or the flatterer would there reach me in spite of all; but in Italy
we know little of literary England, and think less, except what
reaches us through some garbled and brief extract in some miserable
gazette. For _two years_ (excepting two or three articles cut out
and sent to _you_ by the post) I never read a newspaper which was
not forced upon me by some accident, and know, upon the whole, as
little of England as you do of Italy, and God knows _that_ is
little enough, with all your travels, &c. &c. &c. The English
travellers _know Italy as you_ know Guernsey: how much is _that_?

"If any thing occurs so violently gross or personal as requires
notice, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird will let me _know_; but of _praise_ I
desire to hear _nothing_.

"You will say, 'to what tends all this?' I will answer THAT;--to
keep my mind _free and unbiassed_ by all paltry and personal
irritabilities of praise or censure--to let my genius take its
natural direction, while my feelings are like the dead, who know
nothing and feel nothing of all or aught that is said or done in
their regard.

"If you can observe these conditions, you will spare yourself and
others some pain: let me not be worked upon to rise up; for if I
do, it will not be for a little. If you _cannot_ observe these
conditions, we shall cease to be correspondents,--but not
_friends_, for I shall always be yours ever and truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S. I have taken these resolutions not from any irritation
against you or _yours_, but simply upon reflection that all
reading, either praise or censure, of myself has done me harm. When
I was in Switzerland and Greece, I was out of the way of hearing
either, and _how I wrote there!_--In Italy I am out of the way of
it too; but latterly, partly through my fault, and partly through
your kindness in wishing to send me the _newest_ and most
periodical publications, I have had a crowd of Reviews, &c. thrust
upon me, which have bored me with their jargon, of one kind or
another, and taken off my attention from greater objects. You have
also sent me a parcel of trash of poetry, for no reason that I can
conceive, unless to provoke me to write a new 'English Bards.' Now
_this_ I wish to avoid; for if ever I _do_, it will be a strong
production; and I desire peace as