take an opinion; take the sense (or
     nonsense) of your learned visitants, and act thereby.  I am very
     tractable—­in PROSE.