her
present concubine and future wife and mistress of himself and
furniture. At the end of a month, in which she demeaned herself as
ill as possible, he found out a correspondence between her and
some former keeper, and after nearly strangling, turned her out of
the house, to the great scandal of the keeping part of the town,
and with a prodigious eclat, which has occupied all the canals and
coffee-houses in Venice. He said she wanted to poison him; and she
says--God knows what; but between them they have made a great deal
of noise. I know a little of both the parties: Moncada seemed a
very sensible old man, a character which he has not quite kept up
on this occasion; and the woman is rather showy than pretty. For
the honour of religion, she was bred in a convent, and for the
credit of Great Britain, taught by an Englishwoman.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 302. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, December 3. 1817.

"A Venetian lady, learned and somewhat stricken in years, having,
in her intervals of love and devotion, taken upon her to translate
the Letters and write the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague,--to
which undertaking there are two obstacles, firstly, ignorance of
English, and, secondly, a total dearth of information on the
subject of her projected biography, has applied to me for facts or
falsities upon this promising project. Lady Montague lived the last
twenty or more years of her life in or near Venice, I believe; but
here they know nothing, and remember nothing, for the story of
to-day is succeeded by the scandal of to-morrow; and the wit, and
beauty, and gallantry, which might render your countrywoman
notorious in her own country, must have been _here_ no great
distinction--because the first is in no request, and the two latter
are common to all women, or at least the last of them. If you can
therefore tell me any thing, or get any thing told, of Lady Wortley
Montague, I shall take it as a favour, and will transfer and
translate it to the 'Dama' in question. And I pray you besides to
send me, by some quick and safe voyager, the edition of her
Letters, and the stupid Life, by _Dr. Dallaway_, published by her
proud and foolish family.

"The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here,