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LETTERS TO LEIGH HUNT.[1]
Letter I.
Lyons, March 22, 1818.
My dear Friend,—Why did you not wake me that night before we left England, you and Marianne? I take this as rather an unkind piece of kindness in you; but which, in consideration of the six hundred miles between us, I forgive.
We have journeyed towards the spring that has been hastening to meet us from the south; and though our weather was at first abominable, we have now warm sunny days, and soft winds, and a sky of deep azure, the most serene I ever saw. The heat in this city to-day, is like that of London in the midst of summer. My spirits and health sympathize in the change. Indeed, before I left London, my spirits were as feeble as my health, and I had demands upon them which I found difficult to supply. I have read Foliage:—with most of the poems I was already familiar. What a delightful poem the "Nymphs" is! especially the second part. It is truly poetical in the intense and emphatic sense of the word. If six hundred miles were not between us, I should say what pity that glib was not omitted, and that the poem is not as faultless as it is beautiful. But for fear I should spoil your next poem, I will not let slip a word on the subject. Give my love to Marianne and her sister, and
- ↑ Originally printed by Leigh Hunt in his work on Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries, 1828; afterwards included by Mrs. Shelley in her collection of Shelley's Letters from Abroad.—Ed.