way back, close to the temple
by its banks, I got some famous trout out of the river
Clitumnus--the prettiest little stream in all poesy, near the first
post from Foligno and Spoletto.--I did not stay at Florence, being
anxious to get home to Venice, and having already seen the
galleries and other sights. I left my commendatory letters the
evening before I went, so I saw nobody.

"To-day, Pindemonte, the celebrated poet of Verona, called on me;
he is a little thin man, with acute and pleasing features; his
address good and gentle; his appearance altogether very
philosophical; his age about sixty, or more. He is one of their
best going. I gave him _Forsyth_, as he speaks, or reads rather, a
little English, and will find there a favourable account of
himself. He enquired after his old Cruscan friends, Parsons,
Greathead, Mrs. Piozzi, and Merry, all of whom he had known in his
youth. I gave him as bad an account of them as I could, answering,
as the false 'Solomon Lob' does to 'Totterton' in the farce, 'all
gone dead,' and damned by a satire more than twenty years ago; that
the name of their extinguisher was Gifford; that they were but a
sad set of scribes after all, and no great things in any other way.
He seemed, as was natural, very much pleased with this account of
his old acquaintances, and went away greatly gratified with that
and Mr. Forsyth's sententious paragraph of applause in his own
(Pindemonte's) favour. After having been a little libertine in his
youth, he is grown devout, and takes prayers, and talks to himself,
to keep off the devil; but for all that, he is a very nice little
old gentleman.

"I forgot to tell you that at Bologna (which is celebrated for
producing popes, painters, and sausages) I saw an anatomical
gallery, where there is a deal of waxwork, in which * *.

"I am sorry to hear of your row with Hunt; but suppose him to be
exasperated by the Quarterly and your refusal to _deal_; and when
one is angry and edites a paper, I should think the temptation too
strong for literary nature, which is not always human. I can't
conceive in what, and for what, he abuses you: what have you done?
you are not an author, nor a politician, nor a public character; I
know no scrape you have tumbled into. I am the more sorry for this