e world's
heart; and while many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall
prostrate before its grandeur. Talk of AEschylus and his
Prometheus!--here is the true spirit both of the Poet--and the Devil."

"February 9. 1822.

"Do not take it into your head, my dear B. that the tide is at all
turning against you in England. Till I see some symptoms of people
_forgetting_ you a little, I will not believe that you lose ground. As
it is, 'te veniente die, te, decedente,'--nothing is hardly talked of
but you; and though good people sometimes bless themselves when they
mention you, it is plain that even _they_ think much more about you
than, for the good of their souls, they ought. Cain, to be sure, _has_
made a sensation; and, grand as it is, I regret, for many reasons, you
ever wrote it. * * For myself, I would not give up the _poetry_ of
religion for all the wisest results that _philosophy_ will ever arrive
at. Particular sects and creeds are fair game enough for those who are
anxious enough about their neighbours to meddle with them; but our faith
in the Future is a treasure not so lightly to be parted with; and the
dream of immortality (if philosophers will have it a dream) is one that,
let us hope, we shall carry into our last sleep with us."[77]

[Footnote 77: It is to this sentence Lord Byron refers at the conclusion
of his letter, March 4.]

"February 19. 1822.

"I have written to the Longmans to try the ground, for I do _not_ think
Galignani the man for you. The only thing he can do is what we can do,
ourselves, without him,--and that is, employ an English bookseller.
Paris, indeed, might be convenient for such refugee works as are set
down in the _Index Expurgatorius_ of London; and if you have any
political catamarans to explode, this is your place. But, _pray_, let
them be only political ones. Boldness, and even licence, in politics,
does good,--actual, present good; but, in religion, it profits neither
here nor hereafter; and, for myself, such a horror have I of both
extremes on this subject, that I know not _which_ I hate most, the bold,
damning bigot, or the bold, annihilating infidel. 'Furiosa res est in
tenebris impetus;'--and much as we are in the dark, even the wisest of
us, upon these matters, a little modesty, in unbelief as well as belief,
best becomes us. You will easily guess that, in all this, I am thinking
not so much of you, as of a friend and, at present, companion of yours,
whose influe