long evenings at the Mira, or Venice, reminds me of what Curran said to Moore:—­’So I hear you have married a pretty woman, and a very good creature, too—­an excellent creature.  Pray—­um! how do you pass your evenings?’ It is a devil of a question that, and perhaps as easy to answer with a wife as with a mistress.

“If you go to Milan, pray leave at least a Vice-Consul—­the only vice that will ever be wanting in Venice.  D’Orville is a good fellow.  But you shall go to England in the spring with me, and plant Mrs. Hoppner at Berne with her relations for a few months.  I wish you had been here (at Venice, I mean, not the Mira) when Moore was here—­we were very merry and tipsy.  He hated Venice, by the way, and swore it was a sad place.[59]

“So Madame Albrizzi’s death is in danger—­poor woman!  Moore told me that at Geneva they had made a devil of a story of the Fornaretta:—­’Young lady seduced!—­subsequent abandonment!—­leap into the Grand Canal!’—­and her being in the ’hospital of fous in consequence!’ I should like to know who was nearest being made ‘fou,’ and be d——­d to them I Don’t you think me in the interesting character of a very ill used gentleman?  I hope your little boy is well.  Allegrina is flourishing like a pomegranate blossom.  Yours,” &c.

[Footnote 59:  I beg to say that this report of my opinion of Venice is coloured somewhat too deeply by the feelings of the reporter.]

* * * * *

LETTER 346.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Venice, November 8. 1819.

“Mr. Hoppner has lent me a copy of ‘Don Juan,’ Paris edition, which he tells me is read in Switzerland by clergymen and ladies with considerable approbation.  In the second Canto, you must alter the 49th stanza to

        “’Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down
          Over the waste of waters, like a veil
        Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown
          Of one whose hate is mask’d but to assail;
        Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown,
          And grimly darkled o’er their faces pale
        And the dim desolate deep; twelve days had Fear
        Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

“I have been ill these eight days with a tertian fever, caught in the country on horseback in a thunderstorm.  Yesterday I had the fourth attack:  the two last were very smart, the first day as well as the last being preceded by vomiting.  It is the fever of the place and the season.  I feel weakened, but not unwell, in the intervals, except headach and lassitude.

“Count Guiccioli has arrived in Venice, and has presented his spouse (who had preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of Dr. Aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours and conduct,