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LETTER CCCLII.

LETTER CCCLIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Sept. 4, 1817.

"La Mira, Sept. 12, 1817.

"Your letter of the 15th has conveyed with its contents the impression of a seal, to which the "I set out yesterday morning with the intention Saracen's Head is a seraph, and the Bull and of paying my respects, and availing myself of your Mouth a delicate device. I knew that calumny permission to walk over the premises. On arriv had sufficiently blackened me of later days, but not ing at Padua, I found that the march of the Austhat it had given me the features as well as com- trian troops had engrossed so many horses, that plexion of a negro. Poor Augusta is not less, but those I could procure were hardly able to crawl; rather more, shocked than myself, and says 'people and their weakness, together with the prospect of seem to have lost their recollection strangely, when finding none at all at the post-house of Monselice, they engraved such a 'blackmoor.' Pray don't seal and consequently either not arriving that day at (at least to me) with such a caricature of the hu- Este, or so late as to be unable to return home the man numskull altogether; and if you don't break same evening, induced me to turn aside in a second the seal-cutter's head, at least crack his libel (or visit to Arqua, instead of proceeding onwards; and ikeness, if it should be a likeness) of mine. even thus I hardly got back in time. "Mr. Kinnaird is not yet arrived, but expected. He has lost by the way all the tooth-powder, as a letter from Spa informs me.

"Next week I shall be obliged to be in Venice to meet Lord Kinnaird and his brother, who are expected in a few days. And this interruption, "By Mr. Rose I received safely, though tardily, together with that occasioned by the continued magnesia and tooth-powder, and * Why march of the Austrians for the next few days, do you send me such trash-worse than trash, the will not allow me to fix any precise period for Sublime of Mediocrity? Thanks for Lalla, how-availing myself of your kindness, though I should ever, which is good, and thanks for the Edinburgh wish to take the earliest opportunity. Perhaps, if and Quarterly, both very amusing and well-written. absent, you will have the goodness to permit one of Paris in 1815, &c.-good. Modern Greece-good your servants to show me the grounds and house, for nothing; written by some one who has never or as much of either as may be convenient; at any been there, and not being able to manage the Spen- rate, I shall take the first occasion possible to go ser stanza, has invented a thing of its own, consist- over, and regret very much that I was on yesterday ing of two elegaic stanzas, a heroic line, and an prevented. Alexandrine, twisted on a string. Besides, why 'modern' You may say modern Greeks, but surely Greece itself is rather more ancient than ever it was.-Now for business.

"I have the honor to be your obliged, &c."

LETTER CCCLIV

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Sept. 15, 1817.

"I enclose a sheet for correction, if ever.you get You will observe that the to another edition.

"You offer fifteen hundred guineas for the new canto: I won't take it. I ask two thousand five hundred guineas for it, which you will either give or not, as you think proper. It concludes the poem, and consists of one hundred and forty-four stanzas. The notes are numerous, and chiefly written by Mr. Hobhouse, whose researches have been indefati- blunder in printing makes it appear as if the Chagable, and who, I will venture to say, has more real knowledge of Rome and its environs than teau was over St. Gingo, instead of being on the any Englishman who has been there since Gib- opposite shore of the Lake, over Clarens. So, sepbon. By-the-way, to prevent any mistakes, I think arate the paragraphs, otherwise my topography will it necessary to state the fact that he, Mr. Hob- seem as inaccurate as your typography on this occasion. house, has no interest whatever in the price or profit

to be derived from the copyright of either poem or with regard to the fourth and concluding canto. I "The other day I wrote to convey my proposition notes directly or indirectly; so you are not to sup-have gone over and extended it to one hundred and pose that it is by, for, or through him, that I require |

