England; though you will think it strange that they should have allowed such freedom for many centuries to the Morgante, while the other day they confiscated the whole translation of the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, and have persecuted Leoni, the translator—­so he writes me, and so I could have told him, had he consulted me before his publication.  This shows how much more politics interest men in these parts than religion.  Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate Childe Harold in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing monks and knights, and church government, are let loose for centuries.  I copy Leoni’s account.

“’Non ignorera forse che la mia versione del 4 deg.  Canto del Childe Harold fu confiscata in ogni parte:  ed io stesso ho dovuto soffrir vessazioni altrettanto ridicole quanto illiberaii, ad arte che alcuni versi fossero esclusi dalla censura.  Ma siccome il divieto non fa d’ordinario che accrescere la curiosita cos! quel carme sull’ Italia e ricercato piu che mai, e penso di farlo ristampare in Inghil-terra senza nulla escludere.  Sciagurata condizione di questa mia patria! se patria si puo chiamare una terra cosi avvilita dalla fortuna, dagli uomini, da se medesima.’

     “Rose will translate this to you.  Has he had his letter?  I enclosed
     it to you months ago.

“This intended piece of publication I shall dissuade him from, or he may chance to see the inside of St. Angelo’s.  The last sentence of his letter is the common and pathetic sentiment of all his countrymen.

“Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth ascension to Mount Vesuvius, asked ’if there was not a similar volcano in Ireland?’ My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but, on second thoughts, I divined that she alluded to Iceland and to Hecla—­and so it proved, though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the amiable pertinacity of ‘the feminie.’  She soon after turned to me and asked me various questions about Sir Humphry’s philosophy, and I explained as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the Pompeian MSS.  ‘But what do you call him?’ said she.  ‘A great chemist,’ quoth I.  ‘What can he do?’ repeated the lady.  ‘Almost any thing,’ said I.  ’Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my eyebrows black.  I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come off; and besides, they don’t grow; can’t he invent something to make them grow?’ All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated and clever.  But they speak like children, when first out of their