OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.




LETTER 272. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 9. 1817.

"Your letters of the 18th and 20th are arrived. In my own I have
given you the rise, progress, decline, and fall, of my recent
malady. It is gone to the devil: I won't pay him so bad a
compliment as to say it came from him;--he is too much of a
gentleman. It was nothing but a slow fever, which quickened its
pace towards the end of its journey. I had been bored with it some
weeks--with nocturnal burnings and morning perspirations; but I am
quite well again, which I attribute to having had neither medicine
nor doctor thereof.

"In a few days I set off for Rome: such is my purpose. I shall
change it very often before Monday next, but do you continue to
direct and address to _Venice_, as heretofore. If I go, letters
will be forwarded: I say '_if_,' because I never know what I shall
do till it is done; and as I mean most firmly to set out for Rome,
it is not unlikely I may find myself at St. Petersburg.

"You tell me to 'take care of myself;'--faith, and I will. I won't