Laore for this canto than the preceding.-No: but if fifty stanzas, which is almost as long as the first Mr. Eustace was to have had two thousand for a two were originally, and longer by itself than any poem on Education; if Mr. Moore is to have three of the smaller poems except the Corsair. Mr. thousand for Lalla, &c.; if Mr. Campbell is to have Hobhouse has made some very valuable and accuthree thousand for his prose on poetry-I don't rate notes, of considerable length, and you may be mean to disparage these gentlemen in their labors sure that I will do for the text all that I can to but I ask the aforesaid price for mine. You will finish with decency. I look upon Childe Harold as tell me that their productions are considerably my best; and as I begun, I think of concluding longer: very true, and when they shorten them, I with it. But I make no resolutions on that head, will lengthen mine, and ask less. You shall sub-as I broke my former intention with regard to the mit the MS. to Mr. Gifford, and any other two gen-better; and yet, not being thirty years of 'Corsair.' However, I fear that I shall never do age. for tlemen to be named by you, (Mr. Frere, or Mr. Croker, or whomever you please, except such fel- some moons to come, one ought to be progressive, lows as yours and *s,) and if they pronounce I have had a devilish deal of tear and wear of mind as far as intellect goes, for many a good year. But this canto to be inferior as a whole to the preced- and body in my time, besides having published tou ing, I will not appeal from their award, but burn often and much already. God grant me some judg the manuscript, and leave things as they are. ment to do what may be most fitting in that and every thing else, for I doubt my own exceedingly. "P. S In answer to a former letter, I sent you "I have read Lalla Rookh,' but not with suff a short statement of what I thought the state of cient attention yet, for I ride about, and lounge, our present copyright account, viz., six hundred and ponder, and-two or three other things; so pounds still (or lately) due on Childe Harold, and that my reading is very desultory, and not so attensix hundred guineas, Manfred and Tasso, making a tive as it used to be. I am very glad to hear of its total of twelve hundred and thirty pounds. If we popularity, for Moore is a very noble fellow in all agree about the new poem, I shall take the liberty

Yours very truly.

to reserve the choice of the manner in which it should be published, viz., a quarto, certes."

By Mm. Hemans.

་་

• A country-house on the Euganean hills, near Este, which Mr. Hopper, who was then the English consul-general at Venice, had for some time occupied, and which Lord Byron afterward rented of him, but never resided in it.

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respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad "In Coleridge's Life I perceive an attack upon feelings which success-good or evil-sometimes the then committee of D. L. Theatre for acting engenders in the men of rhyme. Of the poem Bertram, and an attack upon Maturin's Bertram itself, I will tell you my opinion when I have for being acted. Considering all things, this is not mastered it: I say of the poem, for I don't like very grateful nor graceful on the part of the worthy the prose at all, at all: and in the meantime, the autobiographer; and I would answer, if I had not Fire-Worshippers' is the best, and the Veiled obliged him. Putting my own pains to forward the Prophet' the worst, of the volume. views of Coleridge out of the question, I know that "With regard to poetry in general, I am con- there was every disposition, on the part of the subvinced the more I think of it, that he and all of us committee, to bring forward any production of his, -Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, were it feasible. The play he offered, though poetiI,-are all in the wrong, one as much as another; cal, did not appear at all practicable, and Bertram that we are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical did;-and hence this long tirade, which is the last system, or systems, not worth a damn in itself, and chapter of his vagabond life. from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free; "As for Bertram, Maturin may defend his own and that the present and next generations will begotten, if he likes it well enough; I leave the finally be of this opinion. I am the more con- Irish clergyman and the new orator Henley to firmed in this by having lately gone over some of battle it out between them, satisfied to have done our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this the best I could for both. I may say this to you, way-It took Moore's poems and my own and who know it.

*

*

some others, and went over them side by side with "Mr. Coleridge may console himself with the ferPope's, and I was really astonished (I ought not to vor,-the almost religious fervor of his and Wordshave been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance worth's disciples, as he calls it. If he means that in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagi-as any proof of their merits, I will find him as much nation, passion, and invention, between the little fervor in behalf of Richard Brothers and Joanna Queen Anne's man, and us of the lower empire. Southcote as ever gathered over his pages or round Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian his fireside. now among us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly. Crabbe's the man, but he has got a coarse and impracticable subject, and Rogers is retired upon half-pay, and has done enough, unless he were to do as he did formerly.”

