mine in all other things, will operate in this also
to prevent my being in the same procession.

"By Saturday's post I sent you four packets, containing Cantos
third and fourth. Recollect that these two cantos reckon only as
_one_ with you and me, being, in fact, the third canto cut into
two, because I found it too long. Remember this, and don't imagine
that there could be any other motive. The whole is about 225
stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of 96 lines, so that they are no
longer than the first _single_ cantos: but the truth is, that I
made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had I
thought better. Instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say
so many stanzas or pages: it was Jacob Tonson's way, and certainly
the best; it prevents mistakes. I might have sent you a dozen
cantos of 40 stanzas each,--those of 'The Minstrel' (Beattie's) are
no longer,--and ruined you at once, if you don't suffer as it is.
But recollect that you are not _pinned down_ to any thing you say
in a letter, and that, calculating even these two cantos as _one_
only (which they were and are to be reckoned), you are not bound by
your offer. Act as may seem fair to all parties.

"I have finished my translation of the first Canto of 'The Morgante
Maggiore' of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send. It is the
parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but of all jocose Italian poetry.
You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I
wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza,
and often line for line, if not word for word.

"You ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on Italy. Perhaps I am in
the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have
lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where
Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place
particularly); but there are many reasons why I do not choose to
treat in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and
in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 'amico di
casa,' and sometimes as 'amico di cuore' of the Dama, and in
neither case do I feel myself authorised in making a book of them.
Their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you
would not understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor G