English and Armenian grammar which he is pub-may have the like effect. Now we'll return to lishing. In the evenings I do one of many nothings Venice. -either at the theatres, or some of the conversa- "The day after to-morrow (to-morrow being zionės, which are like our routs, or rather worse, for Christmas day) the Carnival begins. I dine with the women sit in a semicircle by the lady of the the Countess Albrizzi and a party, and go to the mansion, and the men stand about the room. To opera.* On that day the Phenix (not the insurance be sure, there is one improvement upon ours-instead office but the theatre of that name) opens: I have of lemonade with their ices, they hand about stiff got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, rum-punch-punch, by my palate! and this they one of which is, that the music is remarkably good. think English. I would not disabuse them of so The Contessa Albrizzi, of whom I have made men agreeable an error,-' no, not for Venice.' tion, is the De Staël of Venice, not young, but a "Last night I was at the Count Governor's, very learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very which, of course, comprises the best society, and is polite to strangers, and, I believe, not at all disso very much like other gregarious meetings in every lute, as most of the women are. She has written country, as in ours,-except that, instead of the very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume bishop of Winchester, you have the patriarch of of characters, besides other printed matter. She is Venice; and a motley crew of Austrians, Germans, of Corfu, but married a dead Venetian-that is, noble Venetians, foreigners, and, if you see a quiz, dead since he married. of it. you may be sure he is a consul. Oh, by-the-way, I "My flame (my Donna ') whom I spoke of in my forgot, when I wrote from Verona, to tell you that at former epistle, my Marianna, and I her-what she Milan I met with a countryman of yours-a Colonel pleases. She is by far the prettiest woman I have ***, a very excellent, good-natured fellow, who seen here, and the most loveable I have met with knows and shows all about Milan, and is, as it were, any where as well as one of the most singular. I a native there. He is particularly civil to strangers, believe I told you the rise and progress of our liaison and this is his history,- at least, an episode in my former letter. Lest that should not have reached you, I will merely repeat that she is a Vene "Six-and-twenty years ago Col. then an tian, two-and twenty years old, married to a mer• ensign, being in Italy, fell in love with the Marchesa chant well to do in the world, and that she has great *, and she with him. The lady must be, at black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which her least, twenty years his senior. The war broke out: eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has he returned to England, to serve-not his country, steeled me or not, I do not know; but I have not for that's Ireland-but England, which is a different seen many other women who seem pretty. The thing; and she-heaven knows what she did. In nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race-the the year 1814, the first annunciation of the defini- gentry rather better. And now, what art the tive treaty of peace (and tyranny) was developed to doing? "What are you doing now, Oh, Thomas Moore ? the astonished Milanese by the arrival of Col. ****, who, flinging himself full length at the feet of Madame ** *, murmured forth, in half-forgotten Irish Italian, eternal vows of indelible constancy. The lady screamed and exclaimed, Who are you?' The Colonel cried, 'What, don't you know me? I am so and so,' &c., &c., &c.; till, at length, the Marchesa, mounting from reminiscence to reminiscence, through the lovers of the intermediate Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if twenty-five years, arrived at last at the recollection there's a row, but I'll be among ye! How go on of her povero sub-lieutenant. She then said, Was the weavers-the breakers of frames-the Lutherans there ever such virtue?' (that was her very word,) of politics-the reformers? and, being now a widow, gave him apartments in her palace, reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, and held him up to the admiring world, as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, and the unshaken Abdiel of absence. "Methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of Marmontel's. Here is another. The same lady, several years ago, made an escapade with a Swede, Count Fersen, (the same whom the Stockholm mob quartered and lapidated not very long since,) and they arrived at an osteria on the road to Rome, or thereabouts. It was a summer evening, and, while they were at supper, they were suddenly regaled by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, so prettily played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the