as well as Italian, so you can understand it; but I have
arms, and don't mind them, thinking that I could pepper his
ragamuffins, if they don't come unawares, and that, if they do, one
may as well end that way as another; and it would besides serve
_you_ as an advertisement:--

"Man may escape from rope or gun, &c.
But he who takes woman, woman, woman, &c.

"Yours.

"P.S. I have looked over the press, but heaven knows how. Think
what I have on hand and the post going out to-morrow. Do you
remember the epitaph on Voltaire?

"'Ci-git l'enfant gate,' &c.

"'Here lies the spoilt child
Of the world which he spoil'd.'

The original is in Grimm and Diderot, &c. &c. &c."

* * * * *

LETTER 374. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, May 24. 1820.

"I wrote to you a few days ago. There is also a letter of January
last for you at Murray's, which will explain to you why I am here.
Murray ought to have forwarded it long ago. I enclose you an
epistle from a countrywoman of yours at Paris, which has moved my
entrails. You will have the goodness, perhaps, to enquire into the
truth of her story, and I will help her as far as I can,--though
not in the useless way she proposes. Her letter is evidently
unstudied, and so natural, that the orthography is also in a state
of nature.

"Here is a poor creature, ill and solitary, who thinks, as a last
resource, of translating you or me into French! Was there ever such
a notion? It seems to me the consummation of despair. Pray enquire,
and let me know, and, if you could draw a bill on me _here_ for a
few hundred francs, at your banker's, I will duly honour it,--that
is, if she is not an impostor.[73] If not, let me know, that I may
get something remitted by my banker Longhi, of Bologna, for I have
no correspondence myself, at Paris: but tell her she must not
translate;--if she does, it will be the height of ingratitude.

"I had a letter (not of the same kind, but in French and flattery)
from a Madame Sophie Gail, of Paris, whom I take to be the spouse
of a Gallo-Greek of that name. Who is she? and what is she? and how
came she to take an interest in my _poeshie_ or its author? If you
know her, tell her, with my compliments, that, as I only _read_
French, I