Have you chanced to see our Jena Literatur-Zeitung for this year, and has anything which it contained aroused your interest?

I am extremely grateful to you for the very welcome information which you give me regarding an improvisatrice.  Could I possibly dare to make use of it in the advertising columns of the Literatur-Zeitung?  What you have said I would modify in every way consonant with its relation to the public, which needs not know everything.  If you could occasionally communicate to me some information of this type from the wealth of your observations, you would confer a great pleasure upon us.

Since Jagemann’s death, Fernow has received an appointment at the library of the Duchess Dowager, and his connection with it is of great value for her house and for the society which assembles there; he makes love for Italian literature a living force and gives occasion for witty readings and conversations.

Generally speaking, Weimar is like heaven since the Bottiger goblin [26] has been banished; and our school is also going very well indeed.  A professorship has been given to Voss’s eldest son, who inherits from his father that fundamental love for antiquity, especially from the linguistic side, which, after all, is the principal thing in a teacher of the classics.

Riemer also conducts himself very well in my house, and I am fairly satisfied with the progress of my boy, who, I must admit, has a greater interest in subject-matter than in diction.

Madame de Stael’s intention of spending a portion of the summer here has been frustrated by her father’s death.  She has taken Schlegel with her from Berlin; they are together in Coppet; and will probably go to Italy toward winter.  Such a visit would doubtless be more delightful to you, dear friend, than many another.

My warmest thanks are due you for sending me the Odes of Pindar in translation; they have given a very pleasant hour of recreation to Riemer and myself.

I trust to your goodness to see that the inclosed memorandum is delivered to Mercandetti, and perhaps to confer with him in person about the matter.  Then among your ministering spirits you perhaps have some one who would keep an eye on the affair in future.  I should be glad if our old patron[27] were given such a public token of gratitude, which should also be noteworthy from the artistic side, but it must be acknowledged that it is always a daring venture to place any order at such a distance, and, therefore, I entreat your friendly participation.

Above all things it is important that Mercandetti should make a moderate charge.  He demands three piasters for his Alfieri, which he offers for sale and which is said to be as large as his Galvani.  If, now, he asks somewhat more for the archchancellor’s medal, which is ordered and which is not supposed to be any larger, surely the extra expense should not be much, and if it is relatively cheap, I am confident