Chapter IX: Letter 61: To Mr. Dallas

"Newstead, August 21. 1811.

"Your letter gives me credit for more acute feelings than I
possess; for though I feel tolerably miserable, yet I am at the
same time subject to a kind of hysterical merriment, or rather
laughter without merriment, which I can neither account for nor
conquer, and yet I do not feel relieved by it; but an indifferent
person would think me in excellent spirits. 'We must forget these
things,' and have recourse to our old selfish comforts, or rather
comfortable selfishness. I do not think I shall return to London
immediately, and shall therefore accept freely what is offered
courteously--your mediation between me and Murray. I don't think my
name will answer the purpose, and you must be aware that my plaguy
Satire will bring the north and south Grub Streets down upon the
'Pilgrimage;'--but, nevertheless, if Murray makes a point of it,
and you coincide with him, I will do it daringly; so let it be
entitled 'By the Author of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' My
remarks on the Romaic, &c., once intended to accompany the 'Hints
from Horace,' shall go along with the other, as being indeed more
appropriate; also the smaller poems now in my possession, with a
few selected from those published in * *'s Miscellany. I have
found amongst my poor mother's papers all my letters from the East,
and one in particular of some length from Albania. From this, if
necessary, I can work up a note or two on that subject. As I kept
no journal, the letters written on the spot are the best. But of
this anon, when we have definitively arranged.

"Has Murray shown the work to any one? He may--but I will have no
traps for applause. Of course there are little things I would wish
to alter, and perhaps the two stanzas of a buffooning cast on
London's Sunday are as well left out. I much wish to avoid
identifying Childe Harold's character with mine, and that, in
sooth, is my second objection to my name appearing in the
title-page. When you have made arrangements as to time, size, type,
&c. favour me with a reply. I am giving you an universe of trouble,
which thanks cannot atone for. I made a kind of prose apology for
my scepticism at the head of the MS., which, on recollection, is so
much more like an attack than a defence, that, haply, it might
better be omitted:--perpend, pronounce. After all, I fear Murray
will be in a scrape with the orthodox; but I cannot help it, though
I wish him well through it. As for me, 'I have supped full of
criticism,' and I don't think that the 'most dismal treatise' will
stir and rouse my fell of hair' till 'Birnam wood do come to
Dunsinane.'

"I shall continue to write at intervals, and hope you will pay me
in kind. How does Pratt get on, or rather get off, Joe Blackett's
posthumous stock? You killed that poor man amongst you, in spite
of your Ionian friend and myself, who would have saved him from
Pratt, poetry, present poverty, and posthumous oblivion. Cruel
patronage! to ruin a man at his calling; but then he is a divine
subject for subscription and biography; and Pratt, who makes the
most of his dedications, has inscribed the volume to no less than
five families of distinction.

"I am sorry you don't like Harry White: with a great deal of cant,
which in him was sincere (indeed it killed him as you killed Joe
Blackett), certes there is poesy and genius. I don't say this on
account of my simile and rhymes; but surely he was beyond all the
Bloomfields and Blacketts, and their collateral cobblers, whom
Lofft and Pratt have or may kidnap from their calling into the
service of the trade. You must excuse my flippancy, for I am
writing I know not what, to escape from myself. Hobhouse is gone to
Ireland. Mr. Davies has been here on his way to Harrowgate.

"You did not know M.: he was a man of the most astonishing powers,
as he sufficiently proved at Cambridge, by carrying off more prizes
and fellow-ships, against the ablest candidates, than any other
graduate on record; but a most decided atheist, indeed noxiously
so, for he proclaimed his principles in all societies. I knew him
well, and feel a loss not easily to be supplied to myself--to
Hobhouse never. Let me hear from you, and believe me," &c.

* * * * *

The progress towards publication of his two forthcoming works will be best traced in his letters to Mr. Murray and Mr. Dallas.