LETTER CCCLV.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Sept. 17, 1817.

"Mr. Hobhouse purposes being in England in November; he will bring the fourth canto with him, notes and all the text contains one hundred and fifty stanzas, which is long for that measure.

"With regard to the Ariosto of the North,' surely their themes, chivalry, war, and love, were as like as can be; and as to the compliment, if you knew what the Italians think of Ariosto, you would not hesitate about that. But as to their 'measures, you forget that Ariosto's is an octave stanza, and Scott's any thing but a stanza. If you think Scott will dislike it, say so, and I will expunge. I do not call him the Scotch Ariosto,' which would be sad provincial eulogy, but the Ariosto of the North,' imeaning of all countries that are not the South.

.

"My answer to your proposition about the fourth canto you will have received, and I await yours ;perhaps we may not agree. I have since written a poem (of eighty-four octave stanzas), humorous,

in or after the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft (whom I take to be Frere), on a Venetian anecdote which amused me:-but till I have your answer, I can say nothing more about it.

"Mr. Hobhouse does not return to England in November, as he intended, but will winter here; and as he is to convey the poem, or poems,-for there may perhaps be more than the two mentioned (which, by-the-way, I shall not perhaps include in the same publication or agreement)-I shall not be there is no harm in the delay. able to publish so soon as expected; but I suppose

66

by Mr. Kinnaird, but not the receipt, because the "I have signed and sent your former copyrights of attorney to sign for me, and will, when necessary. money is not yet paid. Mr. Kinnaird has a power Many thanks for the Edinburgh Review, which is very kind about Manfred, and defends its origi nality, which I did not know that any body had attacked. I never read, and do not know that I ever saw the Faustus of Marlow,' and had, and have, no dramatic works by me in English, except the recent things you sent me; but I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's Faust (which were, some good and some bad) last summer-which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of Man

"As I have recently troubled you rather frequent-fred, they may be found in the Journal which I sent ly, I will conclude, repeating that I am

"Yours ever, &c."

LETTER CCCLVI.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Oct. 12, 1817.

to Mrs. Leigh (part of which you saw) when I went
over first the Dent de Jaman, and then the Wengen
or Wengeberg Alp and Sheideck, and made the giro
of the Jungfrau, Shreckhorn, &c., &c., shortly be-
fore I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of
Manfred before me as if it was but yesterday, and
could point it out, spot by spot, torrent and all.
"Of the Prometheus of Eschylus I was passion-

As

"Mr. Kinnaird and his brother, Lord Kinnaird, ately fond as a boy (it was one of the Greek plays have been here, and are now gone again. All your the Medea' were the only ones, except the 'Seven we read thrice a year at Harrow); indeed that and missives came, except the tooth-powder, of which I request farther supplies, at all convenient oppor- to the Faustus of Marlow,' I never read, never before Thebes,' which ever much pleased me. tunities; as also of magnesia and soda-powders, Doth great luxuries here, and neither to be had good, or indeed hardly at all, of the natives.

*

*

• On this paragraph, in the MS. copy of the above letter, I find the following note, in the handwriting of Mr. Gifford: "There is more good sense, and feeling, and judgment in this passage, than in any other I ever read, or Lord Byron wrote."-Moore.

1 See letters for Bowles ant Blackwood,

1 See Letter accxlvi.

saw, nor heard of it-at least, thought of it, except that I think Mr. Gifford mentioned, in a note of his which you sent me, something about the catastrophe; but not as having any thing to do with mine, which may or may not resemble it, for any thing ĺ know.

