stared when told that I was 'the real Simon Pure.- believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed Another asked me if I had not translated 'Tasso.' You could I suppose that any of my friends would be base see what Fame is! how accurate! how boundless! I don't enough to convey my carcass back to your soil.-I would know how others feel, but I am always the lighter and the not even feed your worms, if I could help it. better looked on when I have got rid of mine; it sits on me bike armour on the Lord Mayor's champion; and I got rid of all the husk of literature, and the attendant babble, by answering, that I had not translated Tasso, but a namesake had; and by the blessing of Heaven, I looked so little like a poet, that every body believed me." LETTER CCCXCIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "So, as Shakspeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who died at Venice, (see Richard 2d.) that he, after fighting Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens, His body to that pleasant country's ear.h, "Before I lefi Venice, I had returned to you your latą and Mr. Hobhouse's, sheets of Juan. Don't wait for farther answers from me, but address yours to Venice, as return there in a few days, or not for some time. All this usual. I know nothing of my own movements; I may I left Mr. Hoppner very well. "Bologna, June 7, 1819. “Tell Mr. Hobhouse that I wrote to him a few days ago from Ferrara. It will therefore be idle in him or you to wait for any farther answers or returns of proofs from depends on circumstances. Venice, as I have directed that no English letters be sent My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty, after me. The publication can be proceeded in without, her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her and I am already sick of your remarks, to which I think temper and her ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manot the least attention ought to be paid. nageable young lady. "Tell Mr. Hobhouse, that since I wrote to him, I had availed myself of my Ferrara letters, and found the society much younger and better there than at Venice. I am very much pleased with the little the shortness of my stay permitted me to see of the Gonfaloniere Count Mosti, and his family and friends in general. *I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterward went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb burialground, an original of a Custode, who reminded one of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them, said This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at forty-ons of my best friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they gave it me. I put it i lime, and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth and all, in excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went he brought joy; and whenever any one was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so artively, you might have taken him for a dancer-he joked -he laughed-oh! he was such a Frate as I never saw before, nor ever shall again! I * * "I have never heard any thing of Ada, the little Electra of * my Mycena. But there will have at least seen Romilly* shivered, who was one of come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. my assassins. When that man was doing his worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms—when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them-when he was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my household godst-did he think that, in less than three years, a natural event-a severe, domestic, but an expected and common calamity-would lay his carcass in a crossroad, or stamp his name in a Verdict of Lunary! Did he (who in his sexagenary **) reflect or consider what my feelings must have been, when wife, anu child, and sister, and name, and fame, and country, were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar-and this at a moment when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my while I was yet young, and might have reformed what mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointmentmight be wrong in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs! But he is in his grave, and What a long letter I have scribbled! * * "Yours, &c. "He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses tombs. I saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, "P. S. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the in the cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most buried fifty-three thousand persons. In showing some pleasing effect you can imagine." older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Barlorini, dead two centuries ago: he said, that on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold. Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna; for instance Martini Luigi Lucrezia Picini LETTER CCCXCIV. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Ravenna, June 20, 1819. * * "I wrote to you from Padua, and from Bologna, and since from Ravenna. I find my situation very agreeable, but want my horses very much, there being good riding in the environs. I can fix no time for my return to Veniceit may be soon or late-or not at all-it all depends on the Donna, whom I found very seriously in bed with a cough and spitting of blood, &c. all of which has subsided. * * * * * * Car any thing be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought; the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they * implore! There is all the helplessness, and humble hope, I found all the people here firmly persuaded that she would and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave never recover;-they were mistaken, however. 'implora pace. I hope whoever may survive me, and "My letters were useful as far as I employed them, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the I like both the place and people, though I don't trouble the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two latter more than I can help. She manages very.ellwords, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think * of pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall. I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I but if I come away with a me, ail of you, with your nonsensical prudery ?