s to the M * * on horseback. Once I led
him into a ditch over which I had passed as usual, forgetting to warn my
convoy; once I led him nearly into the river, instead of on the
_moveable_ bridge which incommodes passengers; and twice did we both run
against the Diligence, which, being heavy and slow, did communicate less
damage than it received in its leaders, who were _terra_fied by the
charge; thrice did I lose him in the grey of the gloaming, and was
obliged to bring-to to his distant signals of distance and
distress;--all the time he went on talking without intermission, for he
was a man of many words. Poor fellow! he died a martyr to his new
riches--of a second visit to Jamaica.

"'I'd give the lands of Deloraine
Dark Musgrave were alive again!'

that is,--

"I would give many a sugar cane
M * * L * * were alive again!"]

[Footnote 27: The following passage from the letter of mine, to which
the above was an answer, will best explain what follows:--With respect
to the newspaper, it is odd enough that Lord * * * * and myself had been
(about a week or two before I received your letter) speculating upon
your assistance in a plan somewhat similar, but more literary and less
regularly-periodical in its appearance. Lord * *, as you will see by his
volume of Essays, if it reaches you, has a very sly, dry, and pithy way
of putting sound truths, upon politics and manners, and whatever scheme
we adopt, he will be a very useful and active ally in it, as he has a
pleasure in writing quite inconceivable to a poor hack scribe like me,
who always feel, about my art, as the French husband did when he found a
man making love to his (the Frenchman's) wife:--' Comment,
Monsieur,--sans y etre _oblige_!' When I say this, however, I mean it
only of the executive part of writing; for the imagining, the shadowing
out of the future work is, I own, a delicious fool's paradise."]

* * * * *

LETTER 405. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, January 4. 1821.

"I just see, by the papers of Galignani, that there is a new
tragedy of great expectation, by Barry Cornwall. Of what I have
read of his works Hiked the _Dramatic_ Sketches, but thought his
Sicilian Story and Marcian Colonna, in rhyme, quite spoilt, by I
know not what affectation of Wordsworth, and Moore, and myself, all
mixed up into a kind of chaos. I think him very likely to produce a
good tragedy, if