"The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has

• Beppo.

always been so much in my head, that I can easily "Will you desire Messrs. Morland to send our conceive its influence over all or any thing that I whatever additional sums have or may be paid in have written;-but I deny Marlow and his progeny, credit immediately, always, to their Venice correand beg that you will do the same. spondents? It is two months ago that they sent "If you can send me the paper in question,*me out an additional credit for one thousand pounds. which the Edinburgh Review mentions, do. The I was very glad of it, but I don't know how the review in the magazine you say was written by Wil- devil it came; for I can only make out five hundred son? it had all the air of being a poet's, and was a of Hanson's payment, and I had thought the other very good one. The Edinburgh Review I take to five hundred came from you; but it did not, it be Jeffrey's own by its friendliness. I wonder they seems, as by yours of the 7th instant, you have only thought it worth while to do so, so soon after the just paid the 12307. balance.

former; but it was evidently with a good motive. "Mr. Kinnaird is on his way home with the as"I saw Hoppner the other day, whose country-signments. I can fix no time for the arrival of house at Este I have taken for two years. If you canto fourth, which depends on the journey of Mr. come out next summer, let me know in time. Love Hobhouse home; and I do not think that this will to Gifford. "Yours ever truly. be immediate.

"Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey,

Are all partakers of my pantry.

"Yours, in great haste, and very truly, B. "P. S. Morlands have not yet written to my

These two lines are omitted in your letter to the bankers, apprising the payment of your balances: doctor, after

"All clever men who make their way."

pray desire them to do so.

"Ask them about the previous thousand-of which I know five hundred came from Hanson'sand make out the other five hundred-that is, whence it came."

LETTER CCCLVII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Oct. 23, 1817.

LETTER CCCLVIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Nov. 15, 1917.

"Your two letters are before me, and our bargain! is so far concluded. How sorry I am to hear that Gifford is unwell! Pray tell me he is better; I "Mr. Kinnaird has probably returned to England hope it is nothing but cold. As you say his illness by this time, and will have conveyed to you any tioriginates in cold, I trust it will get no farther. dings you may wish to have of us and ours. I have "Mr. Whistlecraft has no greater admirer than come back to Venice for the winter. Mr. Hobhouse myself: I have written a story in eighty-nine stan- will probably set off in December, but what day or zas, in imitation of him, called Beppo (the short week, I know not. He is my opposite neighbor at name for Giuseppe, that is, the Joe of the Italian present.

Joseph), which I shall throw you into the balance "I wrote yesterday in some perplexity, and no of the fourth canto, to help you round to your very good humor to Mr. Kinnaird, to inform me money; but you perhaps had better publish it about Newstead and the Hansons, of which and anonymously but this we will see to by-and-by. whom I hear nothing since his departure from this "In the notes to canto fourth, Mr. Hobhouse place, except in a few unintelligible words from an has pointed out several errors of Gibbon. You may unintelligible woman. depend upon H.'s research and accuracy. You may "I am as sorry to hear of Dr. Polidori's accident print it in what shape you please. as one can be for a person for whom one has a dis"With regard to a future large edition, you may like, and something of contempt. When he gets print all, or any thing, except English Bards,' to well, tell me, and how he gets on in the sick line. the republication of which at no time will I consent. Poor fellow! how came he to fix there? I would not reprint them on any consideration. I don't think them good for much, even in point of poetry; and as to the other things, you are to recolfect that I gave up the publication on account of Methought he was going to the Brazils, to give the the Hollands, and I do not think that any time or Portuguese physic (of which they are fond to despecircumstances can neutralize the suppression. Add ration), with the Danish consul." to which, that, after being on terms with almost all the bards and critics of the day, it would be savage at any time, but worst of all now, to revive this forlish lampoon.

"I fear the doctor's skill at Norwich

Will hardly salt the doctor's porridge.

*

*

"Your new canto has expanded to one hundred It will be long, you see; and sixty-seven stanzas. and as for the notes by Hobhouse, I suspect they will be of the heroic size. You must keep Mr. * in good humor, for he is devilish touchy yet about "The review of Manfred came very safely, and your Review and all which it inherits, including the 1 am much pleased with it. It is odd that they editor, the Admiralty, and its bookseller. I used to snould say (that is, somebody in a magazine whom think that I was a good deal of an author in amor the Edinburgh controverts), that it was taken from propre and noli me tangere; but these prose fellows Marlow's Faust, which I never read nor saw. An are worst, after all, about their little comforts. American, who came the other day from Germany, "Do you remember my mentioning, some months told Mr. Hobhouse that Manfred was taken from Goethe's Faust. The devil may take both the Faustuses, German and English-I have taken

