You have claim to a seat here at my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on Fishstreet Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat.

What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears?-cry, baby, put its finger in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty moppet!

Mister Adams- -'odso, I honour your coat-pray do us the favour to read to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipslop-the twenty and second in your portmanteau there on Female Incontinence-the same it will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the time of the day.

-, you look wise. Pray

Mr. correct that error.

Mr. Hazlitt, I cannot indulge you in your definition. I must fine you a bumper, or a paradox. We will have nothing said or done syllogistically this day. Remove those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shins of his apprehension stumbling across them.

Master Stephen, you are late. Ha! Cokes, is it you?-Aguecheek, my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.-Master Shallow, your worship's poor servant to command. Master Silence, I will use few words with you. Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in somewhere. You six will engross all the poor wit of the company to day.-I know it, I know it.

"Ha! honest R, my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over-new, threadbare as thy stories-what dost thou flitting about the world at this rate?-Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to read long ago.-Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, thou canst hawk a volume or two.

Good Grenville Stron, is flown.

thy last pa

King Pandion, he is dead,

All thy friends are lapt in leadNevertheless, noble R, come in, and take your seat here, between Armado and Quisada, for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly ornature of well-apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be happy with either, situated between those two ancient spinsters-when I forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile-as if Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands of periods must revolve, before the mirror of courtesy could have given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly-propertied and meritoriousequal damsels.

To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our Fools' Banquet beyond its appropriate day,for I fear the second of April is not many hours distant-in sober verity I will confess a truth to thee, reader. I love a Fool-as naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived not below the surface of the matter, I read those Parables, not guessing at their involved wisdom, I had more yearnings towards that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; and, prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my apprehension, somewhat unfeminine wariness of their competitors, I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a tendre, for those five thoughtless virgins. I have never made an acquaintance since, that lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any

that had not some tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say, a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. It is ob

served, that "the foolisher the fowl or fish, woodcocks,—dotterells,— cod's-heads, &c.-the finer the flesh thereof," and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, minions of the goddess, and her white boys?-Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are the April Fool. ELIA.

1st April, 1821.

DEAR SIR,-In the 44th page, vol. 1st, of Turner's Travels (which you lately sent me), it is stated that "Lord Byron, when he expressed such confidence of its practicability, seems to have forgotten that Leander swam both ways, with and against the tide; whereas he (Lord Byron) only performed the easiest part of the task, by swimming with it from Europe to Asia."-I certainly could not have forgotten what is known to every school-boy, that Leander crossed in the night, and returned towards the morning. My object was to ascertain that the Hellespont could be crossed at all by swimming-and in this Mr. Ebenhead and myself both succeeded— the one in an hour and ten minutes, the other in one hour and five minutes-the tide was not in our favour, on the contrary, the great difficulty was to bear up against the current; which, so far from helping us to the Asiatic side, set us down right to wards the Archipelago.-Neither Mr. Ebenhead, myself, nor, I will venture to add, any person on board the frigate, from Captain (now Admiral) Bathurst, downwards, had any notion of a difference of the current on the Asiatic side, of which Mr. Turner speaks. I never heard of it till this moment, or I would have taken the other course. Lieut. Ebenhead's sole motive, and mine also, for setting out

Ravenna, 21st Feb. 1821.

from the European side was, that the little Cape above Sestos was a more prominent starting place, and the frigate which lay below, close under the Asiatic castle, formed a better point of view for us to move towards; and, in fact, we landed immediately below it.—Mr. Turner says, “whatever is thrown into the stream on this part of the European bank, must arrive at the Asiatic shore." This is so far from being the case, that it must arrive in the Archipelago if left to the current, although a strong wind from the Asiatic side might have such an effect occasionally.

Mr. Turner attempted the passage from the Asiatic side, and failed; "after five and twenty minutes, in which he did not advance a hundred yards, he gave it up, from complete exhaustion.' This is very possible, and might have occurred to him just as readily on the European side. I particularly stated, and Mr. Hobhouse has done so also, that we were obliged to make the real passage of one mile, extend to between three and four, owing to the force of the stream. I can assure Mr. Turner, that his success would have given me great pleasure, as it would have added one more instance to the proofs of its practicability.—It is not quite fair in him to infer, that because he failed, Leander could not succeed. There are still four, instances on re

cord, a Neapolitan, a young Jew, Mr. Ebenhead, and myself,-the two last were in the presence of hundreds of English witnesses. With regard to the difference of the current, I perceived none; it is favourable to the swimmer on neither side, but may be stemmed by plunging into the sea a considerable way above the opposite point of the coast, which the swimmer wishes to make, but still bearing up against it-it is strong, but if you calculate well, you may reach land. My own experience, and that of others, bids me pronounce the passage of Leander perfectly practicable: any young man in good health, and with tolerable skill in swimming, might succeed in it from either side. I was three hours in swimming across the Tagus, which is much more hazardous, being two hours longer than the passage of the Hellespont. Of what may be done in swimming, I shall mention one more instance. In 1818, the Chevalier Mingaldo, (a gentleman of Bassano) a good swimmer, wished to swim with my friend, Mr. Alexander Scott, and myself: as he seemed particularly anxious on the subject, we indulged him.-We all three started from the Island of the Lido, and swam to Venice.-At the entrance of the Grand Canal, Scott and I were a good way a-head, and we saw no more of our foreign friend; which, however, was of no consequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes, and pick him up. Scott swam on till past the Rialto, where he got out-less from fatigue than chill, having been four hours in the water, without rest, or stay, except what is to be obtained by floating on one's back:-this being the condition of our performance. I continued my course on to Santa Chiara, comprising the whole of the Grand Canal, (beside the distance from the Lido) and got out where the Laguna once more opens to Fusina. I had been in the water, by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes. To this match, and during the greater part of its performance, Mr. Hoppner, the Consul General, was witness, and it is well known to many others. Mr. Turner can easily verify the fact, if

he thinks it worth while, by referring to Mr. Hoppner. The distance we could not accurately ascertain, it was of course considerable.

I crossed the Hellespont in one hour and ten minutes only. I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution than I was when I passed the Dardanelles, and yet two years ago I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsersan accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. My two companions were also four hours in the water. Mingaldo might be about thirty years of age, Scott about six and twenty. With this experience in swimming at different periods of age, not only on the spot, but elsewhere, of various persons, what is there to make me doubt that Leander's exploit was perfectly practicable? If three individuals did more than passing the Hellespont, why should he have done less? But Mr. Turner failed, and naturally seeking a plausible excuse for his failure, lays the blame on the Asiatic side of the strait-to me the cause is evident. He tried to swim directly across, instead of going higher up to take the vantage.-He might as well have tried to fly over Mount Athos.

That a young Greek of the heroic times, in love, and with his limbs in full vigour, might have succeeded in such an attempt, is neither wonderful nor doubtful. Whether he attempted it or not is another question, because he might have had a small boat to save him the trouble.

I am, your's, very truly,

BYRON.

P. S. Mr. Turner says that the swimming from Europe to Asia was "the easiest part of the task." I doubt whether Leander found it so, as it was the return; however, he had several hours between the intervals. The argument of Mr. T. "that higher up or lower down the strait widens so considerably, that he would save little labour by his starting," is only good for indifferent swimmers.-A man of any practice or skill will always consider the distance less than the strength of the