Goethe's good word; but I sha'n't alter my opinion of him,
even though he should be savage.

"Will you excuse this trouble, and do me this favour?--Never
mind--soften nothing--I am literary proof--having had good and evil
said in most modern languages.

"Believe me," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 376. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, June 1. 1820,

"I have received a Parisian letter from W.W., which I prefer
answering through you, if that worthy be still at Paris, and, as
he says, an occasional visiter of yours. In November last he wrote
to me a well-meaning letter, stating, for some reasons of his own,
his belief that a re-union might be effected between Lady B. and
myself. To this I answered as usual; and he sent me a second
letter, repeating his notions, which letter I have never answered,
having had a thousand other things to think of. He now writes as if
he believed that he had offended me by touching on the topic; and I
wish you to assure him that I am not at all so,--but, on the
contrary, obliged by his good nature. At the same time acquaint him
the _thing is impossible. You know this_, as well as I,--and there
let it end.

"I believe that I showed you his epistle in autumn last. He asks me
if I have heard of _my_ 'laureat' at Paris[74],--somebody who has
written 'a most sanguinary Epitre' against me; but whether in
French, or Dutch, or on what score, I know not, and he don't
say,--except that (for my satisfaction) he says it is the best
thing in the fellow's volume. If there is any thing of the kind
that I _ought_ to know, you will doubtless tell me. I suppose it to
be something of the usual sort;--he says, he don't remember the
author's name.

"I wrote to you some ten days ago, and expect an answer at your
leisure.

"The separation business still continues, and all the world are
implicated, including priests and cardinals. The public opinion is
furious against _him_, because he ought to have cut the matter
short _at first_, and not waited twelve months to begin. He has
been trying at evidence, but can get none _sufficient_; for what
would make fifty divorces in England won't do here--there must be
the _most decided_ proofs.

"It is the first cause of the kind attempted in Ravenna for these