"The time is past in which I could feel for the dead,--or I should feel for the death of Lady Melbourne, the best, and kindest, and ablest female I ever knew, old or young. But 'I have supped full of horrors,' and events of this kind have only a kind of numbness worse than pain,--like a violent blow on the elbow or the head. There is one link less between England and myself. "Now to business. I presented you with Beppo, as part of the contract for Canto fourth,--considering the price you are to pay for the same, and intending to eke you out in case of public caprice or my own poetical failure. If you choose to suppress it entirely, at Mr. * * * *'s suggestion, you may do as you please. But recollect it is not to be published in a _garbled_ or _mutilated_ state. I reserve to my friends and myself the right of correcting the press;--if the publication continue, it is to continue in its present form. "As Mr. * * says that he did not write this letter, &c. I am ready to believe him; but for the firmness of my former persuasion, I refer to Mr. * * * *, who can inform you how sincerely I erred on this point. He has also the note--or, at least, had it, for I gave it to him with my verbal comments thereupon. As to 'Beppo,' I will not alter or suppress a syllable for any man's pleasure but my own. "You may tell them this; and add, that nothing but force or necessity shall stir me one step towards places to which they would wring me. "If your literary matters prosper let me know. If 'Beppo' pleases, you shall have more in a year or two in the same mood. And so 'Good morrow to you, good Master Lieutenant.' Yours," &c. * * * * * LETTER 317. TO MR. MOORE. "Palazzo Mocenigo, Canal Grande, "Venice, June 1. 1818. "Your letter is almost the only news, as yet, of Canto fourth, and it has by no means settled its fate,--at least, does not tell me how the 'Poeshie' has been received by the public. But I suspect, no great things,--firstly, from Murray's 'horrid stillness;' secondly, from what you say about the stanzas running into each other[21], which I take _not_ to be _yours_, but a notion you have been dinned with among the Blues. The fact is, that the terza rima of the Italians, which always _runs_ on and in, may have led me into experiments, and carelessness into conceit--or conceit into carelessness--in either of which events failure will be probable, and my fair woman, 'superne,' end in a fish; so that Childe Harold will be like the mermaid, my family crest, with the fourth Canto for a tail thereunto. I won't quarrel with the public, however, for the 'Bulgars' are generally right; and if I miss now, I may hit another time:--and so, the 'gods give us joy.'