Count rose, and going into the mu Which, Thomas Moore? "As the liberty lads o'er the sea Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood, Will die fighting, or live free, We will fling the winding-sheet "Though black as his heart is its hue, sical society, said, 'Gentlemen, I am sure that, as There's an amiable chanson for you-all imprompt a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted I have written it principally to shock your neighbo to show your skill to a lady, who feels anxious,' Hodgson, who is all clergy and loyalty-mirth and &c., &c. The men of harmony were all acquies-innocence-milk and water. "But the Carnival's coming, Oh, Thomas Moore cence every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the Count to the lady's apartment. At their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop and advanced up the room. Death and discord-it was the Marquis himself, who was on a serenading party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town. The rest may be imagined-but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that she was there on purpose to meet him, The other night I saw a new play,—and the author and had chosen this method for an harmonic sur-The subject was the sacrifice of Isaac. The play prise. So much for this gossip, which amused me when I heard it, and I send it to you, in the hope it • See Letter cxxvi. sneeded, and they called for the author-according and regret the rattle of hackney-coaches, without to continental custom-and he presented himself, a which they can't sleep. committee. noble Venetian Mali, or Malapiero, by name. Mala "I have got remarkably good apartments in a was his name, and pessima his production,—at least, private house; I see something of the inhabitants, I thought so, and I ought to know, having read (having had a good many letters to some of them ;) more or less of five hundred Drury-Lane offerings, I have got my gondola; I read a little, and luckily during my coadjutorship with the sub-and-super could speak Italian (more fluently than correctly) long ago. I am studying, out of curiosity, the "When does your poem of poems come out? I Venetian dialect, which is very naïve, and soft, and hear that the Edinburgh Review has cut up Cole- peculiar, though not at all classical; I go out freridge's Christabel, and declared against me for prais- quently, and am in very good contentment. ing it. I praised it, firstly, because I thought well "The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the of it; secondly, because Coleridge was in great dis- house of Madame the Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I tress, and, after doing what little I could for him in know), is without exception, to any mind, the most essentials, I thought that the public avowal of my perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far good opinion might help him farther, at least with beyond my ideas of human execution. In this beloved marble view,' &c.* the booksellers. I am very sorry that Jeffrey has attacked him, because, poor fellow! it will hurt him in mind and pocket. As for me, he's welcome-I shall never think less of Jeffrey for any thing he Talking of the heart' reminds me that I have fallen in love, which, except falling into the canal, may say aginst me or mine in future.t "I suppose Murray has sent you, or will send (and that would be useless, as I swim,) is the best (for I do not know whether they are out or no,) the (or worst) thing I could do. I am therefore in love poem, or poesies of mine, of last summer. By the fathomless love; but lest you should make some mass! they're sublime-Ganion Coheriza-gainsay splendid mistake, and envy me the possession of who dares! Pray, let me hear from you, and of some of those princesses or countesses with whose you, and at least, let me know that you have received affections your English voyagers are apt to invest these three letters. Direct, right here, poste restante. is only the wife of a Merchant of Venice;' but themselves, I beg leave to tell you that my goddess "Ever and ever, &c. then she is pretty as an antelope, is but two-and"P. S. I heard the other day of a pretty trick of twenty years old, has the large, black, oriental eyes, a bookseller, who has published some d-d nonsense, with the Italian countenance, and dark glossy hair, swearing the bastards to me, and saying he gave me of the curl and color of Lady Jersey's. Then she five hundred guineas for them. He lies-I never has the voice of a lute, and the song of a seraph, wrote such stuff, never saw the poems, nor the pub-(though not quite so sacred,) besides a long postlisher of them, in my life, nor had any communica- script of graces, virtues, and accomplishments, tion, directly or indirectly, with the fellow. Pray enough to furnish out a new chapter of Solomon's say as much for me, if need be. I have written to Song. But her great merit is in finding out mine,Murray, to make him contradict the impostor. LETTER CCCXI. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Nov. 25, 1815. "It is some months since I have heard from or of there is nothing so amiable as discernment. Our little arrangement is completed, the usual oaths having been taken, and every thing fulfilled according to the understood relations' of such liaisons. "The general race of women appear to be handsome: but in Italy, as on almost all the continent, The highest orders are by no means a well-looking generation, and indeed reckoned by their countrymen very much otherwise. Some are exceptions, but most of them are as ugly as Virtue herself. much matter. "If you write. address to me here, poste restante, you-I think, not since I left Diodati. From Milan as I shall probably stay the winter over. I never see I wrote once or twice; but have been here some a newspaper and know nothing about England, exlittle time, and intend to pass the winter without cept in a letter now and then from my sister. Of removing. I was much pleased with the Lago di the MS. sent you, I know nothing, except you have Garda, and with Verona, particularly the amphi- received it, and are to publish it, &c., &c.; but when, theatre, and a sarcophagus in a convent garden, where, and how, you leave me to guess; but it don't which they show as Juliet's; they insist on the truth of her history. Since my arrival at Venice, the lady of the Austrian governor told me that between Verona and Vicenza there are still ruins of the castle of the Montecchi, and a chapel once appertaining to the Capulets. Romeo seems to have been of Vicenza, by the tradition; but I was a good deal surprised to find so firm a faith in Bandello's novel, which seems really to have been founded on a fact. through your process for next year? When does "I suppose you have a world of works passing Moore's Poem appear? I sent a letter for him, addressed to your care the other day." LETTER CCCXII. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I expected much. It is one of those places which I know before I see them, and has always haunted me "Venice, Dec. 4, 1816. the most after the East. I like the gloomy gayety of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. I "I have written to you so frequently of late. that do not even dislike the evident decay of the city, you will think me a bore; as I think you a very imthough I regret the singularity of its vanished cospolite person for not answering my letters from tume: however, there is much left still, the Carni- Switzerland, Milan, Verona, and Venice. There are val, too, is coming. some things I wanted, and want to know; viz. "St. Mark's, and indeed Venice, is most alive whether Mr. Davies, of inaccurate memory, had or at night. The theatres are not open till nine, had not delivered the MS. as delivered to him; beand the society is proportionably late. All this is cause, if he has not, you will find that he will bounto my taste, but most of your countrymen miss tifully bestow transcriptions on all the curious of his acquaintance, in which case you may probably find See note 6 to the Siege of Corinth. ↑ See Don Juan, canto x., stanza xvi. • See Poems, p. 571. your publication anticipated by the 'Cambridge,' or and I desire that it may receive the most public and other Chronicles. In the next place-I forget what unqualified contradiction. I do not know that there was next; but, in the third place, I want to hear is any punishment for a thing of this kind, and it whether you have yet published, or when you mean there were, I should not feel disposed to pursue this to do so, or why you have not done so, because in ingenious mountebank farther than was necessary your last, (Sept. 20,-you may be ashamed of the for his confutation; but thus far it may be necessa date,) you talked of this being done immediately. ry to proceed. From England I hear nothing, and know no- "You will make what use you please of this letthing of any thing or any body. I have but one cor- ter; and Mr. Kinnaird, who has power to act for respondent, (except Mr. Kinnaird on business now me in my absence, will, I am sure, readily join you and then,) and her a female; so that I know no in any steps which it may be proper to take with remore of your island, or city, than the Italian version gard to the absurd falsehood of this poor creature. of the French papers chooses to tell me, or the ad- As you will have recently received several letters vertisements of Mr. Colburn tagged to the end of from me on my way to Venice, as well as two writ your Quarterly Review for the year ago. I wrote to ten since my arrival, I will not at present trouble you at some length last week, and have little to add, you farther. Ever, &c. except that I have begun, and am proceeding in, a "P. S. Pray let me hear that you have received study of the Armenian language, which I acquire, this letter. Address to