"that I shall leave no great poem be"hind me ;--that is, I suppose you mean 66 66 66 by great, a heavy poem, or a weighty poem; I believe they are synonymous. You say that 'Childe Harold' is une qual; that the last two Cantos are far "superior to the two first. I know it is a "thing without form or substance,—a voy 66 66 66 age pittoresque. But who reads Milton? My opinion as to the inequality of my poems is this, that one is not better or worse than another. And as to epics, have you not got enough of Southey's? "There's Joan d'Arc,' The Curse of 66 66 Kehama,' and God knows how many more curses, down to The Last of the "Goths!' If you must have an epic, 66 there's 'Don Juan' for you. I call that "an epic it is an epic as much in the 66 spirit of our day as the Iliad was in "Homer's.* Love, religion, and politics "form the argument, and are as much "the cause of quarrels now as they were "then. There is no want of Parises and "Menelauses, and of Crim.-cons. into the 66 bargain. In the very first Canto you "have a Helen. Then, I shall make my "hero a perfect Achilles for fighting, -a 66 man who can snuff a candle three suc❝cessive times with a pistol-ball: and, de 66 66 pend upon it, my moral will be a good one; not even Dr. Johnson should be "able to find a flaw in it! "Some one has possessed the Guiccioli * Only five Cantos of Don Juan' were written when I held this conversation with him, which was committed to paper half an hour after it occurred. "with a notion that my Don Juan' and "the Don Giovanni of the Opera are the same person; and to please her I have "discontinued his history and adventures; "but if I should resume them, I will tell you how I mean him to go on. I left "him in the seraglio there. I shall make 66 66 66 66 66 one of the favourites, a Sultana, (no less a personage,) fall in love with him, and carry him off from Constantinople. Such elopements are not uncommon, nor un"natural either, though it would shock "the ladies to say they are ever to blame. 66 66 66 Well, they make good their escape to Russia; where, if Juan's passion cools, and I don't know what to do with the "lady, I shall make her die of the plague. "There are accounts enough of the 66 66 plague to be met with, from Boccaccio to De Foe ;--but I have seen it myself, "and that is worth all their descriptions. "As our hero can't do without a mistress, "he shall next become man-mistress to "Catherine the Great. Queens have had strange fancies for more ignoble people "before and since. I shall, therefore, "make him cut out the ancestor of the 66 young Russian, and shall send him, "when he is hors de combat, to England 66 as her ambassador. In his suite he shall "have a girl whom he shall have rescued 66 during one of his northern campaigns, "who shall be in love with him, and he "not with her. "You see I am true to Nature in “ making the advances come from the "females. I shall next draw a town and 66 66 country life at home, which will give me room for life, manners, scenery, &c. I "will make him neither a dandy in town, nor a fox-hunter in the country. He "shall get into all sorts of scrapes, and at 66 length end his career in France. Poor Juan shall be guillotined in the French "Revolution! What do you think of my plot? It shall have twenty-four books "too, the legitimate number. Episodes "it has, and will have, out of number; " and my spirits, good or bad, must serve "for the machinery. If that be not an "epic, if it be not strictly according to 66 66 Aristotle, I don't know what an epic poem means." Murray," said he, "pretends to have "lost money by my writings, and pleads 66 poverty: but if he is poor, which is some "what problematical to me, pray who is |