g, to what I
think tunes, your 'Oh breathe not,' 'When the last glimpse,' and
'When he who adores thee,' with others of the same minstrel;--they
are my matins and vespers. I assuredly did not intend them to be
overheard, but, one morning, in comes, not La Donna, but Il Marito,
with a very grave face, saying, 'Byron, I must request you won't
sing any more, at least of _those_ songs.' I stared, and said,
'Certainly, but why?'--'To tell you the truth,' quoth he, 'they
make my wife _cry_, and so melancholy, that I wish her to hear no
more of them.'

"Now, my dear M., the effect must have been from your words, and
certainly not my music. I merely mention this foolish story to show
you how much I am indebted to you for even your pastimes. A man
may praise and praise, but no one recollects but that which
pleases--at least, in composition. Though I think no one equal to
you in that department, or in satire,--and surely no one was ever
so popular in both,--I certainly am of opinion that you have not
yet done all _you_ can do, though more than enough for any one
else. I want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and I
see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of
your own powers, which I cannot account for, and which must be
unaccountable, when a _Cossac_ like me can appal a _cuirassier_.
Your story I did not, could not, know,--I thought only of a Peri. I
wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to
prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but
which, I yet hope, this _clashing_ will not even now deprive them
of.[87] Mine is the work of a week, written, _why_ I have partly
told you, and partly I cannot tell you by letter--some day I will.

"Go on--I shall really be very unhappy if I at all interfere with
you. The success of mine is yet problematical; though the public
will probably purchase a certain quantity, on the presumption of
their own propensity for 'The Giaour' and such 'horrid mysteries.'
The only advantage I have is being on the spot; and that merely
amounts to saving me the trouble of turning over books which I had
better read again. If _your chamber_ was furnished in the same way,
you have no need to _go there_ to describe--I mean only as to
_accuracy_--because I drew i