all religion and government, and have
already made great progress! It is not very scurrilous, but serious
and ethereal. I never felt myself important, till I saw and heard
of my being such a little Voltaire as to induce such a production.
Murray would not publish it, for which he was a fool, and so I told
him; but some one else will, doubtless. 'Something too much of
this.'

"Your French scheme is good, but let it be _Italian_; all the
Angles will be at Paris. Let it be Rome, Milan, Naples, Florence,
Turin, Venice, or Switzerland, and 'egad!' (as Bayes saith,) I will
connubiate and join you; and we will write a new 'Inferno' in our
Paradise. Pray think of this--and I will really buy a wife and a
ring, and say the ceremony, and settle near you in a summer-house
upon the Arno, or the Po, or the Adriatic.

"Ah! my poor little pagod, Napoleon, has walked off his pedestal.
He has abdicated, they say. This would draw molten brass from the
eyes of Zatanai. What! 'kiss the ground before young Malcolm's
feet, and then be baited by the rabble's curse!' I cannot bear
such a crouching catastrophe. I must stick to Sylla, for my modern
favourites don't do,--their resignations are of a different kind.
All health and prosperity, my dear Moore. Excuse this lengthy
letter. Ever, &c.

"P.S. The Quarterly quotes you frequently in an article on America;
and every body I know asks perpetually after you and yours. When
will you answer them in person?"

* * * * *

He did not long persevere in his resolution against writing, as will be
seen from the following notes to his publisher.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"April 10. 1814.

"I have written an Ode on the fall of Napoleon, which, if you like,
I will copy out, and make you a present of. Mr. Merivale has seen
part of it, and likes it. You may show it to Mr. Gifford, and print
it, or not, as you please--it is of no consequence. It contains
nothing in _his_ favour, and no allusion whatever to our own
government or the Bourbons. Yours, &c.

"P.S. It is in the measure of my stanzas at the end of Childe
Harold, which were much liked, beginning 'And thou art dead,' &c.
&c. There are ten stanzas of it--ninety lines in all."

* * * * *

TO MR. MURRAY.

"April 11.