“B.

“P.S.  In the course of a month or two, Hanson will have probably to send off a clerk with conveyances to sign (Newstead being sold in November last for ninety-four thousand five hundred pounds), in which case I supplicate supplies of articles as usual, for which, desire Mr. Kinnaird to settle from funds in their bank, and deduct from my account with him.

“P.S.  To-morrow night I am going to see ‘Otello,’ an opera from our ‘Othello,’ and one of Rossini’s best, it is said.  It will be curious to see in Venice the Venetian story itself represented, besides to discover what they will make of Shakspeare in music.”

[Footnote 15:  On the birth of this child, who was christened John William Rizzo, Lord Byron wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remarkable than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan:—­

    “His father’s sense, his mother’s grace
      In him, I hope, will always fit so;
    With (still to keep him in good case)
      The health and appetite of Rizzo.”

The original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were printed, in a small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the seminary of Padua.]

* * * * *

LETTER 309.  TO MR. HOPPNER.

     “Venice, February 28. 1818.

     “My dear Sir,

“Our friend, il Conte M., threw me into a cold sweat last night, by telling me of a menaced version of Manfred (in Venetian, I hope, to complete the thing) by some Italian, who had sent it to you for correction, which is the reason why I take the liberty of troubling you on the subject.  If you have any means of communication with the man, would you permit me to convey to him the offer of any price he may obtain or think to obtain for his project, provided he will throw his translation into the fire[16], and promise not to undertake any other of that or any other of my things:  I will send his money immediately on this condition.

“As I did not write to the Italians, nor for the Italians, nor of the Italians, (except in a poem not yet published, where I have said all the good I know or do not know of them, and none of the harm,) I confess I wish that they would let me alone, and not drag me into their arena as one of the gladiators, in a silly contest which I neither understand nor have ever interfered with, having kept clear of all their literary parties, both here and at Milan, and elsewhere.—­I came into Italy to feel the climate and be quiet, if possible.  Mossi’s translation I would have prevented, if I had known it, or could have done so; and I trust that I