this is to be considered.  I have materials in plenty, but the greater part of them could not be used by me, nor for these hundred years to come.  However, there is enough without these, and merely as a literary man, to make a preface for such an edition as you meditate.  But this is by the way:  I have not made up my mind.

     “I enclose you a note on the subject of ‘Parisina,’ which
     Hobhouse can dress for you.  It is an extract of particulars from a
     history of Ferrara.

     “I trust you have been attentive to Missiaglia, for the English
     have the character of neglecting the Italians, at present, which I
     hope you will redeem.

     “Yours in haste, B.”

* * * * *

LETTER 320.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Venice, July 17. 1818.

“I suppose that Aglietti will take whatever you offer, but till his return from Vienna I can make him no proposal; nor, indeed, have you authorised me to do so.  The three French notes are by Lady Mary; also another half-English-French-Italian.  They are very pretty and passionate; it is a pity that a piece of one of them is lost.  Algarotti seems to have treated her ill; but she was much his senior, and all women are used ill—­or say so, whether they are or not.

“I shall be glad of your books and powders.  I am still in waiting for Hanson’s clerk, but luckily not at Geneva.  All my good friends wrote to me to hasten there to meet him, but not one had the good sense or the good nature, to write afterwards to tell me that it would be time and a journey thrown away, as he could not set off for some months after the period appointed.  If I had taken the journey on the general suggestion, I never would have spoken again to one of you as long as I existed.  I have written to request Mr. Kinnaird, when the foam of his politics is wiped away, to extract a positive answer from that * * * *, and not to keep me in a state of suspense upon the subject.  I hope that Kinnaird, who has my power of attorney, keeps a look-out upon the gentleman, which is the more necessary, as I have a great dislike to the idea of coming over to look after him myself.

“I have several things begun, verse and prose, but none in much forwardness.  I have written some six or seven sheets of a Life, which I mean to continue, and send you when finished.  It may perhaps serve for your projected editions.  If you would tell me exactly (for I know nothing, and have no correspondents except on business) the state of the reception of our late publications, and the feeling upon them, without consulting any delicacies (I am too seasoned to require them), I should know how and in what manner to proceed.  I should not like to give them too much, which may probably have been the case already; but, as I