Venice, poste restante. as well as I can, at the Armenian convent, where I "To prevent the recurrence of similar fabricago every day to take lessons of a learned friar, and tions, you may state, that I consider myself respon have gained some singular and not useless informa-sible for no publication from the year 1812 up to the tion with regard to the literature and customs of that present date, which is not from your press. I speak oriental people. They have an establishment here of course from that period, because, previously, -a church and a convent of ninety monks-very Cawthorne and Ridge had both printed compositions learned and accomplished men, some of them. They of mine. A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem!' how the have also a press, and make great efforts for the en- devil should I write about Jerusalem, never having lightening of their nation. I find the language yet been there? As for A Tempest,' it was not a (which is twin, the literal and the vulgar) difficult, but not invincible, (at least, I hope not.) I shall go on. I found it necessary to twist my mind round some severe study, and this, as being the hardest I could devise here, will be a file for the serpent. tempest when I left England, but a very fresh breeze: and as to an 'Address to Little Ada,' (who, by-theway, is a year old to-morrow,) I never wrote a line about her, except in 'Farewell,' and the third canto of Childe Harold." LETTER CCCXIV. TO MR. MURRAY. "Venice, Dec. 27, 1818. 46 I mean to remain here till the spring, so address to me directly to Venice, poste restante.-Mr. Hobhouse, for the present has gone to Rome, with his brother, brother's wife, and sister, who overtook him here; he returns in two months. I should have gone too, but I fell in love, and must stay that over. I should think that and the Armenian alphabet will last the winter. The lady has, luckily for me, been less obdurate than the language, or, between the two, I should have lost my remains of "As the demon of silence seems to have pos sanity. By-the-way she is not an Armenian but a sessed you, I am determined to have my revenge in Venetian, as I believe I told you in my last. As postage: this is my sixth or seventh letter since for Italian, I am fluent enough, even in its Venetian summer and Switzerland. My last was an injure modification, which is something like the Somerset- tion to contradict and consign to confusion that shire version of English; and as for the more clas- Cheapside impostor, who (I heard by a letter from sical dialects, I had not forgot my former practice your island) had thought proper to append my name much during my voyaging. to his spurious poesy, of which I know nothing, nor of his pretended purchase of copyright. I hope you have, at least, received that letter. "Yours, ever and truly, "P. S. Remember me to Mr. Gifford." LETTER CCCXIII. TO MR. MURRAY. B. "As the news of Venice must be very interesting to you, I will regale you with it. fact "Yesterday, being the feast of St. Stephen, every mouth was put in motion. There was nothing but fiddling and playing on the virginals, and all kinds of conceits and divertisements, on every canal of this aquatic city. I dined with the Countess Albrizza and a Paduan and Venetian party, and afterward went to the opera, at the Fenice theatre (which opens for the Carnival on that day,)-the finest, br "Venice, Dec. 9, 1816. the-way, I have ever seen: it beats our theatres "In a letter from England, I am informed that a hollow in beauty and scenery, and those of Milan man named Johnson has taken upon himself to and Brescia bow before it. The opera and its siress publish some poems called a Pilgrimage to Jeru- were much like other operas and women, but the salem, a Tempest, and an Address to my Daughter,' subject of the said opera was something edifying; it &c., and to attribute them to me, adding that he turned-the plot and conduct thereof-upon had paid five hundred guineas for them. The an- narrated by Livy of a hundred and fifty married laswer to this is short: I never wrote such poems, nev-dies having poisioned a hundred and fifty husbands er received the sum he mentions, nor any other in the in good old times. The bachelors of Rome believed same quarter, nor (as far as moral or mortal certainty this extraordinary mortality to be merely the com can be sure), ever had, directly or indirectly, the mon effect of matrimony or a pestilence; but the slightest communication with Johnson in my life; surviving Benedicts, being all seized with the colic, not being aware that the person existed till this examined into the matter, and found that their intelligence gave me to understand that there were possets had been drugged;' the consequence of such people. Nothing surprises me, or this perhaps which was, much scandal and several suits at law. would, and most things amuse me, or this probably This is really and truly the subject of the