rs, who wrote to me lately, with a short account
of your poem, which, I trust, is near the light. He speaks of it
most highly.

"My health is very endurable, except that I am subject to casual
giddiness and faintness, which is so like a fine lady, that I am
rather ashamed of the disorder. When I sailed, I had a physician
with me, whom, after some months of patience, I found it expedient
to part with, before I left Geneva some time. On arriving at Milan,
I found this gentleman in very good society, where he prospered for
some weeks: but, at length, at the theatre he quarrelled with an
Austrian officer, and was sent out by the government in twenty-four
hours. I was not present at his squabble; but, on hearing that he
was put under arrest, I went and got him out of his confinement,
but could not prevent his being sent off, which, indeed, he partly
deserved, being quite in the wrong, and having begun a row for
row's sake. I had preceded the Austrian government some weeks
myself, in giving him his conge from Geneva. He is not a bad
fellow, but very young and hot-headed, and more likely to incur
diseases than to cure them. Hobhouse and myself found it useless to
intercede for him. This happened some time before we left Milan. He
is gone to Florence.

"At Milan I saw, and was visited by, Monti, the most celebrated of
the living Italian poets. He seems near sixty; in face he is like
the late Cooke the actor. His frequent changes in politics have
made him very unpopular as a man. I saw many more of their
literati; but none whose names are well known in England, except
Acerbi. I lived much with the Italians, particularly with the
Marquis of Breme's family, who are very able and intelligent men,
especially the Abate. There was a famous improvvisatore who held
forth while I was there. His fluency astonished me; but, although I
understand Italian, and speak it (with more readiness than
accuracy), I could only carry off a few very common-place
mythological images, and one line about Artemisia, and another
about Algiers, with sixty words of an entire tragedy about Etocles
and Polynices. Some of the Italians liked him--others called his
performance 'seccatura' (a devilish good word, by the way)--and all
Milan was in controversy about him.

"The state