"I have not the patience, nor do I feel interest enough in the question, to contend with the fellows in their own slang; but I perceive Mr. Blackwood's Magazine and one or two others of your missives have been hyperbolical in their praise, and diabolical in their abuse. I like and admire W * *n, and _he_ should not have indulged himself in such outrageous licence.[65] It is overdone and defeats itself. What would he say to the grossness without passion and the misanthropy without feeling of Gulliver's Travels?--When he talks of Lady's Byron's business, he talks of what he knows nothing about; and you may tell him that no one can more desire a public investigation of that affair than I do. "I sent home by Moore (_for_ Moore only, who has my Journal also) my Memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but _not to publish_, on any account. You may read it, and you may let W * *n read it, if he likes--not for his _public_ opinion, but his private; for I like the man, and care very little about his Magazine. And I could wish Lady B. herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or mis-stated; as it may probably appear after my extinction, and it would be but fair she should see it,--that is to say, herself willing. "Perhaps I may take a journey to you in the spring; but I _have_ been ill and _am_ indolent and indecisive, because few things interest me. These fellows first abused me for being gloomy, and now they are wroth that I am, or attempted to be, facetious. I have got such a cold and headach that I can hardly see what I scrawl:--the winters here are as sharp as needles. Some time ago, I wrote to you rather fully about my Italian affairs; at present I can say no more except that you shall hear further by and by. "Your Blackwood accuses me of treating women harshly: it may be so, but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed _to_ them and _by_ them. I mean to leave Venice in a few days, but you will address your letters _here_ as usual. When I fix elsewhere, you shall know." [Footnote 65: This is one of the many mistakes into which his distance from the scene of literary operations led him. The gentleman, to whom the hostile article in the Magazine is here attributed, has never, either then or since, written upon the subject of the noble poet's character or genius, without giving vent to a feeling of admiration as enthusiastic as it is always eloquently and powerfully expressed.] * * * * *