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ago, the Marquis Moncada-a Spaniard of distinetion and fourscore years, my summer neighbor at La Mira? Well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love with a Venetian girl of family, and no fortune or character: took her into his mansion; quarrelled with all his former friends for giving him advice (except me who gave him none), and installed her present concubine and future wife and mistress of himself and furniture. At the end of a month, in which she demeaned herself as ill as possible, he found out a correspondence between her and some former keeper, and after nearly strangling, turned

Wo, wo, Nealliny 1-the young Nealliny!'

ner out of the house, to the great scandal of the the stars for deceased royalty; and the Morning keeping part of the town, and with a prodigious Post will have already yelled forth its 'syllables of éclat, which has occupied all the canals and coffee- dolor.' houses in Venice. He said she wanted to poison him; and she says-God knows what; but between them they have made a great deal of noise. "It is some time since I have heard from you: I have been know a little of both the parties: Moncada seemed are you in bad humor? I suppose so. a very sensible old man, a character which he has so myself, and it is your turn now, and by-and-by not quite kept up on this occasion; and the woman mine will come round again. "Yours truly, B. is rather showy than pretty. For the honor of religion, she was bred in a convent, and for the credit of Great Britain, taught by an Englishwoman.

"Yours, &c."

"P. S. Countess Albrizzi, come back from Paris, has brought me a medal of herself, a present from Denon to me, and a likeness of Mr. Rogers (belanging to her), by Denon also."

LETTER CCCLIX.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Dec. 3, 1817.

LETTER CCCLX.

TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Venice, Dec. 15, 1817.

"A Venetian lady, learned and somewhat stricken in years, having, in her intervals of love and devo- "I should have thanked you before, for your tion, taken upon her to translate the letters, and favor a few days ago, had I not been in the intenwrite the life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague,-tion of paying my respects, personally, this eveto which undertaking there are two obstacles, ning, from which I am deterred by the recollection firstly, ignorance of English, and, secondly, a total that you will probably be at the Count Goess's this dearth of information on the subject of her pro-evening, which has made me postpone my intrusion. jected biography,-has applied to me for facts or "I think your elegy a remarkably good one, not falsities upon this promising project. Lady Mon- only as a composition, but both the politics and tague lived the last twenty or more years of her life poetry contain a far greater portion of truth and in or near Venice, I believe; but here they know generosity than belongs to the times, or to the pronothing, and remember nothing, for the story of fessors of these opposite pursuits, which usually to-day is succeeded by the scandal of to-morrow; agree only in one point, as extremes meet. I do not and the wit, and beauty, and gallantry, which might know whether you wished me to retain the copy; render your countrywoman notorious in her own but I shall retain it till you tell me otherwise; and country, must have been here no great distinction am very much obliged by the perusal. -because the first is in no request, and the two lat- "My own sentiments on Venice, &c., such as ter are common to all women, or at least the last of they are, I had already thrown into verse last sumthem. If you can therefore tell me any thing, or mer, in the fourth canto of Childe Harold, now in get any thing told, of Lady Wortley Montague, I preparation for the press; and I think much more shall take it as a favor, and will transfer and trans-highly of them for being in coincidence with yours. late it to the Dama' in question. And I pray you "Believe me yours, &c." besides to send me, by some quick and safe voyager, the edition of her letters, and the stupid life, by Dr. Dallaway, published by her proud and foolish family.

"The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home. The Courier's list of some three! hundred heirs to the crown (including the house of Wirtemberg, with that ***, P—, of disreputable memory, whom I remember secing at various balls during the visit of the Muscovites, &c., in 1814), must be very consolatory to all true lieges, as well as foreigners, except Signor Travis, a rich Jew merchant of this city, who complains grievously of the length of British mourning, which has countermanded all the silks which he was on the point of transmitting, for a year to come. death of this poor girl is melancholy in every respect, dying at twenty or so, in childbed-of a boy, too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself and the hopes which she inspired.

