en, any manner of harm,--that is, _as mere men_."

"The letter to the editor of the newspaper" is owned; but "it was not
on account of the criticism. It was because the criticism came down
in a frank _directed_ to Mrs. Bowles!!!"--(the italics and three
notes of admiration appended to Mrs. Bowles are copied verbatim from
the quotation), and Mr. Bowles was not displeased with the criticism,
but with the frank and the address. I agree with Mr. Bowles that the
intention was to annoy him; but I fear that this was answered by his
notice of the reception of the criticism. An anonymous letter-writer
has but one means of knowing the effect of his attack. In this he has
the superiority over the viper; he knows that his poison has taken
effect, when he hears the victim cry;--the adder is _deaf_. The best
reply to an anonymous intimation is to take no notice directly nor
indirectly. I wish Mr. Bowles could see only one or two of the
thousand which I have received in the course of a literary life,
which, though begun early, has not yet extended to a third part of
his existence as an author. I speak of _literary_ life only. Were I
to add _personal_, I might double the amount of _anonymous_ letters.
If he could but see the violence, the threats, the absurdity of the
whole thing, he would laugh, and so should I, and thus be both
gainers.

To keep up the farce,--within the last month of this present writing
(1821), I have had my life threatened in the same way which menaced
Mr. Bowles's fame,--excepting that the anonymous denunciation was
addressed to the Cardinal Legate of Romagna, instead of to Mrs.
Bowles. The Cardinal is, I believe, the elder lady of the two. I
append the menace in all its barbaric but literal Italian, that Mr.
Bowles may be convinced; and as this is the only "promise to pay,"
which the Italians ever keep, so my person has been at least as much
exposed to a "shot in the gloaming," from "John Heatherblutter" (see
Waverley), as ever Mr. Bowles's glory was from an editor. I am,
nevertheless, on horseback and lonely for some hours (_one_ of them
twilight) in the forest daily; and this, because it was my "custom in
the afternoon," and that I believe if the tyrant cannot escape amidst
his guards (should it be so written?), so the humbler individual
would find precautions useless.

Mr. Bowles has here the humility to say, that "he must succumb; for
with Lord Byron turned against him, he has no chance,"--a declaration