“I also went to the Medici chapel—­fine frippery in great slabs of
     various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotten and forgotten
     carcasses.  It is unfinished, and will remain so.

“The church of ‘Santa Croce’ contains much illustrious nothing.  The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, Galileo Galilei, and Alfieri, make it the Westminster Abbey of Italy.  I did not admire any of these tombs—­beyond their contents.  That of Alfieri is heavy, and all of them seem to me overloaded.  What is necessary but a bust and name? and perhaps a date? the last for the unchronological, of whom I am one.  But all your allegory and eulogy is infernal, and worse than the long wigs of English numskulls upon Roman bodies in the statuary of the reigns of Charles II., William, and Anne.

“When you write, write to Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in a fortnight.  I shall not be in England for a long time.  This afternoon I met Lord and Lady Jersey, and saw them for some time:  all well; children grown and healthy; she very pretty, but sunburnt; he very sick of travelling; bound for Paris.  There are not many English on the move, and those who are, mostly homewards.  I shall not return till business makes me, being much better where I am in health, &c. &c.

“For the sake of my personal comfort, I pray you send me immediately to Venice—­mind, Venice—­viz. Waites’ tooth-powder, red, a quantity; calcined magnesia, of the best quality, a quantity; and all this by safe, sure, and speedy means; and, by the Lord! do it.

     “I have done nothing at Manfred’s third Act.  You must wait; I’ll
     have at it in a week or two, or so.  Yours ever,” &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 277.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Rome, May 5. 1817.

“By this post, (or next at farthest) I send you in two other covers, the new third Act of ‘Manfred.’  I have re-written the greater part, and returned what is not altered in the proof you sent me.  The Abbot is become a good man, and the Spirits are brought in at the death.  You will find I think, some good poetry in this new act, here and there; and if so, print it, without sending me farther proofs, under Mr. Gifford’s correction, if he will have the goodness to overlook it.  Address all answers to Venice, as usual; I mean to return there in ten days.

“‘The Lament of Tasso,’ which I sent from Florence, has, I trust, arrived:  I look upon it as a ‘these be good rhymes,’ as Pope’s papa said to him when he was a boy.  For the two—­it and the Drama—­you will disburse to me (via Kinnaird) six hundred guineas.  You will perhaps be surprised