e Spanish * * *, that has
her petticoats over Lucca, had actually condemned a poor devil to
the stake, for stealing the wafer box out of a church. Shelley and
I, of course, were up in arms against this piece of piety, and have
been disturbing every body to get the sentence changed. * * is gone
to see what can be done.

"B."

[Footnote 71: Mr. Galignani having expressed a wish to be furnished with
a short Memoir of Lord Byron, for the purpose of prefixing it to the
French edition of his works, I had said jestingly in a preceding letter
to his Lordship, that it would he but a fair satire on the disposition
of the world to "bemonster his features," if he would write for the
public, English as well as French, a sort of mock-heroic account of
himself, outdoing, in horrors and wonders, all that had been yet related
or believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder
in Florence far behind.]

[Footnote 72: The following are the lines enclosed in this letter. In
one of his Journals, where they are also given, he has subjoined to them
the following note:--"I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added
now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa.

"Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

"What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled.
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can _only_ give glory?

"Oh Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

"_There_ chiefly I sought thee, _there_ only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."]

* * * * *

LETTER 473. TO MR. SHELLEY.

"December 12. 1821.

"My dear Shelley,

"Enclosed is a note for you from ----. His reasons are all very
true, I dare say, and it might and may be of personal inconvenience
to us. But that does not appear to me to be a rea