66 Feeling,' and 'La Roche' in 'The 'Werner' was written in twenty-eight days, and one entire act at a sitting. The MS. had scarcely an alteration in it for pages together. I remember retaining in my memory one passage, which he repeated to me, and which I consider quite Shakspearian. "Four Five-six hours I have counted, like the guard That hollow tongue of time, which, even when ment With every clang. 'Tis a perpetual knell, In the grave of possession; whilst the knoll "What can be expected," said I to him, "from a five-act play, finished in four weeks?" 66 66 "I mean to dedicate 'Werner,' said he, to Goëthe. I look upon him as the greatest genius that the age has pro"duced. I desired Murray to inscribe "his name to a former work; but he "tends my letter containing the order pre came too late.--It would have been more worthy of him than this." 66 "I have a great curiosity about every thing relating to Goethe, and please myself with thinking there is some analogy between our characters and writ❝ings. So much interest do I take in 66 him, that I offered to give 100l. to any person who would translate his 'Me"moirs,' for my own reading.* Shelley "has sometimes explained part of them 66 to me. He seems to be very supersti 66 tious, and is a believer in astrology,"or rather was, for he was very young "when he wrote the first part of his Life. "I would give the world to read 'Faust' "in the original. I have been urging 66 Shelley to translate it; but he said "that the translator of 'Wallenstein' was "the only person living who could ven * An English translation of this interesting work has lately appeared, in 2 vols. 8vo. "ture to attempt it ;-that he had writ"ten to Coleridge, but in vain. For a "man to translate it, he must think as " he does." How do you explain," said I, first line, "the 'The sun thunders through the sky'?" "He speaks of the music of the spheres "in Heaven," said he, "where, as in Job, "the first scene is laid." "Since you left us," said Lord Byron, "I have seen Hobhouse for a few days. "Hobhouse is the oldest and the best "friend I have. What scenes we have witnessed together! Our friendship began at Cambridge. We led the same "sort of life in town, and travelled in my marriage, and was with me in 1816, "after my separation. We were at Ve 66 nice, and visited Rome together, in "1817. The greater part of my 'Childe "Harold' was composed when we were together, and I could do no less in gratitude than dedicate the complete poem to him. The First Canto was inscribed to one of the most beautiful little creatures I ever saw, then a mere child: Lady Charlotte Harley was my Ianthe. Hobhouse's Dissertation on Italian "literature is much superior to his Notes 66 on 'Childe Harold.' Perhaps he under"stood the antiquities better than Nibbi, |