—publish stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon, I shall not be the two Cantos, and then you will see. I desired Mr astonished. I can't make him out at all-he visits me Kinnaird to speak to you on a little matter of business; frequently, and takes me out (like Whittington, the Lord either he has not spoken, or you have not answered. You Mayor) in a coach and six horses. The fact appears to are a pretty pair, but I will be even with you both. I be, that he is completely governed by her-for that matter, perceive that Mr. Hobhouse has been challenged by so am I. The people here do n't know what to make of Major Cartwright.-Is the Major 'so cunning of fence? as, as he had the character of jealousy with all his wives--why did not they fight?—they ought. this is the third. He is the richest of the Ravennese, by their own account, but is not popular among them. Now do, pray, send off Augustine, and carriage and cattle, "You are but a shabby fellow not to have written before. LETTER CCCXCV. TO MR. MURRAY. LETTER CCCXCVI. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Yours &c." "Ravenna, July 2, 1819. "Thanks for your letter and for Madame's. I will anconsign to you one or two receipts of Madame Mocenigo's swer it directly. Will you recollect whether I did not for house-rent-(I am not sure of this, but think I did-if not, they will be in my drawers)—and will you desire Mr. Dorville to have the goodness to see if Edgecombe has receipts to all payments hitherto made by him on my account, and that there are no debts at Venice? On your answer, I shall send order of farther remittance to carry on my household expenses, as my present return to Venice "The letters have been forwarded from Venice, but I very problematical; and trust that you will not have waited for farther alterations-nothing positive-every thing with me being indecisive and may happen-but I can say I will make none. You ask me to spare Romilly-ask the undecided, except the disgust which Venice excites when worms. His dust can suffer nothing from the truth being fairly compared with any other city in this part of Italy spoken-and if it could, how did he behave to me? You When I say Venice, I mean the Venetians the city itself may talk to the wind, which will carry the sound-and to is superb as its history-but the people are what I never the caves, which will echo you-but not to me, on the sub-thought them till they taught me to think so. ject of a * * * who wronged me-whether dead or alive. "Ravenna, June 29, 1819. "I have no time to return you the proofs-publish without them. I am glad you think the poesy good; and as to 'thinking of the effect,' think you of the sale, and leave me to piuck the porcupines who may point their quills at you. "I have been here (at Ravenna) these four weeks, having left Venice a month ago;-I came to see my 'Amica, the Countess Guiccioli, who has been, and still continues, very unwell. * * * * * * "The best way will be to leave Allegra with Antonio's spouse till I can decide something about her and myself— but I thought that you would have had an answer from Mrs. Vr.t-You have had bore enough with me and mine already. "I greatly fear that the Guiccioli is going into a consumption, to which her constitution tends. Thus it is with every thing and every body for whom I feel any thing like a real attachment; War, death, or discord, doth lay siege to them.' I never even could keep alive a dog that I liked or that liked me. Her symptoms are obst She is only twenty years old, but not of a strong constitu-nate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c. &c. tion. * * * * * She has a perpetual cough, and an intermittent fever, but bears up most gallantly in every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third wife) is the richest noble of Ravenna, and almost of Romagna; he is also not the youngest, being upwards of threescore, but in good preservation. All this will appear strange to you, who do not understand the meridian morality, nor our way of life in If it would not bore Mr. Dorville, I wish he would keep • such respects, and I cannot at present expound the differ- an eye on Edgecombe and on my other ragamuffins. I ence;-but you would find it much the same in these parts. might have more to say, but I am absorbed about La At Faenza there is Lord **** with an opera girl; and Gui. and her illness. I cannot tell you the effect it has at the inn in the same town is a Neapolitan Prince, who upon me. serves the wife of the Gonfaloniere of that city. I am on duty here so you see 'Cosi fan tutti e tutte.' "The horses came, &c. &c. and I have been galloping through the pine forest daily. "Believe me, &c. "I have my horses here, saddle as well as carriage, and ride or drive every day in the forest, the Pineta, the scene of Boccaccio's novel, and Dryden's fable of Honoria, &c. journey among the Bernese tyrants, and safe return. You "P. S. My benediction on Mrs. Hoppner, a pleasant &c.; and I see my Dama every day ✶ ✶✶✶ * but I feel seriously uneasy about her health, which seems If any thing happens to my present Amica, I have done *; ought to bring back a Platonic Bernese for my reformation. very precarious. In losing her, I should lose a being who with the passion for ever-it is my last love, has run great risks on my account, and whom I have every reason to love-but I must not think this possible. I do not know what I should do if she died, but I ought to blow my brains out--and I hope that I should. Her husband is a very polite personage, but I wish he would not carry me out in his coach and six, like Whittington and his cal. "You ask me if I mean to continue Don Juan, &c. How should I know? What encouragement do you give tinism, I have sickened myself of that, as was natural in As to liber the way I went on, and I have at least derived that advantage from vice, to love