not
paint a storm with the vessel under bare poles on a lee-shore. When
I get to land, I will try what is to be done, and, if I founder,
there be plenty of mine elders and betters to console Melpomene.

"When at Newstead, you must come over, if only for a day--should
Mrs. M. be _exigeante_ of your presence. The place is worth seeing,
as a ruin, and I can assure you there _was_ some fun there, even
in my time; but that is past. The ghosts [46], however, and the
gothics, and the waters, and the desolation, make it very lively
still.

"Ever, dear Tom, yours," &c.

[Footnote 46: It was, if I mistake not, during his recent visit to
Newstead, that he himself actually fancied he saw the ghost of the Black
Friar, which was supposed to have haunted the Abbey from the time of the
dissolution of the monasteries, and which he thus describes, from the
recollection perhaps of his own fantasy, in Don Juan:--

"It was no mouse, but, lo! a monk, array'd
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appear'd,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard:
His garments only a slight murmur made:
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he pass'd Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye."

It is said, that the Newstead ghost appeared, also, to Lord Byron's
cousin, Miss Fanny Parkins, and that she made a sketch of him from
memory.]

* * * * *

LETTER 197. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Newstead Abbey, Septembers. 1814.

"I am obliged by what you have sent, but would rather not see any
thing of the kind[47]; we have had enough of these things already,
good and bad, and next month you need not trouble yourself to
collect even the _higher_ generation--on my account. It gives me
much pleasure to hear of Mr. Hobhouse's and Mr. Merivale's good
entreatment by the journals you mention.

"I still think Mr. Hogg and yourself might make out an alliance.
_Dodsley's_ was, I believe, the last decent thing of the kind, and
_his_ had great success in its day, and lasted several years; but
then he had the double advantage of editing and publishing. The
Spleen, and several of _Gray's_ odes, much of _Shenstone_, and many
others of good repute, made their first appearance in his
collection. Now, with the su