“Pulci and I are waiting for you with impatience; but I suppose we must give way to the attraction of the Bolognese galleries for a time.  I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little:  but to me there are none like the Venetian—­above all, Giorgione.  I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mariscalchi in Bologna.  The real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful.  Buy her, by all means, if you can, and take her home with you:  put her in safety:  for be assured there are troublous times brewing for Italy; and as I never could keep out of a row in my life, it will be my fate, I dare say, to be over head and ears in it; but no matter, these are the stronger reasons for coming to see me soon.

“I have more of Scott’s novels (for surely they are Scott’s) since we met, and am more and more delighted.  I think that I even prefer them to his poetry, which (by the way) I redde for the first time in my life in your rooms in Trinity College.

     “There are some curious commentaries on Dante preserved here,
     which you should see.  Believe me ever, faithfully and most
     affectionately, yours,” &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 359.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Ravenna, March 1. 1820.

“I sent you by last post the translation of the first Canto of the Morgante Maggiore, and wish you to ask Rose about the word ‘sbergo,’ i.e. ‘usbergo,’ which I have translated cuirass.  I suspect that it means helmet also.  Now, if so, which of the senses is best accordant with the text?  I have adopted cuirass, but will be amenable to reasons.  Of the natives, some say one, and some t’other:  but they are no great Tuscans in Romagna.  However, I will ask Sgricci (the famous improvisatore) to-morrow, who is a native of Arezzo.  The Countess Guiccioli who is reckoned a very cultivated young lady, and the dictionary, say cuirass.  I have written cuirass, but helmet runs in my head nevertheless—­and will run in verse very well, whilk is the principal point.  I will ask the Sposa Spina Spinelli, too, the Florentine bride of Count Gabriel Rusponi, just imported from Florence, and get the sense out of somebody.

“I have just been visiting the new Cardinal, who arrived the day before yesterday in his legation.  He seems a good old gentleman, pious and simple, and not quite like his predecessor, who was a bon-vivant, in the worldly sense of the words.

“Enclosed is a letter which I received some time ago from Dallas.  It will explain itself.  I have not answered it.  This comes of doing people good.  At one time or another (including copyrights) this person has had about fourteen hundred pounds of my money, and he writes what he calls a posthumous work about me, and a scrubby letter accusing me of treating him ill, when I never did any such thing.