"The pictures of Phillips I consider as _mine_, all three; and the one (not the Arnaout) of the two best is much at _your service_, if you will accept it as a present.
"P.S. The expense of engraving from the miniature send me in my account, as it was destroyed by my desire; and have the goodness to burn that detestable print from it immediately.
"To make you some amends for eternally pestering you with alterations, I send you Cobbett to confirm your orthodoxy.
"One more alteration of _a_ into _the_ in the MS.; it must be--'The _heart whose softness_,' &c.
"Remember--and in the inscription, 'To the Right Honourable Lord Holland,' _without_ the previous names, Henry," &c.
"More work for the _Row_. I am doing my best to beat 'The Giaour'--_no_ difficult task for any one but the author."
"I have no time to _cross_-investigate, but I believe and hope all is right. I care less than you will believe about its success, but I can't survive a single _misprint_: it _chokes_ me to see words misused by the printers. Pray look over, in case of some eyesore escaping me.
"P.S. Send the earliest copies to Mr. Frere, Mr. Canning, Mr. Heber, Mr. Gifford, Lord Holland, Lord Melbourne (Whitehall), Lady Caroline Lamb, (Brocket), Mr. Hodgson (Cambridge), Mr. Merivale, Mr. Ward, from the author."
"You wanted some reflections, and I send you _per Selim_ (see his speech in Canto 2d, page 46.), eighteen lines in decent couplets, of a pensive, if not an _ethical_ tendency. One more revise--positively the last, if decently done--at any rate the _pen_ultimate. Mr. Canning's approbation (_if_ he did approve) I need not say makes me proud.[110] As to printing, print as you will and how you will--by itself, if you like; but let me have a few copies in _sheets_.
"You must pardon me once more, as it is all for your good: it must be thus--
"He makes a solitude, and calls it peace.
'_Makes_' is closer to the passage of Tacitus, from which the line is taken, and is, besides, a stronger word than '_leaves_'
"Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease-- He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace."
[Footnote 110: Mr. Canning's note was as follows:--"I received the books, and, among them, The Bride of Abydos. It is very, very beautiful. Lord Byron (when I met him, one day, at dinner at Mr. Ward's) was so kind as to promise to give me a copy of it. I mention this, not to save my purchase, but because I should be really flattered by the present."]