“I have got here into a famous old feudal palazzo, on the Arno, large enough for a garrison, with dungeons below and cells in the walls, and so full of ghosts, that the learned Fletcher (my valet) has begged leave to change his room, and then refused to occupy his new room, because there were more ghosts there than in the other.  It is quite true that there are most extraordinary noises (as in all old buildings), which have terrified the servants so as to incommode me extremely.  There is one place where people were evidently walled up; for there is but one possible passage, broken through the wall, and then meant to be closed again upon the inmate.  The house belonged to the Lanfranchi family, (the same mentioned by Ugolino in his dream, as his persecutor with Sismondi,) and has had a fierce owner or two in its time.  The staircase, &c. is said to have been built by Michel Agnolo.  It is not yet cold enough for a fire.  What a climate!

“I am, however, bothered about these spectres, (as they say the last occupants were, too,) of whom I have as yet seen nothing, nor, indeed, heard (myself); but all the other ears have been regaled by all kinds of supernatural sounds.  The first night I thought I heard an odd noise, but it has not been repeated.  I have now been here more than a month.

     “Yours,” &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 471.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Pisa, December 10. 1821.

     “This day and this hour, (one, on the clock,) my daughter is six
     years old.  I wonder when I shall see her again, or if ever I shall
     see her at all.

     “I have remarked a curious coincidence, which almost looks like a
     fatality.

     “My mother, my wife, my daughter, my half-sister, my
     sisters mother, my natural daughter (as far at least as I am
     concerned), and myself, are all only children.

“My father, by his first marriage with Lady Conyers (an only child), had only my sister; and by his second marriage with an only child, an only child again.  Lady Byron, as you know, was one also, and so is my daughter, &c.

     “Is not this rather odd—­such a complication of only children?  By
     the way, send me my daughter Ada’s miniature.  I have only the
     print, which gives little or no idea of her complexion.

     “Yours, &c.  B.”

* * * * *

LETTER 472.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “Pisa, December 12. 1821.