ough--confound it!"

[Footnote 75: This is written on a separate slip of paper enclosed.]

* * * * *

LETTER 132. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Oct. 12. 1813.

"You must look The Giaour again over carefully; there are a few
lapses, particularly in the last page.--'I _know_ 'twas false; she
could not die;' it was, and ought to be--'I _knew_.' Pray observe
this and similar mistakes.

"I have received and read the British Review. I really think the
writer in most points very right. The only mortifying thing is the
accusation of imitation. _Crabbe_'s passage I never saw[76]; and
Scott I no further meant to follow than in his _lyric_ measure,
which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who likes it. The Giaour
is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous; and I think his
fate and his feelings will meet with few proselytes. I shall be
very glad to hear from or of you, when you please; but don't put
yourself out of your way on my account."

[Footnote 76: The passage referred to by the Reviewers is in the poem
entitled "Resentment;" and the following is, I take for granted, the
part which Lord Byron is accused by them of having imitated:--

"Those are like wax--apply them to the fire,
Melting, they take th' impressions you desire;
Easy to mould, and fashion as you please,
And again moulded with an equal ease:
Like smelted iron these the forms retain;
But, once impress'd, will never melt again."
]

* * * * *

LETTER 133. TO MR. MOORE.

"Bennet Street, August 22. 1813.

"As our late--I might say, deceased--correspondence had too much of
the town-life leaven in it, we will now, 'paulo majora,' prattle a
little of literature in all its branches; and first of the
first--criticism. The Prince is at Brighton, and Jackson, the
boxer, gone to Margate, having, I believe, decoyed Yarmouth to see
a milling in that polite neighbourhood. Made. de Stael Holstein has
lost one of her young barons, who has been carbonadoed by a vile
Teutonic adjutant,--kilt and killed in a coffee-house at
Scrawsenhawsen. Corinne is, of course, what all mothers must
be,--but will, I venture to prophesy, do what few mothers
could--write an Essay upon it. She cannot exist without a
grievance--and somebody to see, or read, how much grief becomes