But I neither love ye, nor fear ye; and
though I buy with ye and sell with ye, and talk with ye, I will
neither eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. They made me,
without my search, a species of popular idol; they, without reason or
judgement, beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the
image from its pedestal; it was not broken with the fall, and they
would, it seems, again replace it,--but they shall not.
You ask about my health: about the beginning of the year I was in a
state of great exhaustion ... and I was obliged to reform my 'way of
life', which was conducting me from the 'yellow leaf' to the ground,
with all deliberate speed. I am better in health and morals, and very
much yours, &c.--
PS. I have read Hodgson's '_Friends_'. He is right in defending Pope
against the bastard pelicans of the poetical winter day, who add
insult to their parricide, by sucking the blood of the parent of
English _real_ poetry,--poetry without fault,--and then spurning the
bosom which fed them.
TO THE SAME
_The cemetery at Bologna_
Bologna, 7 _June_, 1819.
... I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino
and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the
beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides
the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me
of the grave-digger in _Hamlet_. He has a collection of capuchins'
skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said,
'This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty--one of my best
friends.
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