Ravenna, 26 _April_, 1821. The child continues doing well, and the accounts are regular and favourable. It is gratifying to me that you and Mrs. Shelley do not disapprove of the step which I have taken, which is merely temporary. I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats--is it _actually_ true? I did not think criticism had been so killing. Though I differ from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary pain, that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parnassus than have perished in such a manner. Poor fellow! though with such inordinate self-love he would probably have not been very happy. I read the review of _Endymion_ in the _Quarterly_. It was severe,--but surely not so severe as many reviews in that and other journals upon others. I recollect the effect on me of the _Edinburgh_ on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress--but not despondency nor despair. I grant that those are not amiable feelings; but, in this world of bustle and broil, and especially in the career of writing, a man should calculate upon his powers of _resistance_ before he goes into the arena. Expect not life from pain nor danger free, Nor deem the doom of man reserved for thee. You know my opinion of _that second-hand_ school of poetry. You also know my high opinion of your own poetry,--because it is of _no_ school. I read _Cenci_--but, besides that I think the _subject_ essentially _un_ dramatic, I am not an admirer of our old dramatists, _as models_. I deny that the English have hitherto had a drama at all. Your _Cenci_, however, was a work of power, and poetry. As to _my_ drama, pray revenge yourself upon it, by being as free as I have been with yours. I have not yet got your _Prometheus_, which I long to see. I have heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not like. Had I known that Keats was dead--or that he was alive and so sensitive--I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which I was provoked by his _attack_ upon _Pope_, and my disapprobation of _his own_ style of writing. You want me to undertake a great poem--I have not the inclination nor the power. As I grow older, the indifference--_not_ to life, for we love it by instinct--but to the stimuli of life, increases. Besides, this late failure of the Italians has latterly disappointed me for many reasons,--some public, some personal. My respects to Mrs. S. PS. Could not you and I contrive to meet this summer? Could not you take a run here _alone_? To LADY BYRON _A plain statement of facts_ Pisa, 17 _Nov_. 1821, I have to acknowledge the receipt of 'Ada's hair', which is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was at twelve years old, if I may judge from what I recollect of some in Augusta's possession, taken at that age. But it don't curl,--perhaps from its being let grow.