ff at Bologna, related; but, though printed
for Mr. Murray, in a pamphlet consisting of twenty-three pages, it was
never published by him.[43] Being valuable, however, as one of the best
specimens we have of Lord Byron's simple and thoroughly English prose, I
shall here preserve some extracts from it.

[Footnote 43: It appeared afterwards in the Liberal.]

* * * * *

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRITISH REVIEW.

"My dear R----ts,

"As a believer in the Church of England--to say nothing of the
State--I have been an occasional reader, and great admirer, though
not a subscriber, to your Review. But I do not know that any
article of its contents ever gave me much surprise till the
eleventh of your late twenty-seventh number made its appearance.
You have there most manfully refuted a calumnious accusation of
bribery and corruption, the credence of which in the public mind
might not only have damaged your reputation as a clergyman and an
editor, but, what would have been still worse, have injured the
circulation of your journal; which, I regret to hear, is not so
extensive as the 'purity (as you well observe) of its, &c. &c.' and
the present taste for propriety, would induce us to expect. The
charge itself is of a solemn nature; and, although in verse, is
couched in terms of such circumstantial gravity as to induce a
belief little short of that generally accorded to the thirty-nine
articles, to which you so generously subscribed on taking your
degrees. It is a charge the most revolting to the heart of man from
its frequent occurrence; to the mind of a statesman from its
occasional truth; and to the soul of an editor from its moral
impossibility. You are charged then in the last line of one octave
stanza, and the whole eight lines of the next, viz. 209th and 210th
of the first Canto of that 'pestilent poem,' Don Juan, with
receiving, and still more foolishly acknowledging, the receipt of
certain moneys to eulogise the unknown author, who by this account
must be known to you, if to nobody else. An impeachment of this
nature, so seriously made, there is but one way of refuting; and it
is my firm persuasion, that whether you did or did not (and _I_
believe that you did not) receive the said moneys, of which I wish
that he had specified the sum, you are q