“With death doom’d to grapple
          Beneath this cold slab, he
        Who lied in the Chapel
          Now lies in the Abbey.

     “The gods seem to have made me poetical this day:—­

        “In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
          Will.  Cobbett has done well: 
        You visit him on earth again,
          He’ll visit you in hell.

     Or,

        “You come to him on earth again,
          He’ll go with you to hell.

“Pray let not these versiculi go forth with my name, except among the initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable House, according to Galignani’s Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are menacing a prosecution to a pamphlet of his.  I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the natural effects of taking a part in them.

“For my own part I had a sad scene since you went.  Count Gu. came for his wife, and none of those consequences which Scott prophesied ensued.  There was no damages, as in England, and so Scott lost his wager.  But there was a great scene, for she would not, at first, go back with him—­at least, she did go back with him; but he insisted, reasonably enough, that all communication should be broken off between her and me.  So, finding Italy very dull, and having a fever tertian, I packed up my valise, and prepared to cross the Alps; but my daughter fell ill, and detained me.

“After her arrival at Ravenna, the Guiccioli fell ill again too; and at last, her father (who had, all along, opposed the liaison most violently till now) wrote to me to say that she was in such a state that he begged me to come and see her,—­and that her husband had acquiesced, in consequence of her relapse, and that he (her father) would guarantee all this, and that there would be no farther scenes in consequence between them, and that I should not be compromised in any way.  I set out soon after, and have been here ever since.  I found her a good deal altered, but getting better:—­all this comes of reading Corinna.

“The Carnival is about to begin, and I saw about two or three hundred people at the Marquis Cavalli’s the other evening, with as much youth, beauty, and diamonds among the women, as ever averaged in the like number.  My appearance in waiting on the Guiccioli was considered as a thing of course.  The Marquis is her uncle, and naturally considered me as her relation.

     “The paper is out, and so is the letter.  Pray write.  Address to
     Venice, whence the letters will be forwarded.  Yours, &c.  B.”

* * * * *

LETTER 353.  TO MR. HOPPNER.