in the better sense of the word. This will be my last adventuret-I can hope no more to inspire attachment, and I trust never again to feel it." • The Vice-Consul of Mr. Hopner. ↑ An English lady, who, LETTER CCCXCVII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, August 1, 1819. "[Address your answer to Venice, however.] "De n't be alarmed. You will see me defend myself gayly-that is, if I happen to be in spirits; and by spirits, I don't mean your meaning of the word, but the spirit of a bull-dog when pinched, or a bull when pinned; it is then that they make best sport; and as my sensations under. an attack are probably a happy compound of the united: energies of these amiable animals, you may perhaps see what Marrall calls 'rare sport,' and some good tossing and goring, in the course of the controversy. But I must be in the right cue first, and I doubt I am almost too far off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. And then I have effeminated and enervated myself with love and the summer in these last two months. are as child's play in comparison. The fools think that LETTER CCCXCIX. TO MR. MURRAY. "Bologna, August 12, 1819. "I do not know how far I may be able to reply to your letter, for I am not very well to-day. Last night I went to the representation of Alfieri's Mirra, the last two acts of which threw me into convulsions. I do not mean by "I wrote to Mr. Hobhouse the other day, and foretold that word a lady's hysterics, but the agony of reluctant that Juan would either fall entirely or succeed completely; tears, and the choking shudder, which I do not often under there will be no medium. Appearances are not favour-go for fiction. This is but the second time for any thing under reality: the first was on seeing Kean's Sir Giles able; but as you write the day after publication, it can hardly be decided what opinion will predominate. You verreach. The worst was, that the 'Dama,' in whose box I was, went off in the same way, I really believe more seem in a fright, ana doubtless with cause. Come what may, I never will flatter the million's canting in any shape. from fright than any other sympathy-at least with the Circumstances may or may not have placed me at times players: but she has been ill and I have been ill, and we in a situation to lead the public opinion, but the public are all languid and pathetic this morning, with great opinion never led, nor ever shall lead, me. I will not sit expenditure of sal volatile. But, to return to your letter on a degraded throne; so pray put Messrs. * * π Tom Moore, or *** upon it; they will all of be transported with their coronation. or them "P. S. The Countess Guiccioli is much better than she was. I sent you, before leaving Venice, the real original sketch which gave rise to the Vampire,' &c. Did you go it?" of the 23d of July. but house is right-you are all right, and I am all wrong; obstinate and lazy-and there s the truth. "But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend Perry, who objects to the quick succession of fun and gravity, as if in that case the gravity did not (in intention, at least) heighten the fun. His metaphor is, that 'we are never scorched and drevched at the same time.' Blessings on his expe rience! Ask him these questions bout 'scorching and drenching.' Did he never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather? Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? Did he never swim in the sea at noonday with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool? Did he never draw his foot out of too hot water, d-ning his eyes and his valet's? Was he ever in a Turkish bath-that marble paradise of sherbet and **? Was he ever in a cauldron of boiling oil, like St. John? or in the sulphureous waves of h-l? (where he ought to be for his scorching and drenching at the same time.') Did he never tumble into a river or lake, fishing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank afterward, 'scorched and drenched,' like a true sportsman? 'Oh for breath to utter !—but make him my compliments; he is a clever fellow for all that-a very clever fellow. * * * "Of Don Juan I hear nothing farther from you; ***, but the papers don't seem so fierce as the letter you sent me seemed to anticipate, by their extracts at least in Galignani's Messenger. I never saw such a set of fellows as you are! And then the pains taken to exculpate the modest publisher-he remonstrated, forsooth! I will write a preface that shall exculpate you and ***, &c. completely on that point; but, at the same time, I will cut you up like gourds. You have no more soul than the Count de Caylus (who assured his friends, on his deathbed, that he had none, and that he must know better than they whether he had one or no,) and no more blood than a water-melon! And I see there hath been asterisks, and "You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny: I have no what Perry used to call 'domned cutting and slashing-plan; I had no plan; but I had or have materials; though but, never mind. if, like Tony Lumpkin, 'I am to be snubbed so when I am To-morrow I set off for Bologna. in spirits,' the poem will be naught, and the poet turn "I write in haste. I write to you with thunder, lightning, &c. and all the winds of heaven whistling through my hair, and the racket of preparation to boot. My mistress dear, who hath fed my heart upon smiles and wine' for the last two months, set off with her husband for Bologna this morning, and it seems that I follow him at three to-morrow morning. I cannot tell how our romance will end, but it hath gone on hitherto most erotically. Such perils and escapes! Juan's • See Letter 384 serious again. If it don't take, I will leave it off where it is, with all due respect to the public; but if continued, it must be in my own way. You might as well made Hamlet (or Diggory) 'act mad' in a strait waistcoat as trammel my buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon; their gestures and my thoughts would only be pitiably absurd and ludicrously constrained. Why, man, the soul of such writing is its license; at least the liberty of that license, if • Don Juan, Canto XIV. Stanza 101. une likes not that one should abuse it. It is like Trial "Yours." "This was written on some Frenchwoman, by Ru by Jury and Peerage and the Habeas Corpus-a very hieres, I believe. fine thing, but chiefly in the reversion; because no one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his possession of the privilege. you LETTER CCCC. TO MR. MURRAY. "Bologna, August 23, 1819. ་ "But a truce with these reflections. You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?