"I enclose you some lines written not long ago, which you may do what you like with, as they are very harmless.[72] Only, if copied, or printed, or set, I could wish it more correctly than in the usual way, in which one's 'nothings are monstered,' as Coriolanus says. "You must really get * * published--he never will rest till he is so. He is just gone with his broken head to Lucca, at my desire, to try to save a _man_ from being _burnt_. The Spanish * * *, that has her petticoats over Lucca, had actually condemned a poor devil to the stake, for stealing the wafer box out of a church. Shelley and I, of course, were up in arms against this piece of piety, and have been disturbing every body to get the sentence changed. * * is gone to see what can be done. "B." [Footnote 71: Mr. Galignani having expressed a wish to be furnished with a short Memoir of Lord Byron, for the purpose of prefixing it to the French edition of his works, I had said jestingly in a preceding letter to his Lordship, that it would he but a fair satire on the disposition of the world to "bemonster his features," if he would write for the public, English as well as French, a sort of mock-heroic account of himself, outdoing, in horrors and wonders, all that had been yet related or believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder in Florence far behind.] [Footnote 72: The following are the lines enclosed in this letter. In one of his Journals, where they are also given, he has subjoined to them the following note:--"I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa. "Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. "What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? 'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled. Then away with all such from the head that is hoary! What care I for the wreaths that can _only_ give glory? "Oh Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover She thought that I was not unworthy to love her. "_There_ chiefly I sought thee, _there_ only I found thee; Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."] * * * * * LETTER 473. TO MR. SHELLEY. "December 12. 1821. "My dear Shelley,