“There are no news here to interest much.  A German spy (boasting himself such) was stabbed last week, but not mortally.  The moment I heard that he went about bullying and boasting, it was easy for me, or any one else, to foretell what would occur to him, which I did, and it came to pass in two days after.  He has got off, however, for a slight incision.

“A row the other night, about a lady of the place, between her various lovers, occasioned a midnight discharge of pistols, but nobody wounded.  Great scandal, however—­planted by her lover—­to be thrashed by her husband, for inconstancy to her regular Servente, who is coming home post about it, and she herself retired in confusion into the country, although it is the acme of the opera season.  All the women furious against her (she herself having been censorious) for being found out.  She is a pretty woman—­a Countess * * * *—­a fine old Visigoth name, or Ostrogoth.

     “The Greeks! what think you?  They are my old acquaintances—­but
     what to think I know not.  Let us hope howsomever.

     “Yours,

     “B.”

[Footnote 39:  In their eagerness, like true controversialists, to avail themselves of every passing advantage, and convert even straws into weapons on an emergency, my two friends, during their short warfare, contrived to place me in that sort of embarrassing position, the most provoking feature of which is, that it excites more amusement than sympathy.  On the one side, Mr. Bowles chose to cite, as a support to his argument, a short fragment of a note, addressed to him, as be stated, by “a gentleman of the highest literary,” &c. &c., and saying, in reference to Mr. Bowles’s former pamphlet, “You have hit the right nail on the head, and * * * * too.”  This short scrap was signed with four asterisks; and when, on the appearance of Mr. Bowles’s Letter, I met with it in his pages, not the slightest suspicion ever crossed my mind that I had been myself the writer of it;—­my communications with my reverend friend and neighbour having been (for years, I am proud to say) sufficiently frequent to allow of such a hasty compliment to his disputative powers passing from my memory.  When Lord Byron took the field against Mr. Bowles’s Letter, this unlucky scrap, so authoritatively brought forward, was, of course, too tempting a mark for his facetiousness to be resisted; more especially as the person mentioned in it, as having suffered from the reverend critic’s vigour, appeared, from the number of asterisks employed in designating him, to have been Pope himself, though, in reality, the name was that of Mr. Bowles’s former antagonist, Mr. Campbell.  The noble assailant, it is needless to say, made the most of this vulnerable point; and few readers could have been more diverted than I was with his happy ridicule of “the gentleman in asterisks,” little thinking that I was myself, all the while, this veiled victim,—­nor was it till about the time of the receipt of the above letter, that, by some communication on the subject from a friend in England, I was startled into the recollection of my own share in the transaction.