was by sympathy that I had my fever at the
same time.

"I joy in the success of your Quarterly, but I must still stick by
the Edinburgh; Jeffrey has done so by me, I must say, through every
thing, and this is more than I deserved from him. I have more than
once acknowledged to you by letter the 'Article' (and articles);
say that you have received the said letters, as I do not otherwise
know what letters arrive. Both Reviews came, but nothing more. M.'s
play and the extract not yet come.

"Write to say whether my Magician has arrived, with all his scenes,
spells, &c. Yours ever, &c.

"It is useless to send to the _Foreign Office_: nothing arrives to
me by that conveyance. I suppose some zealous clerk thinks it a
Tory duty to prevent it."

* * * * *

LETTER 271. TO MR. ROGERS.

"Venice, April 4. 1817.

"It is a considerable time since I wrote to you last, and I hardly
know why I should trouble you now, except that I think you will
not be sorry to hear from me now and then. You and I were never
correspondents, but always something better, which is, very good
friends.

"I saw your friend Sharp in Switzerland, or rather in the German
_territory_ (which is and is not Switzerland), and he gave Hobhouse
and me a very good route for the Bernese Alps; however we took
another from a German, and went by Clarens, the Dent de Jamen to
Montbovon, and through Simmenthal to Thoun, and so on to
Lauterbrounn; except that from thence to the Grindelwald, instead
of round about, we went right over the Wengen Alps' very summit,
and being close under the Jungfrau, saw it, its glaciers, and heard
the avalanches in all their glory, having famous weather
there_for_. We of course went from the Grindelwald over the
Sheidech to Brientz and its lake; past the Reichenbach and all that
mountain road, which reminded me of Albania and AEtolia and Greece,
except that the people here were more civilised and rascally. I do
not think so very much of Chamouni (except the source of the
Arveron, to which we went up to the teeth of the ice, so as to look
into and touch the cavity, against the warning of the guides, only
one of whom would go with us so close,) as of the Jungfrau, and the
Pissevache, and Simplon, which are quite out of all mo