musical would not. With regard to myself, the man has piece at the Fenice; and you can't conceive what merely lied; that's natural-his betters have set pretty things are sung and recitativoed about the him the example: but with regard to you, his asser-horrenda strage. The conclusion was a lady's head tion may perhaps injure you in your publications; 'about to be chopped off by a lictor, but (I am sorry J to say) he left it on, and she got up and sung a trio &c., on the day of the date of the 'Corsair;' and with the two Consuls, the Senate in the back ground I also received one from my sister, written on the being chorus. The ballet was distinguished by 10th of December, my daughter's birth-day, (and nothing remarkable, except that the principal she- relative chiefly to my daughter,) and arriving on dancer went into convulsions because she was not the day of the date of my marriage, this present applauded on her first appearance; and the man- 2d of January, the month of my birth,-and various ager came forward to ask if there was ever a physi- other astrologous matters, which I have no time to cian in the theatre.' There was a Greek one in my enumerate. box, whom I wished very much to volunteer his "" By the way, you might as well write to Hentsch, services, being sure that in this case these would my Genera banker, and inquire whether the two have been the last convulsions which would have packets consigned to his care were or were not detroubled the ballarina; but he would not. The livered to Mr. St. Aubyn, or if they are still in his crowd was enormous, and in coming out, having a keeping. One contains papers, letters, and all the lady under my arm, I was obliged, in making way, original MS. of your third canto, as first conceived; almost to beat a Venetian, and traduce the state,' and the other some bones from the field of Morat. being compelled to regale a person with an English Many thanks for your news, and the good spirits in punch in the guts, which sent him as far back as the which your letter is written. squeeze and the passage would admit. He did not "Venice and I agree very well; but I do not ask for another, but with great signs of disapproba- know that I have any thing new to say except of tion and dismay, appealed to his compatriots, who the last new opera, which I sent in my late letter. laughed at him. The Carniva! is commencing, and there is a good "I am going on with my Armenian studies in a deal of fun aere and there-besides business; for morning, and assisting and stimulating in the Eng-all the world are making up their intrigues for the lish portion of an English and Armenian grammar, season, changing, or going on upon a renewed now publishing at the convent of St. Lazarus. lease. I am very well off with Marianna, who is "The superior of the friars is a bishop, and a fine not at all a person to tire me; firstly, because I do old fellow, with the beard of a meteor. Father not tire of a woman personally, but because they Paschal is also a learned and pious soul. He was are generally bores in their disposition; and, setwo years in England. condly, because she is amiable, and has a tact which "I am still dreadfully in love with the Adriatic is not always the portion of the fair creation; and, lady whom I spake of in a former letter (and not in thirdly, she is very pretty; and, fourthly, there is this-I add, for fear of mistakes, for the only one no occasion for farther specification. mentioned in the first part of this epistle is elderly So far we have gone on very well; as to the future, and bookish, two things which I have ceased to I never anticipate, carpe diem-the past at least is admire,) and love in this part of the world is no one's own, which is one reason for making sure of sinecure. This is also the season when every body the present. So much for my proper liaison. make up their intrigues for the ensuing year, and cut for partners for the next deal. "And now, if you don't write, I don't know what I won't say or do, nor what I will. Send me some news-good news. "Yours, very truly, &c., &c., &c., "P. S. Remember me to Mr. Gifford, with all duty. "The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges' time: a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connexion, such as the Princess of Wales with her courier, (who, by the way, is made a knight of Malta,) who are considered as overstepping the modesty of mar"I hear that the Edinburgh Review has cut up riage. In Venice, the nobility have a trick of marColeridge's Christabel, and me for praising it, which rying with dancers and singers; and, truth to say, omen, I think, bodes no great good to your forth- the women of their own order are by no means come or coming canto and Castle (of Chillon.) My handsome; but the general race, the women of the run of luck within the last year seems to have taken second and other orders, the wives of the mera turn every way; but never