at H----n is your neighbour, having a living in
Derbyshire. You will find him an excellent-hearted fellow, as well
as one of the cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by
preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as
inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being
over-run with fine feelings about woman and _constancy_ (that small
change of Love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such
counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal); but, otherwise, a very
worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I suppose) a
child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I know
not which to envy most his neighbourhood--him, or you.

"Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many
descriptions; and they are most of them like. It is a poetical
place; and classical, to us, from Shakspeare and Otway. I have not
yet sinned against it in verse, nor do I know that I shall do so,
having been tuneless since I crossed the Alps, and feeling, as yet,
no renewal of the 'estro.' By the way, I suppose you have seen
'Glenarvon.' Madame de Stael lent it me to read from Copet last
autumn. It seems to me that if the authoress had written the
_truth_, and nothing but the truth--the whole truth--the _romance_
would not only have been more romantic, but more entertaining. As
for the likeness, the picture can't be good--I did not sit long
enough. When you have leisure, let me hear from and of you,
believing me ever and truly yours most affectionately, B.

"P.S. Oh! _your poem_--is it out? I hope Longman has paid his
thousands: but don't you do as H * * T * *'s father did, who,
having made money by a quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant;
when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet (and be d----d to it) and ruined
him. My last letter to you (from Verona) was enclosed to
Murray--have you got it? Direct to me _here, poste restante_. There
are no English here at present. There were several in
Switzerland--some women; but, except Lady Dalrymple Hamilton, most
of them as ugly as virtue--at least, those that I saw."

* * * * *

LETTER 253. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, December 24. 1816.

"I have taken a fit of writing to you, which portends postage--once
from Verona--once from Venice, and again from