—a playful satire, with as Little poetry as could be helped, was what I meant. And "I send you a letter to Roberts, signed Wortley Clutas to the indecency, do pray, read in Boswell what John-terbuck, which you may publish in what form you please. son, the sullen moralist, says of Prior and Paulo Purgante. in answer to his article. I have had many proofs of men's "Will you get a favour done for me? You can, by absurdity, but he beats all in folly. Why, the wolf in your government friends, Croker, Canning, or my old sheep's clothing has tumbled into the very trap! We' schoolfellow Peel, and I can't. Here it is. Will strip him. The letter is written in great haste, and amid ask them to appoint (without salary or emolument) a noble a thousand vexations. Your letter only came yesterday Italian (whom I will name afterward) consul or vice- so that there is no time to polish: the post goes out consul for Ravenna? He is a man of very large pro- to-morrow. The date is 'Little Pidlington.' Let **** perty-noble too; but he wishes to have a British protection in case of changes. Ravenna is near the sea. He wants no emolument whatever. That his office might be useful, I know; as I lately sent off from Ravenna to Trieste a poor devil of an English sailor, who had remained there sick, sorry, and pennyless (having been set ashore in 1814,) from the want of any accredited agent able or willing to help him homewards. Will you get this done? If you do, I will then send his name and condition, subject of course to rejection, if not approved when known. "I know that in the Levant you make consuls and viceconsuls, perpetually, of foreigners. This man is a patrician, and has twelve thousand a year. His motive is a correct the press: he knows and can read the handwrit ing. Continue to keep the anonymous about 'Juan;' u helps us to fight against overwhelming numbers. I have a thousand distractions at present; so excuse haste, and wonder I can act or write at all. Answer by post, as usual. "Yours. "P. S. If I had had time, and been quieter and nearer, I would have cut him to hash; but as it is, you can judge for yourselves." LETTER CCCCI. TO THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLA. Stael's "Corinna."] British protection in case of new invasions. Don't you [Written in the last page of her copy of Madame De think Croker would do it for us? To be sure, my interest is rare!! but perhaps a brother wit in the Tory line might do a good turn at the request of so harmless and long absent a Whig, particularly as there is no salary or burthen of any sort to be annexed to the office. "I can assure you, I should look upon it as a great obligation; but, alas! that very circumstance may, very probably, operate to the contrary-indeed, it ought; but I have, at least, been an honest and an open enemy. Among your many splendid government connexions, could not you, think you, get our Bibulus made a Consul? or make me one. that I may make him my Vice. You may be assured that, in case of accidents in Italy, he would be no feeble adjunct—as you would think, if you knew his patri mony. "What is all this about Tom Moore? but why do I ask? since the state of my own affairs would not permit me to be of use to him, though they are greatly improved since 1816, and may, with some more luck and a little prudence, become quite clear. It seems his claimants are American merchants? There goes Nemesis! Moore abused America. It is always thus in the long run-Time, the Avenger. You have seen every trampler down, in turn, from Buonaparte to the simplest individuals. You saw how some were avenged even upon my insignificance, and how in turn *** paid for his atrocity. It is an odd world; but the watch has its mainspring, after all. "So the Prince has been repealing Lord Edward Fitzgerald's forfeiture? Ecco un' sonetto! "To be the father of the fatherless, &c. "There, you dogs! there's a sonnet for you: you won't have such as that in a hurry from Mr. Fitzgerald. You may publish it with my name, an ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good; it was a very noble piece of principality. Would you like an epigram-a translation? "If for silver, or for gold, You could melt ten thousand pimples Looking doubtless much more snugly, See Poems, p. 484. My dearest Teresa-1 have read this book in your garden-my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them,which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognise the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yoursAmor mio-is comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I fear that I shall exist hereafter, to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart,-or, at least, that I had never mei you in your married state. "But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me, -at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. "Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and the ocean divide us,-but they never will, unless you wish it. "Bologna, August 25, 1819." LETTER CCCCII.. TO MR. MURRAY. "BYRON "Bologna, August 24, 1819. "I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon Roberts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circumstancos not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch :-you will tell me. • See page 296. "Keep the anonymous, in any case: it helps what fun might prove it by returning the money: as for his Parmethere may be. But if the matter grows serious about san passport, I should have valued it more if it had been a Don Juan, and you feel yourself in a scrape, or me either, Parmesan cheese. He answered in high terms, and said own that I am the author. I will never shrink; and if you that if it were in the morning (it was about eight o'clock in do, I can always answer you in the question of Guatimo-the evening) he would have satisfaction. I then lost my zin to his minister-each being on his own coals.