in their Christianity, and what
he said when 'the tower of Siloam fell.'

"To-day is the 9th, and the 10th is my surviving daughter's
birth-day. I have ordered, as a regale, a mutton chop and a bottle
of ale. She is seven years old, I believe. Did I ever tell you that
the day I came of age I dined on eggs and bacon and a bottle of
ale? For once in a way they are my favourite dish and drinkable,
but as neither of them agree with me, I never use them but on great
jubilees--once in four or five years or so.

"I see somebody represents the Hunts and Mrs. Shelley as living in
my house: it is a falsehood. They reside at some distance, and I do
not see them twice in a month. I have not met Mr. Hunt a dozen
times since I came to Genoa, or near it.

"Yours ever," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 506. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Genoa, 10bre 25 deg.. 1822.

"I had sent you back the Quarterly, without perusal, having
resolved to read no more reviews, good, bad, or indifferent; but
'who can control his fate?' Galignani, to whom my English studies
are confined, has forwarded a copy of at least one half of it in
his indefatigable catch-penny weekly compilation; and as, 'like
honour, it came unlooked for,' I have looked through it. I must say
that, upon the _whole_, that is, the whole of the _half_ which I
have read (for the other half is to be the segment of Galignani's
next week's circular), it is extremely handsome, and any thing but
unkind or unfair. As I take the good in good part, I must not, nor
will not, quarrel with the bad. What the writer says of Don Juan is
harsh, but it is inevitable. He must follow, or at least not
directly oppose, the opinion of a prevailing, and yet not very
firmly seated, party. A Review may and will direct and 'turn awry'
the currents of opinion, but it must not directly oppose them. Don
Juan will be known by and by, for what it is intended,--a _Satire_
on _abuses_ of the present states of society, and not an eulogy of
vice. It may be now and then voluptuous: I can't help that.
Ariosto is worse; Smollett (see Lord Strutwell in vol. 2d of
Roderick Random) ten times worse; and Fielding no better. No girl
will ever be seduced by reading Don Juan:--no, no; she will go to
Little's poems and Rousseau's _romans_