"The unpublished things in your hands, in Douglas K.'s, and Mr.
John Murray's, are, 'Heaven and Earth, a lyrical kind of Drama upon
the Deluge, &c.;'--'Werner,' _now with you_;--a translation of the
First Canto of the Morgante Maggiore;--_ditto_ of an Episode in
Dante;--some stanzas to the Po, June 1st, 1819;--Hints from Horace,
written in 1811, but a good deal, _since_, to be omitted;--several
prose things, which may, perhaps, as well remain unpublished;--'The
Vision, &c. of Quevedo Redivivus' in verse.

"Here you see is 'more matter for a May morning;' but how much of
this can be published is for consideration. The Quevedo (one of my
best in that line) has appalled the Row already, and must take its
chance at Paris, if at all. The new Mystery is less speculative
than 'Cain,' and very pious; besides, it is chiefly lyrical. The
Morgante is the _best_ translation that ever was or will be made;
and the rest are--whatever you please to think them.

"I am sorry you think Werner even _approaching_ to any fitness for
the stage, which, with my notions upon it, is very far from my
present object. With regard to the publication, I have already
explained that I have no exorbitant expectations of either fame or
profit in the present instances; but wish them published because
they are written, which is the common feeling of all scribblers.

"With respect to 'Religion,' can I never convince you that I have
no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seems to
have frightened every body? Yet _they_ are nothing to the
expressions in Goethe's Faust (which are ten times hardier), and
not a whit more bold than those of Milton's Satan. My ideas of a
character may run away with me: like all imaginative men, I, of
course, embody myself with the character while I draw it, but not a
moment after the pen is from off the paper.

"I am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. As a proof, I am
educating my natural daughter a strict Catholic in a convent of
Romagna; for I think people can never have _enough_ of religion, if
they are to have any. I incline, myself, very much to the Catholic
doctrines; but if I am to write a drama, I must make my characters
speak as I conceive them likely to argue.

"As to poor Shelley, who is another bugbear to you and the worl