or forget that his conduct towards me has been certainly most
handsome during the last four or more years.

"I forgot to mention to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue[128]
(in blank verse) or Drama, from which 'The Incantation' is an
extract, begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in
three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable
kind. Almost all the persons--but two or three--are Spirits of the
earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a
kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the
cause of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about invoking
these Spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use; he at last
goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle, _in propria persona_,
to evocate a ghost, which appears, and gives him an ambiguous and
disagreeable answer; and in the third act he is found by his
attendants dying in a tower where he had studied his art. You may
perceive by this outline that I have no great opinion of this piece
of fantasy; but I have at least rendered it _quite impossible_ for
the stage, for which my intercourse with Drury Lane has given me
the greatest contempt.

"I have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present to
attempt the whole; but when I have, I will send it you, and you may
either throw it into the fire or not."

[Footnote 128: Manfred.]

* * * * *

LETTER 262. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, February 25. 1817.

"I wrote to you the other day in answer to your letter; at present
I would trouble you with a commission, if you would be kind enough
to undertake it.

"You, perhaps, know Mr. Love, the jeweller, of Old Bond Street? In
1813, when in the intention of returning to Turkey, I purchased of
him, and paid (_argent comptant_) for about a dozen snuff-boxes, of
more or less value, as presents for some of my Mussulman
acquaintance. These I have now with me. The other day, having
occasion to make an alteration in the lid of one (to place a
portrait in it), it has turned out to be _silver-gilt_ instead of
_gold_, for which last it was sold and paid for. This was
discovered by the workman in trying it, before taking off the
hinges and working upon the lid. I have of course recalled and
preserved the