ale_'[130] Say a
'Poem' or 'Romance,' but not 'Tale.' I am very sorry that I called
some of my own things 'Tales,' because I think that they are
something better. Besides, we have had Arabian, and Hindoo, and
Turkish, and Assyrian Tales. But, after all, this is frivolous in
me; you won't, however, mind my nonsense.

"Really and truly, I want you to make a great hit, if only out of
self-love, because we happen to be old cronies; and I have no doubt
you will--I am sure you _can_. But you are, I'll be sworn, in a
devil of a pucker; and _I_ am not at your elbow, and Rogers _is_. I
envy him; which is not fair, because he does not envy any body.
Mind you send to me--that is, make Murray send--the moment you are
forth.

"I have been very ill with a slow fever, which at last took to
flying, and became as quick as need be.[131] But, at length, after
a week of half-delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headach,
horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water,
and refusing to see any physician, I recovered. It is an epidemic
of the place, which is annual, and visits strangers. Here follow
some versicles, which I made one sleepless night.

"I read the 'Christabel;'
Very well:
I read the 'Missionary;'
Pretty--very:
I tried at 'Ilderim;'
Ahem;
I read a sheet of 'Marg'ret of _Anjou_;'
_Can you_?
I turn'd a page of * *'s 'Waterloo;'
Pooh! pooh!
I look'd at Wordsworth's milk-white 'Rylstone Doe:'
Hillo!
&c. &c. &c.

"I have not the least idea where I am going, nor what I am to do. I
wished to have gone to Rome; but at present it is pestilent with
English,--a parcel of staring boobies, who go about gaping and
wishing to be at once cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool who
travels now in France or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is
swept home again. In two or three years the first rush will be
over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable.

"I stayed at Venice chiefly because it is not one of their 'dens of
thieves;' and here they but pause and pass. In Switzerland it was
really noxious. Luckily, I was early, and had got the prettiest
place on all the Lake before they were quickened into motion with
the rest of the reptiles