66 a patriot! Had he lived, perhaps Ire"land had not now been a land of He"lots." "What did you mean," asked I one day, "by that line in Beppo,'— 'Some play the devil, and then write a novel'?" 66 "I alluded," replied he, to a novel "that had some fame in consequence of "its being considered a history of my "life and adventures, character and exploits, mixed up with innumerable lies and lampoons upon others. Madame 66 66 de Staël asked me if the picture was "like me, and the Germans think it is 66 not a caricature. One of my foreign "biographers has tacked name, place, and 66 circumstance to the Florence fable, and gives me a principal instead of a subor"dinate part in a certain tragical history "therein narrated. Unfortunately for my 66 66 biographers, I was never at Florence for more than a few days in my life; and Fiorabella's beautiful flowers are not so 'quickly plucked or blighted. Hence, however, it has been alleged that mur"der is my instinct; and to make inno 66 cence my victim and my prey, part of 66 my nature. I imagine that this dark "hint took its origin from one of my "Notes in The Giaour,' in which I said 66 66 66 that the countenance of a person dying by stabs retained the character of fero city, or of the particular passion im printed on it, at the moment of dissolution. A sage reviewer makes this com"ment on my remark: It must have "been the result of personal observa"tion!' 66 66 66 But I am made out a very amiable person in that novel! The only thing belonging to me in it, is part of a let"ter; but it is mixed up with much fic"titious and poetical matter. 66 Shelley told me he was offered, by the "bookseller in Bond Street, no small sum "if he would compile the Notes of that "book into a story; but that he declined "the offer. But if I know "the authoress, I have seen letters of "hers much better written than any part "of that novel. A lady of my acquaint66 ance told that when that book was me, going to the press, she was threatened "with cutting a prominent figure in it if But the story would only 66 "furnish evidence of the unauthenticity of "the nature of the materials, and shew the 66 manner and spirit with which the piece "was got up.-Yet I don't know why I "have been led to talk about such non sense, which I paid no more attention "to than I have to the continual calum"nies and lies that have been unceasingly "circulated about me, in public prints, "and through anonymous letters. I got "a whole heap of them when I was at "Venice, and at last found out that I had to thank Mr. Sotheby for the greater 66 share of them. It was under the waspishness produced by this discovery that "I made him figure also in my 'Beppo' "a bustling Botherby,' &c. I always 66 66 thought him the most insufferable of bores, and the curse of the Hampbell, "as Edgeworth was of his club. There 66 was a society formed for the suppression "of Edgeworth, and sending him back "to Ireland;-but I should have left the 66 other to his 6 Snug coterie and literary lady,' "and to his 66 that Rogers pretended to take for an old arm-chair, "if he had not made himself an active 66 66 66 bore, by dunning me with disagreeable news, and, what was worse, and more nauseous and indigestible still, with his "criticisms and advice. 66 “When Galignani was about to publish a new edition of my works, he applied to |