als, &c. &c. &c. which he
insists on her accepting, and she persists in refusing. I am
expressly, it should seem, excluded by this treaty, as an
indispensable preliminary; so that they are in high dissension, and
what the result may be I know not, particularly as they are
consulting friends.

"To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over 'Don
Juan,' she stumbled by mere chance on the 137th stanza of the first
Canto, and asked me what it meant. I told her, 'Nothing--but "your
husband is coming."' As I said this in Italian, with some emphasis,
she started up in a fright, and said, '_Oh, my God, is_ he
_coming_?' thinking it was _her own_, who either was or ought to
have been at the theatre. You may suppose we laughed when she found
out the mistake. You will be amused, as I was;--it happened not
three hours ago.

"I wrote to you last week, but have added nothing to the third
Canto since my fever, nor to 'The Prophecy of Dante.' Of the former
there are about 100 octaves done; of the latter about 500
lines--perhaps more. Moore saw the third Juan, as far as it then
went. I do not know if my fever will let me go on with either, and
the tertian lasts, they say, a good while. I had it in Malta on my
way home, and the malaria fever in Greece the year before that. The
Venetian is not very fierce, but I was delirious one of the nights
with it, for an hour or two, and, on my senses coming back, found
Fletcher sobbing on one side of the bed, and La Contessa
Guiccioli[60] weeping on the other; so that I had no want of
attendance. I have not yet taken any physician, because, though I
think they may relieve in chronic disorders, such as gout and the
like, &c. &c. &c. (though they can't cure them)--just as surgeons
are necessary to set bones and tend wounds--yet I think fevers
quite out of their reach, and remediable only by diet and nature.

"I don't like the taste of bark, but I suppose that I must take it
soon.

"Tell Rose that somebody at Milan (an Austrian, Mr. Hoppner says)
is answering his book. William Bankes is in quarantine at Trieste.
I have not lately heard from you. Excuse this paper: it is long
paper shortened for the occasion. What folly is this of Carlile's
trial? why let him have the honours of a martyr? it will only
a