On my coming hither, I found Lady Clementina in a deplorable way:  Sometimes raving, sometimes gloomy; and in bonds—­Twice had she given them apprehensions of fatal attempts:  they, therefore, confined her hands.

They have been excessively wrong in their management of her:  now soothing, now severe; observing no method.

She was extremely earnest to see you before you left Bologna.  On her knees repeatedly she besought this favour, and promised to be easy if they would comply; but they imagined that their compliance would aggravate the symptoms.

I very freely blamed them for not complying, at the time when she was so desirous of seeing you.  I told them, that soothing her would probably then have done good.

When they knew you were actually gone from Bologna, they told her so.  Camilla shocked me with the description of her rage and despair, on the communication.  This was followed by fits of silence, and the deepest melancholy.

They had hopes, on my arrival, that my company would have been of service to her:  but for two days together she regarded me not, nor any thing I could say to her.  On the third of my arrival, finding her confinement extremely uneasy to her, I prevailed, but with great difficulty, to have her restored to the use of her hands; and to be allowed to walk with me in the garden.  They had hinted to me their apprehensions about a piece of water.

Her woman being near us, if there had been occasion for assistance, I insensibly led that way.  She sat down on a seat over-against the great cascade; but she made no motion that gave me apprehensions.  From this time she has been fonder of me than before.  The day I obtained this liberty for her, she often clasped her arms about me, and laid her face in my bosom; and I could plainly see, it was in gratitude for restoring to her the use of her arms:  but she cared not to speak.

Indeed she generally affects deep silence:  yet, at times, I see her very soul is fretted.  She moves to one place, is tired of that, shifts to another, and another, all round the room.

I am grieved at my heart for her:  I never knew a more excellent young creature.

She is very attentive at her devotions, and as constant in them as she used to be:  Every good habit she preserves; yet, at other times, rambles much.

She is often for writing letters to you; but when what she writes is privately taken from her, she makes no inquiry about it, but takes a new sheet, and begins again.

Sometimes she draws; but her subjects are generally angels and saints.  She often meditates in a map of the British dominions, and now and then wishes she were in England.

Lady Juliana de Sforza is earnest to have her with her at Urbino, or at Milan, where she has also a noble palace; but I hope it will not be granted.  That lady professes to love her; but she cannot be persuaded out of her notion of harsh methods, which will never do with Clementina.