* "I wish that I had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All this Italy has done for me, and not England. I defy all you, and your climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among you; your people will then be proper company. "I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England, either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And after all, they are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'Dama's' being in the country for three days, (at Capo-fiume.) But as 1 could never live but for one human being at a time, (and, I assure you, that one has never been myself, as you may know by the consequences, for the selfish are successful in life,) I feel alone and unhappy. temper: As for THAT,' I replied, 'you shall have it "I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride of about fifty people, who all saw that I had no weapon daily, and walk in a garden, under a purple canopy of of any sort or kind about me, and followed him, asking grapes, and sit by a fountain, and talk with the gardener him what the devil was the matter with him. Nothing of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's, and with would do: he ran away without his hat, and went to bed, his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of ill of the fright. He then tried his complaint at the the party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I police, which dismissed it as frivolous. He is, I believe revisited the Campo Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, gone away, or going. has two-but one the prettiest daughter imaginable; and "The horse was warranted, but, I believe, so worded I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and inno-that the villain will not be obliged to refund, according to rent face of fifteen, with the skulls with which he has law. He endeavoured to raise up an indictment of assault peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull and battery, but as it was in a public inn, in a frequented dated 1766, which was once covered (the tradition goes) street, there were too many witnesses to the contrary: by the most lovely features of Bologna-noble and rich. and, as a military man, he has not cut a martial figure, When I look at these, and at this girl-when I think of even in the opinion of the priests. He ran off in such a what they were, and what she must be-why, then, my hurry that he left his hat, and never missed it till he got dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. to his hostel or inn. The facts are as I tell you, I can It is little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men,' but assure you. He began by coming Captain Grand over I don't like the notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less me,' or I should never have thought of trying his 'cunning than a beautiful tree-than her own picture-her own in fence.' But what could I do? He talked of 'honour, shadow, which won't change so to the sun as her face and satisfaction, and his commission; he produced a milito the mirror.-I must leave off, for my head aches con-tary passport; there are severe pumshments for regular suredly. I have never been quite well since the night of the representation of Alfieri's Mirra, a fortnight ago. LETTER CCCCIII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Yours ever." "Bologna, August 29, 1819. "I have been in a rage these two days, and am still Lious therefrom. You shall hear. A captain of dragoons,**, Hanoverian by birth, in the Papal troops at present, whom I had obliged by a loan when nobody would lend him a paul, recommended a horse to me, on sale by a Lieutenant **, an officer who unites the sale of cattle to the purchase of men. I bought it. The next day, on shoeing the horse, we discovered the thrush, -the animal being warranted sound. I sent to reclaim the contract and the money. The lieutenant desired to speak with me in person. I consented. He came. It was his own particular request. He began a story. I asked him if he would return the money. He said no-but he would exchange. He asked an exorbitant price for his other horses. I told him that he was a thief. He said he was an officer and a man of honour, and pulled out a Parmesan passport signed by General Count Neifperg. I answered, that as he was an officer, I would treat him as such; and that as to his being a gentleman, he "Am I now reposing on a bed of roses ?"-See Robertson duels on the continent, and trifling ones for rencontres, so that it is best to fight it out directly; he had robbed, and then wanted to insult me-what could I do? My patience was gone, and the weapons at hand, fair and equal. Besides, it was just after dinner, when my digestion was bad, and I don't like to be disturbed. His friend is at Forli; we shall meet on my way back to Ravenna. The Hanoverian seems the greater rogue of the two; and if my valour does not ooze away like Acres's-'Odds flints and triggers!' if it should be a rainy morning, and my stomach in disorder, there may be something for the obituary. "Now, pray, 'Sir Lucius, do not you look upon me as a very ill-used gentleman? I send my Lieutenant to match Mr. Hobhouse's Major Cartwright: and so 'good morrow to you, good master Lieutenant. With regard to other things, I will write soon, but I have heen quarreling and to ling till I can scribble no more." LETTER CCCCIV TO MR. HOPPNER. "October 22, 1819 "I am glad to hear of your return, but I do not know how to congratulate you-unless you think differently of Venice from what I think now, and you thought always. I am, besides, about to renew your troubles by requesting you to be judge between Mr. Edgecombe and myself in a small matter of imputed peculation and irregula |