tter for _him_ that I should.

"I have had no other news from England, except a letter from Barry
Cornwall, the bard, and my old school-fellow. Though I have
sickened you with letters lately, believe me

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. In your last letter you say, speaking of Shelley, that you
would almost prefer the 'damning bigot' to the 'annihilating
infidel.'[75] Shelley believes in immortality, however--but this by
the way. Do you remember Frederick the Great's answer to the
remonstrance of the villagers whose curate preached against the
eternity of hell's torments? It was thus:--'If my faithful subjects
of Schrausenhaussen prefer being eternally damned, let them.'

"Of the two, I should think the long sleep better than the agonised
vigil. But men, miserable as they are, cling so to any thing like
life, that they probably would prefer damnation to quiet. Besides,
they think themselves so _important_ in the creation, that nothing
less can satisfy their pride--the insects!"

[Footnote 75: It will be seen from the extract I shall give presently of
the passage to which he refers, that he wholly mistook my meaning.]

* * * * *

It is Dr. Clarke, I think, who gives, in his Travels, rather a striking
account of a Tartar whom he once saw exercising a young, fiery horse,
upon a spot of ground almost surrounded by a steep precipice, and
describes the wantonness of courage with which the rider, as if
delighting in his own peril, would, at times, dash, with loose rein,
towards the giddy verge. Something of the same breathless apprehension
with which the traveller viewed that scene, did the unchecked daring of
Byron's genius inspire in all who watched its course,--causing them, at
the same moment, to admire and tremble, and, in those more especially
who loved him, awakening a sort of instinctive impulse to rush forward
and save him from his own headlong strength. But, however natural it was
in friends to give way to this feeling, a little reflection upon his now
altered character might have forewarned them that such interference
would prove as little useful to him as safe for themselves; and it is
not without some surprise I look back upon my own temerity and
presumption in supposing that, let loose as he was now, in the full
pride and consciousness of strength, with the wide regions of thought
outstretching before him, any