mind, I will bring my-chants, and proprietors, and untitled gentry, are self through in the end-if not, I can be but where I mostly bel' sangue, and it is with these that the began. In the mean time, I am not displeased to more amatory connexions are usually formed. There be where I am-I mean at Venice. My Adriatic are also instances of stupendous constancy. I knew nymph is this moment here, and I must therefore a woman of fifty who never had but one lover, who repose from this letter." LETTER CCCXV. TO MR. MURRAY. dying early, she became devout, renouncing all but her husband. She piques herself, as may be presumed, upon this miraculous fidelity, talking of it occasionally with a species of misplaced morality, which is rather amusing. There is no convincing a woman here that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right or the fitness of things in having an amoroso. The great sin seems to lie in concealing it, or having more than one, that is, unless such an extension of the prerogative is understood and approved of by the prior claimant. "Your letter has arrived. Pray, in publishing In my case, I do not know that I had any predothe third canto, have you omitted any passages? Icessor, and am pretty sure that there is no particihope not; and indeed wrote to you on my way over pator; and am inclined to think, from the youth of the Alps to prevent such an incident. Say in your the party, and from the frank, undisguised way in next whether or not the whole of the canto (as sent which every body avows every thing in this part of to you) has been published. I wrote to you again the world, when there is any thing to avow, as well the other day, (twice I think,) and shall be glad to as from some other circumstances, such as the marhear of the reception of those letters. riage being recent, &c., &c., &c., that this is the premier pas. It does not much signify. "Venice, Jan. 2, 1817. To-day is the 2d of January. On this day three years ago the Corsair's publication is dated, I think, "In another sheet, I send you some sheets of a in my letter to Moore. On this day two years I grammar, English and Armenian, for the use of married ('Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,'- the Armenians, of which I promoted, and indeed I shan't forget the day in a hurry,) and it is odd induced, the publication. (It cost me but a thou enough that I this day received a letter from you announcing the publication of Childe Harold, &c., ⚫ See Childe Harold, canto iii., stanza lxiii., and note. sand francs-French livres.) I still pursue my my best to deserve no better. But to you, she is a lessons in the language without any rapid progress, good deal in arrear, and she will come round-mind but advancing a little daily. Padre Paschal, with if she don't: you have the vigor of life, of indesome little help from me, as translator of his Italian pendence, of talent, spirit, and character, all with into English, is also proceeding in a MS. grammar you. What you can do for yourself, you have done for the English acquisition of Armenian, which will and will do; and surely there are some others in be printed also when finished. the world who would not be sorry to be of use, if you would allow them to be useful, or at least attempt it. We want to know if there are any Armenian types and letter-press in England, at Oxford, Cambridge, or elsewhere? You know, I suppose, that, "I think of being in England in the spring. If many years ago, the two Whistons published in there is a row, by the sceptre of King Ludd, but England an original text of a history of Armenia, I'll be one; and if there is none, and only a conwith their own Latin translation? Do those types tinuance of this weak, piping time of peace,' I still exist? and where? Pray inquire among your will take a cottage a hundred yards to the south of learned acquaintance. your abode, and become your neighbor; and we time. "When this grammar (I mean the one now print-will compose such canticles, and hold such diaing) is done, will you have any objection to take logues, as shall be the terror of the times, (includforty or fifty copies, which will not cost in all above ing the newspaper of that name,) and the wonder, five or ten guineas, and try the curiosity of the and honor, and praise of the Morning Chronicle learned with a sale of them? Say yes or no, as you and posterity. like. I can assure you that they have some very rejoice to hear of your forthcoming in Febru curious books and MSS., chiefly translations from ary-though I tremble for the magnificence which Greek originals now lost. They are, besides, a you attribute to the new Childe Harold. I am glad much-respected and learned community, and the you like it; it is a fine, indistinct piece of poetical study of their language was taken up with great desolation, and my favorite. I was half mad during ardor by some literary Frenchmen in Bonaparte's the time of its