t of Mr. Kinnaird for the
theatre. I did as well as I could; but where I have not my choice
I pretend to answer for nothing. Mr. Hobhouse and myself are just
returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the
Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the
Wengen Alp; and seen torrents of nine hundred feet in fall, and
glaciers of all dimensions: we have heard shepherds' pipes, and
avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys
below us, like the spray of the ocean of hell. Chamouni, and that
which it inherits, we saw a month ago: but though Mont Blanc is
higher, it is not equal in wildness to the Jungfrau, the Eighers,
the Shreckhorn, and the Rose Glaciers.

"We set off for Italy next week. The road is within this month
infested with bandits, but we must take our chance and such
precautions as are requisite.

"Ever, &c.

"P.S. My best remembrances to Mr. Gifford. Pray say all that can be
said from me to him.

"I am sorry that Mr. Maturin did not like Phillips's picture. I
thought it was reckoned a good one. If he had made the speech on
the original, perhaps he would have been more readily forgiven by
the proprietor and the painter of the portrait * * *."

[Footnote 110: A Monody on the death of Sheridan, which was spoken at
Drury Lane theatre.]

* * * * *

LETTER 246. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Diodati, Sept. 30. 1816.

"I answered your obliging letters yesterday: to-day the Monody
arrived with its _title_-page, which is, I presume, a separate
publication. 'The request of a friend:'--

'Obliged by hunger and request of friends.'

I will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add,
'by a person of quality,' or 'of wit and honour about town.' Merely
say, 'written to be spoken at Drury Lane.' To-morrow I dine at
Copet. Saturday I strike tents for Italy. This evening, on the lake
in my boat with Mr. Hobhouse, the pole which sustains the mainsail
slipped in tacking, and struck me so violently on one of my legs
(the _worst_, luckily) as to make me do a foolish thing, viz. to
_faint_--a downright swoon; the thing must have jarred some nerve
or other, for the bone is not injured, and hardly painful (it is
six hours since), and cost Mr. Hobhouse some