l asked how far I am accurate in my
recollection of what he told me; for I don't like to say such
things without authority.

"I am not sure that I was _not spoken_ with; but this also you can
ascertain. I have written to you such letters that I stop.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. Last year (in June, 1819), I met at Count Mosti's, at
Ferrara, an Italian who asked me 'if I knew Lord Byron?' I told him
_no_ (no one knows himself, _you_ know). 'Then,' says he, 'I do; I
met him at Naples the other day.' I pulled out my card and asked
him if that was the way he spelt his name: he answered, _yes_. I
suspect that it was a blackguard navy surgeon, who attended a young
travelling madam about, and passed himself for a lord at the
post-houses. He was a vulgar dog--quite of the cock-pit order--and
a precious representative I must have had of him, if it was even
so; but I don't know. He passed himself off as a gentleman, and
squired about a Countess * * (of this place), then at Venice, an
ugly battered woman, of bad morals even for Italy."

* * * * *

LETTER 390. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, 8bre 8 deg., 1820.

"Foscolo's letter is exactly the thing wanted; firstly, because he
is a man of genius; and, next, because he is an Italian, and
therefore the best judge of Italics. Besides,

"He's more an antique Roman than a Dane;

that is, he is more of the ancient Greek than of the modern
Italian. Though 'somewhat,' as Dugald Dalgetty says, 'too wild and
sa_l_vage' (like 'Ronald of the Mist'), 'tis a wonderful man, and
my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him; and they are good
judges of men and of Italian humanity.

"Here are in all _two_ worthy voices gain'd:

Gifford says it is good 'sterling genuine English,' and Foscolo
says that the characters are right Venetian. Shakspeare and Otway
had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one
of being _dead_ from one to two centuries, and having been both
born blackguards (which ARE such attractions to the gentle living
reader); let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly
have--that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the
local spirit of it. I claim no more.

"I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's _spitting_ at Bertram;