composition, between ma physics, mountains, lakes, love unextinguishable, thoughts "I have not done a stitch of poetry since I left unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delin Switzerland, and have not at present the estro upon quences. I should, many a good day, have blown me. The truth is, that you are afraid of having a my brains out, but for the recollection that it would fourth canto before September, and of another copy-have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, right, but I have at present no thoughts of resum- even then, if I could have been certain to haunt ing that poem, nor of beginning any other. If I her, and fling the shattered scalp of my sinciput write, I think of trying prose, but I dread intro- and occiput in her frightful face-but I won't dwell ducing living people, or applications which might upon these trifling family matters. be made to living people. Perhaps one day or other "Venice is in the estro of her Carnival, and I I may attempt some work of fancy in prose, descrip- have been up these last two nights at the ridotto tive of Italian manners and of human passions; and the opera, and all that kind of thing. Now but at present I am preoccupied. As for poesy, for an adventure. A few days ago a gondolier mine is the dream of the sleeping passions; when brought me a billet without a subscription, intimat they are awake, I cannot speak their language, ing a wish on the part of the writer to meet me only in their somnambulism, and just now they are not dormant. "If Mr. Gifford wants carte blanche as to the Siege of Corinth, he has it, and may do as he likes with it. either in gondola, or at the island of San Lazaro, or at a third rendezvous indicated in the note. 'I know the country's disposition well,'-in Venice they do let heaven see those tricks they dare not show,' &c., &c.; so for all response, I said that "I sent you a letter contradictory of the Cheap-neither of the three places suited me; but that I side man (who invented the story you speak of) the would either be at home at ten at night alone, or other day. My best respects to Mr. Gifford, and be at the ridotto at midnight, where the writer such of my friends as you may see at your house. might meet me masked. At ten o'clock I was at I wish you all prosperity and new year's gratula-home and alone, (Marianna was gone with her hus tion, and am, 66 Yours, &c." LETTER CCCXVI. TO MR. MOORE. "Venice, Jan. 28, 1817. band to a conversazione,) when the door of my apartment opened, and in walked a well-looking and (for an Italian) bionda girl of about nineteen, who informed me that she was married to the brother of my amoroso, and wished to have some conversation with me. I made a decent reply, and we had some talk in Italian and Romaic, (her mother being a Greek of Corfu ;) when, lo! in a very few minutes in marches, to my very great "Your letter of the 8th is before me. The reme- astonishment, Marianna S**, in propria persong, dy for your plethora is simple-abstinence. I was and, after making a most polite curtsey to her obliged to have recourse to the like some years ago, sister-in-law and to me, without a single word, I mean in point of diet, and, with the exception of seizes her said sister-in-law by the hair, and te some convivial weeks and days, (it might be months stows upon her some sixteen slaps, which would now and then,) have kept to Pythagoras ever since. have made your ear ache only to hear their echo. For all this, let me hear that you are better. You I need not describe the screaming which ensued. must not indulge in filthy beer,' nor in porter, nor The luckless visiter took flight. I seized Marianns, eat suppers-the last are the devil to those who who, after several vain efforts to get away in pursuit swallow dinner. of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, * "I am truly sorry to hear of your father's mis- in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half fortune-cruel at any time, but doubly cruel in a pint of water, and God knows what other water advanced life. However, you will, at least, have besides, continued so till past midnight. the satisfaction of doing your part by him, and, "After damning my servants for letting people depend upon it, it will not be in vain. Fortune, to in without apprizing me, I found that Marianna in be sure, is a female, but not such a b-h as the rest the morning had seen her sister-in-law's gondolier (always excepting your wife and my sister from on the stairs; and, suspecting that his apparition such sweeping terms;) for she generally has some boded her no good, had either returned of her own justice in the long run. I have no spite against accord, or been followed by her maids or some other her, though, between her and Nemesis, I have had spy of her people to the conversazione, from whence some sore gauntlets to run-but then I have done she returned to perpetrate this piece of pugilism |