TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, February 28. 1817.

"You will, perhaps, complain as much of the frequency of my letters
now, as you were wont to do of their rarity. I think this is the
fourth within as many moons. I feel anxious to hear from you, even
more than usual, because your last indicated that you were unwell.
At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival--that
is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o'nights, had
knocked me up a little. But it is over,--and it is now Lent, with
all its abstinence and sacred music.

"The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went,
as also to most of the ridottos, &c. &c.; and, though I did not
dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out
the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of
twenty-nine.

"So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword out-wears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

I have lately had some news of litter_atoor_, as I heard the editor
of the Monthly pronounce it once upon a time. I hear that W.W. has
been publishing and responding to the attacks of the Quarterly, in
the learned Perry's Chronicle. I read his poesies last autumn, and,
amongst them, found an epitaph on his bull-dog, and another on
_myself_. But I beg leave to assure him (like the astrologer
Partridge) that I am not only alive now, but was alive also at the
time he wrote it. Hobhouse has (I hear, also) expectorated a letter
against the Quarterly, addressed to me. I feel awkwardly situated
between him and Gifford, both being my friends.

"And this is your month of going to press--by the body of Diana! (a
Venetian oath,) I feel as anxious--but not fearful for you--as if
it were myself coming out in a work of humour, which would, you
know, be the antipodes of all my previous publications. I don't
think you have any thing to dread but your own reputation. You must
keep up to that. As yo