you probably have.

"P.S. Foscolo's Ricciardo was lent, with the _leaves uncut_, to
some Italians, now in villeggiatura, so that I have had no
opportunity of hearing their decision, or of reading it. They
seized on it as Foscolo's, and on account of the beauty of the
paper and printing, directly. If I find it takes, I will reprint it
_here_. The Italians think as highly of Foscolo as they can of any
man, divided and miserable as they are, and with neither leisure at
present to read, nor head nor heart to judge of any thing but
extracts from French newspapers and the Lugano Gazette.

"We are all looking at one another, like wolves on their prey in
pursuit, only waiting for the first falling on to do unutterable
things. They are a great world in chaos, or angels in hell, which
you please; but out of chaos came Paradise, and out of hell--I
don't know what; but the devil went _in_ there, and he was a fine
fellow once, you know.

"You need never favour me with any periodical publication, except
the Edinburgh Quarterly, and an occasional Blackwood; or now and
then a Monthly Review; for the rest I do not feel curiosity enough
to look beyond their covers.

"To be sure I took in the British finely. He fell precisely into
the glaring trap laid for him. It was inconceivable how he could be
so absurd as to imagine us serious with him.

"Recollect, that if you put my name to 'Don Juan' in these canting
days, any lawyer might oppose my guardian right of my daughter in
Chancery, on the plea of its containing the _parody_;--such are the
perils of a foolish jest. I was not aware of this at the time, but
you will find it correct, I believe; and you may be sure that the
Noels would not let it slip. Now I prefer my child to a poem at any
time, and so should you, as having half a dozen.

"Let me know your notions.

"If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage
story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early
Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reign of
John and Henry, and gave it to my daughter. It was also the name of
Charlemagne's sister. It is in an early chapter of Genesis, as the
name of the wife of Lamech; and I suppose Ada is the feminine of
_Adam_. It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my