Chapter CXII: Letter 506: To Mr. Murray

"Genoa, 10bre 25°. 1822.

"I had sent you back the Quarterly, without perusal, having
resolved to read no more reviews, good, bad, or indifferent; but
'who can control his fate?' Galignani, to whom my English studies
are confined, has forwarded a copy of at least one half of it in
his indefatigable catch-penny weekly compilation; and as, 'like
honour, it came unlooked for,' I have looked through it. I must say
that, upon the _whole_, that is, the whole of the _half_ which I
have read (for the other half is to be the segment of Galignani's
next week's circular), it is extremely handsome, and any thing but
unkind or unfair. As I take the good in good part, I must not, nor
will not, quarrel with the bad. What the writer says of Don Juan is
harsh, but it is inevitable. He must follow, or at least not
directly oppose, the opinion of a prevailing, and yet not very
firmly seated, party. A Review may and will direct and 'turn awry'
the currents of opinion, but it must not directly oppose them. Don
Juan will be known by and by, for what it is intended,--a _Satire_
on _abuses_ of the present states of society, and not an eulogy of
vice. It may be now and then voluptuous: I can't help that.
Ariosto is worse; Smollett (see Lord Strutwell in vol. 2d of
Roderick Random) ten times worse; and Fielding no better. No girl
will ever be seduced by reading Don Juan:--no, no; she will go to
Little's poems and Rousseau's _romans_ for that, or even to the
immaculate De Staël. They will encourage her, and not the Don, who
laughs at that, and--and--most other things. But never mind--_ça
irà!_

"Now, do you see what you and your friends do by your injudicious
rudeness?--actually cement a sort of connection which you strove to
prevent, and which, had the Hunts _prospered_, would not in all
probability have continued. As it is, I will not quit them in their
adversity, though it should cost me character, fame, money, and the
usual _et cetera_.

"My original motives I already explained (in the letter which you
thought proper to show): they are the _true_ ones, and I abide by
them, as I tell you, and I told Leigh Hunt when he questioned me on
the subject of that letter. He was violently hurt, and never will
forgive me at bottom; but I can't help that. I never meant to make
a parade of it; but if he chose to question me, I could only answer
the plain truth: and I confess I did not see any thing in the
letter to hurt him, unless I said he was 'a bore,' which I don't
remember. Had their Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to
make it better for them, I should then have left them, after my
safe pilotage off a lee shore, to make a prosperous voyage by
themselves. As it is, I can't, and would not, if I could, leave
them among the breakers.

"As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between
Leigh Hunt and me, 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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