* *

The

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"I think, as far as I can recollect, she is the first royal defunct in childbed upon record in our history. I feel sorry in every respect for the loss of a female reign, and a woman hitherto harmless; and all the Lost rejoicings, and addresses, and drunkenness, and disbursements of John Bull on the occasion.

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LETTER CCCLXI.

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"Venice, Jan. 19, 1818.

"I send you the story+ in three other separate eovers. It won't do for your Journal, being full of political allusions. Print alone, without name; alter nothing; get a scholar to see that the Italian phrases are correctly published (your printing, bythe-way, always makes me ill with its eternal blunders, which are incessant), and God speed you. Hobhouse left Venice a fortnight ago, saving two days. I have heard nothing of or from him. "Yours, &c.

"He has the whole of the MSS.; so put up prayers in your back shop, or in the printer's chapel.'

LETTER CCCLXIII.

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, Jan. 27, 1918.

Jand, though my heart may ebb, there will always be a drop for you among the dregs.*

"I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Be sides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since (to say nothing of one before),† and I look forward to one of these as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach-which I hope I never shall-that desolating period. I have a great love for my little Ada, though perhaps she may torture me, like

"Your offered address will be as acceptable as you can wish. I don't much care what the wretches care a good deal what you think of me, and so, say of the world think of me-all that's past. But 1 what you like. You know that I am not sullen; and, as to being savage, such things depend on cir in your society, there is no great merit in that, be cumstances. However, as to being in good humor otherwise. cause it would be an effort, or an insanity, to be

"I don't know what Murray may have been say ing or quoting. I called Crabbe and Sam the fathers them-all of us youth' were on a wrong tack. But of present poesy; and said, that I thought-except I never said that we did not sail well. Our fame will be hurt by admiration and imitation. When I say our, I mean all (lakers included), except the postscript of the Augustans. The next generation (from the quantity and facility of imitation) will tumble and break their necks off our Pegasus, who runs away with us; but we keep the saddle, because we broke the rascal, and can ride. But though easy to mount, he is the devil to guide; and the next fellows must go back to the riding-school and the manège, and learn to ride the 'great horse.'

"My father-that is, my Armenian father, Padre Pasquali-in the name of all the others of our con"Talking of horses, by-the-way, I have trans vent, sends you the enclosed, greeting: "Inasmuch as it has pleased the translators of in English,) a strip of some ten miles along the ported my own, four in number, to the Lido, (beach, the long-lost and lately-found portions of the text Adriatic, a mile or two from the city; so that I not of Eusebius to put forth the enclosed prospectus, only get a row in my gondola, but a spanking gal of which I send six copies, you are hereby implored lop of some miles daily along a firm and solitary to obtain subscribers in the two universities, and beach, from the fortress to Malamocco, the which among the learned, and the unlearned, who would contributes considerably to my health and spirits. unlearn their ignorance. This they (the convent) request, I request, and do you request.

I sent you Beppo some weeks agone. You must publish it alone; it has politics and ferocity, and won't do for your isthmus of a Journal.

"Mr. Hobhouse, if the Alps have not broken his neck, is, or ought to be, swimming with my commentaries and his own coat of mail in his teeth and right hand, in a cork jacket, between Calais and Dover.

"It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the extreme and agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met her at the masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth."

"I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. We are in the agonies of the Carnival's last days, and I must be up all night again, as well as to-morrow. I have had some curious masking adventures this Carnival, but, as they are not yet over, I shall not say on. I will work the mine of my youth to the last veins of the ore, and then-good night. I have lived, and am content.

"Hobhouse went away before the Carnival began, so that he had little or no fun. Besides, it requires some time to be thorough-going with the Venetians; but of all this anon, in some other letter.

"I must dress for the evening. There is an opera, ridotta, and I know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours,

"B

"P. S. I send this without revision, so excuse errors. I delight in the fortune and fame of Lalla, and again congratulate you on your well-merited

success."

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