wiseacres!

"You don't deserve a long letter--nor a letter at all--for your
silence. You have got a new Bourbon, it seems, whom they have
christened 'Dieu-donné;'--perhaps the honour of the present may be
disputed. Did you write the good lines on ----, the Laker? * *

"The Queen has made a pretty theme for the journals. Was there ever
such evidence published? Why, it is worse than 'Little's Poems' or
'Don Juan.' If you don't write soon, I will 'make you a speech.'
Yours," &c.

[Footnote 1: I had mistaken the name of the lady he enquired after, and
reported her to him as dead. But, on the receipt of the above letter, I
discovered that his correspondent was Madame Sophie Gay, mother of the
celebrated poetess and beauty, Mademoiselle Delphine Gay.]

* * * * *

LETTER 395. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 8bre 25°, 1820.

"Pray forward the enclosed to Lady Byron. It is on business.

"In thanking you for the Abbot, I made four grand mistakes, Sir
John Gordon was not of Gight, but of Bogagicht, and a son of
Huntley's. He suffered _not_ for his loyalty, but in an
insurrection. He had _nothing_ to do with Loch Leven, having been
dead some time at the period of the Queen's confinement: and,