"I have finished (that is, written--the file comes afterwards)
ninety and eight stanzas of the fourth Canto, which I mean to be
the concluding one. It will probably be about the same length as
the _third_, being already of the dimensions of the first or second
Cantos. I look upon parts of it as very good, that is, if the three
former are good, but this we shall see; and at any rate, good or
not, it is rather a different style from the last--less
metaphysical--which, at any rate, will be a variety. I sent you the
shaft of the column as a specimen the other day, _i.e._ the first
stanza. So you may be thinking of its arrival towards autumn, whose
winds will not be the only ones to be raised, _if so be as how
that_ it is ready by that time.

"I lent Lewis, who is at Venice, (in or on the Canalaccio, the
Grand Canal,) your extracts from Lalla Rookh and Manuel[6], and,
out of contradiction, it may be, he likes the last, and is not much
taken with the first, of these performances. Of Manuel, I think,
with the exception of a few capers, it is as heavy a nightmare as
was ever bestrode by indigestion.

"Of the extracts I can but judge as extracts, and I prefer the
'Peri' to the 'Silver Veil.' He seems not so much at home in his
versification of the 'Silver Veil,' and a little embarrassed with
his horrors; but the conception of the character of the impostor
is fine, and the plan of great scope for his genius,--and I doubt
not that, as a whole, it will be very Arabesque and beautiful.

"Your late epistle is not the most abundant in information, and has
not yet been succeeded by any other; so that I know nothing of your