tag rhymes and turn stanzas as much as you please. As for the
'_orthodox_,' let us hope they will buy, on purpose to abuse--you
will forgive the one, if they will do the other. You are aware that
any thing from my pen must expect no quarter, on many accounts; and
as the present publication is of a nature very different from the
former, we must not be sanguine.

"You have given me no answer to my question--tell me fairly, did
you show the MS. to some of your corps?--I sent an introductory
stanza to Mr. Dallas, to be forwarded to you; the poem else will
open too abruptly. The stanzas had better be numbered in Roman
characters. There is a disquisition on the literature of the
modern Greeks and some smaller poems to come in at the close. These
are now at Newstead, but will be sent in time. If Mr. D. has lost
the stanza and note annexed to it, write, and I will send it
myself.--You tell me to add two Cantos, but I am about to visit my
_collieries_ in Lancashire on the 15th instant, which is so
unpoetical an employment that I need say no more. I am, sir, your
most obedient," &c.

The manuscripts of both his poems having been shown, much against
his own will, to Mr. Gifford, the opinion of that gentleman was
thus reported to him by Mr. Dallas:--"Of your Satire he spoke
highly; but this poem (Childe Harold) he pronounced not only the
best you have written, but equal to any of the present age."

* * * * *

LETTER 66. TO MR. DALLAS.