twenty years old,
according to appearances; a little romantic, but that sits well upon
youth, and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his
approaching me in my cavern. He brought me a message from an old
servant of my family (Joe Murray), and told me that _he_ (Mr. Coolidge)
had obtained a copy of my bust from Thorwaldsen at Rome, to send to
America. I confess I was more flattered by this young enthusiasm of a
solitary trans-Atlantic traveller, than if they had decreed me a statue
in the Paris Pantheon (I have seen emperors and demagogues cast down
from their pedestals even in my own time, and Grattan's name rased from
the street called after him in Dublin); I say that I was more flattered
by it, because it was _single, unpolitical_, and was without motive or
ostentation,--the pure and warm feeling of a boy for the poet he
admired. It must have been expensive, though;--_I_ would not pay the
price of a Thorwaldsen bust for any human head and shoulders, except
Napoleon's, or my children's, or some '_absurd womankind's_,' as
Monkbarns calls them,--or my sister's. If asked _why_, then, I sat for
my own?--Answer, that it was at the particular request of J.C. Hobhouse,
Esq. and for no one else. A _picture_ is a different matter;--every body
sits for their picture;--but a bust looks like putting up pretensions to
permanency, and smacks something of a hankering for _public_ fame rather
than private remembrance.

"Whenever an American requests to see me (which is not unfrequently), I
comply, firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom
by their firmness without excess; and, secondly, because these
trans-Atlantic visits, 'few and far between,' make me feel as if talking
with posterity from the other side of the Styx. In a century or two the
new English and Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old countries,
in all probability, as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia in
the older or earlier ages, as they are called."

* * * * *

LETTER 437. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, July 6. 1821.

"In agreement with a wish expressed by Mr. Hobhouse, it is my
determination to omit the stanza upon the _horse of Semiramis_ in
the fifth Canto of Don Juan. I mention this in case you are, or
intend to be, the publisher of the remaining Cantos.

"At the particular request of the Contessa G. I have promised _not_
to continue Don Juan. You wil