will disburse to me (_via_ Kinnaird) _six_ hundred guineas. You
will perhaps be surprised that I set the same price upon this as
upon the Drama; but, besides that I look upon it as _good_, I won't
take less than three hundred guineas for any thing. The two
together will make you a larger publication than the 'Siege' and
'Parisina;' so you may think yourself let off very easy: that is to
say, if these poems are good for any thing, which I hope and
believe.

"I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am seeing sights,
and have done nothing else, except the new third Act for you. I
have this morning seen a live pope and a dead cardinal: Pius VII.
has been burying Cardinal Bracchi, whose body I saw in state at the
Chiesa Nuova. Rome has delighted me beyond every thing, since
Athens and Constantinople. But I shall not remain long this visit.
Address to Venice.

"Ever, &c.

"P.S. I have got my saddle-horses here, and have ridden, and am
riding, all about the country."

* * * * *

From the foregoing letters to Mr. Murray, we may collect some curious
particulars respecting one of the most original and sublime of the noble
poet's productions, the Drama of Manfred. His failure (and to an extent
of which the reader shall be enabled presently to judge), in the
completion of a design which he had, through two Acts, so magnificently
carried on,--the impatience with which, though conscious of this