ffice.'

"I wish you would speak to Lord Holland, and to all my friends and
yours, to interest themselves in preventing this cursed attempt at
representation.

"God help me! at this distance, I am treated like a corpse or a
fool by the few people that I thought I could rely upon; and I
_was_ a fool to think any better of them than of the rest of
mankind.

"Pray write. Yours, &c.

"P.S. I have nothing more at heart (that is, in literature) than to
prevent this drama from going upon the stage: in short, rather than
permit it, it must be _suppressed altogether_, and only _forty
copies struck off privately_ for presents to my friends. What curst
fools those speculating buffoons must be _not_ to see that it is
unfit for their fair--or their booth!"

* * * * *

LETTER 409. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, January 22. 1821.

"Pray get well. I do not like your complaint. So, let me have a
line to say you are up and doing again. To-day I am thirty-three
years of age.

"Through life's road, &c. &c.[31]

"Have you heard that the 'Braziers' Company have, or mean to
present an address at Brandenburgh House, 'in armour,' and with all
possible variety and splendour of brazen apparel?

"The Braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass
An address, and present it themselves all in brass--
A superfluous pageant--for, by the Lord Harry,
They'll find where they're going much more than they carry.

There's an Ode for you, is it not?--worthy

"Of * * * *, the grand metaquizzical poet,
A man of vast merit, though few people know it;
The perusal of whom (as I told _you_ at Mestri)
I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry.

"Mestri and Fusina are the 'trajects, or common ferries,' to
Venice; but it was from Fusina that you and I embarked, though 'the
wicked necessity of rhyming' has made me press Mestri into the
voyage.

"So, you have had a book dedicated to you? I am glad of it, and
shall be very happy to see the volume.

"I am in a peck of troubles about a tragedy of mine, which is fit
only for the (* * * * *) closet, and which it seems that the
managers, assuming a _right_ over published poetry, are determined
to enact, whether I will or no, with their own alterations by