"I return you the proofs revised. Your printer has made one odd mistake:--'poor as a _mouse_,' instead of 'poor as a _miser_.' The expression may seem strange, but it is only a translation of 'semper avarus eget.' You will add the Mystery, and publish as soon as you can. I care nothing for your 'season,' nor the _blue_ approbations or disapprobations. All that is to be considered by you on the subject is as a matter of _business_; and if I square that to your notions (even to the running the risk entirely myself), you may permit me to choose my own time and mode of publication. With regard to the late volume, the present run against _it_ or _me_ may impede it for a time, but it has the vital principle of permanency within it, as you may perhaps one day discover. I wrote to you on another subject a few days ago. Yours, N.B. "P.S. Please to send me the Dedication of Sardanapalus to Goethe. I shall prefix it to Werner, unless you prefer my putting another, stating that the former had been omitted by the publisher. "On the title-page of the present volume, put 'Published for the Author by J.M.'" * * * * * LETTER 496. TO MR. MURRAY. "Montenero, Leghorn, June 6. 1822. "I return you the revise of Werner, and expect the rest. With regard to the Lines to the Po, perhaps you had better put them quietly in a second edition (if you reach one, that is to say) than in the first; because, though they have been reckoned fine, and I wish them to be preserved, I do not wish them to attract IMMEDIATE observation, on account of the relationship of the lady to whom they are addressed with the first families in Romagna and the Marches. "The defender of 'Cain' may or may not be, as you term him, 'a tyro in literature:' however I think both you and I are under great obligation to him. I have read the Edinburgh review in Galignani's Magazine, and have not yet decided whether to answer them or not; for, if I do, it will be difficult for me not 'to make sport for the Philistines' by pulling down a house or two; since, when I once take pen in hand, I _must_ say what comes uppermost, or fling it away. I have not the hypocrisy to pretend impartiality, nor the temper (as it is called) to keep always from saying what may not be pleasing to the hearer or reader. What do they mean by '_elaborate_?' Why, _you_ know that they were written as fast as I could put pen to paper, and printed from the _original_ MSS., and never revised but in the proofs: _look_ at the _dates_ and the MSS. themselves. Whatever faults they have must spring from carelessness, and not from labour. They said the same of 'Lara,' which I wrote while undressing after coming home from balls and masquerades, in the year of revelry 1814. Yours."