then.

"Why, I do like one or two vices, to be sure; but I can back a
horse and fire a pistol 'without thinking or blinking' like Major
Sturgeon; I have fed at times for two months together on sheer
biscuit and water (without metaphor); I can get over seventy or
eighty miles a day _riding_ post, and _swim five_ at a stretch, as
at Venice, in 1818, or at least I _could do_, and have done it
ONCE.

"I know Henry Matthews: he is the image, to the very voice, of his
brother Charles, only darker--his laugh his in particular. The
first time I ever met him was in Scrope Davies's rooms after his
brother's death, and I nearly dropped, thinking that it was his
ghost. I have also dined with him in his rooms at King's College.
Hobhouse once purposed a similar Memoir; but I am afraid that the
letters of Charles's correspondence with me (which are at Whitton
with my other papers) would hardly do for the public: for our
lives were not over strict, and our letters somewhat lax upon most
subjects.[10]

"Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some
documents on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity
of _checking_, or at least _limiting_, those _French
republications_. You may let all your authors publish what they
please _against me_ and _mine_. A publisher is not, and cannot be,
responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's.

"The 'White Lady of Avenel' is not quite so good as a _real well
authenticated_ ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre
in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a
man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you
all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. I myself have _no doubt_
of the fact, historical and spectral.[11] She always appeared on
particular occasions, before the deaths of the family, &c. &c. I
heard Madame Benzoni say, that she knew a gentleman who had seen
her cross his room at Colalto Castle. Hoppner saw and spoke with
the huntsman who met her at the chase, and never _hunted_
afterwards. She was a girl attendant, who, one day dressing the
hair of a Countess Colalto, was seen by her mistress to smile upon
her husband in the glass. The Countess had her shut up in the wall
of the castle, like Constance de Beverley. Ever af