"I do not recollect the speech you speak of, but suspect it is not the Doge's, but one of Israel Bertuccio to Calendaro. I hope you think that Elliston behaved shamefully--it is my only consolation. I made the Milanese fellows contradict their lie, which they did with the grace of people used to it. "Yours, &c. "B." * * * * * LETTER 436. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, July 5. 1821. "How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that _could_ be said on your account to weigh with _me_? I only regret that Bowles had not _said_ that you were the writer of that note, until afterwards, when out he comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me. D----n the controversy! "D----n Twizzle, D----n the bell, And d----n the fool who rung it--Well! From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd. "I have had a friend of your Mr. Irving's--a very pretty lad--a Mr. Coolidge, of Boston--only somewhat too full of poesy and 'entusymusy.' I was very civil to him during his few hours' stay, and talked with him much of Irving, whose writings are my delight. But I suspect that he did not take quite so much to me, from his having expected to meet a misanthropical gentleman, in wolf-skin breeches, and answering in fierce monosyllables, instead of a man of this world. I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of _excited passion_, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever _shave_ themselves in such a state? "I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw her), who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, &c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A. and has not a word of 'cant' or preachment in it upon _any_ opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which, by the way, I can _not_ do, as I look upon such a letter in such circumstances as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from Drontheim, in _Norway_ (but not from a dying woman), in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at times believe one's self a poet. But if I must believe that * * * * * and such fellows, are poets also, it is better to be out of the corps.