lace, for you must not look at anybody's wife except your
neighbour's,--if you go to the next door but one, you are scolded,
and presumed to be perfidious. And then a relazione or an amicizia
seems to be a regular affair of from five to fifteen years, at
which period, if there occur a widowhood, it finishes by a
sposalizio; and in the mean time it has so many rules of its own
that it is not much better. A man actually becomes a piece of
female property,--they won't let their Serventi marry until there
is a vacancy for themselves. I know two instances of this in one
family here.

"To-night there was a ----[67] Lottery after the opera; it is an
odd ceremony. Bankes and I took tickets of it, and buffooned
together very merrily. He is gone to Firenze. Mrs. J * * should
have sent you my postscript; there was no occasion to have bored
you in person. I never interfere in anybody's squabbles,--she may
scratch your face herself.

"The weather here has been dreadful--snow several feet--a _fiume_,
broke down a bridge, and flooded heaven knows how many _campi_;
then rain came--and it is still thawing--so that my saddle-horses
have a sinecure till the roads become more practicable. Why did
Lega give away the goat? a blockhead--I must have him again.

"Will you pay Missiaglia and the Buffo Buffini of the Gran
Bretagna? I heard from Moore, who is at Paris; I had previously
written to him in London, but he has not yet got my letter,
apparently.

"Believe me," &c.

[Footnote 67: The word here, being under the seal, is illegible.]

* * * * *

LETTER 355. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, February 7. 1820.

"I have had no letter from you these two months; but since I came
here in December, 1819, I sent you a letter for Moore, who is God
knows _where_--in Paris or London, I presume. I have copied and
cut the third Canto of Don Juan _into two_, because it was too
long; and I tell you this beforehand, because in case of any
reckoning between you and me, these two are only to go for one, as
this was the original form, and, in fact, the two together are not
longer than one of the first: so remember that I have not made this
division to _double_ upon _you_; but merely to suppress some
tediousness in the aspect of the thing. I should h