could speak Italian (more fluently than correctly) long ago, I am studying, out of curiosity, the Venetian dialect, which is very naive, and soft, and peculiar, though not at all classical; I go out frequently, and am in very good contentment.

“The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame the Countess d’Albrizzi, whom I know) is, without exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution.

        “In this beloved marble view,
          Above the works and thoughts of man,
        What Nature could, but would not, do,
          And Beauty and Canova can! 
        Beyond imagination’s power,
          Beyond the bard’s defeated art,
        With immortality her dower,
          Behold the Helen of the heart!

“Talking of the ‘heart’ reminds me that I have fallen in love—­fathomless love; but lest you should make some splendid mistake, and envy me the possession of some of those princesses or countesses with whose affections your English voyagers are apt to invest themselves, I beg leave to tell you that my goddess is only the wife of a ‘Merchant of Venice;’ but then she is pretty as an antelope, is but two-and-twenty years old, has the large, black, oriental eyes, with the Italian countenance, and dark glossy hair, of the curl and colour of Lady J * ’s.  Then she has the voice of a lute, and the song of a seraph (though not quite so sacred), besides a long postscript of graces, virtues, and accomplishments, enough to furnish out a new chapter for Solomon’s Song.  But her great merit is finding out mine—­there is nothing so amiable as discernment.

“The general race of women appear to be handsome; but in Italy, as on almost all the Continent, the highest orders are by no means a well-looking generation, and indeed reckoned by their countrymen very much otherwise.  Some are exceptions, but most of them as ugly as Virtue herself.

“If you write, address to me here, _poste restante_, as I shall probably stay the winter over.  I never see a newspaper, and know nothing of England, except in a letter now and then from my sister.  Of the MS. sent you, I know nothing, except that you have received it, and are to publish it, &c. &c.:  but when, where, and how, you leave me to guess; but it don’t much matter.

     “I suppose you have a world of works passing through your process
     for next year?  When does Moore’s poem appear?  I sent a letter for
     him, addressed to your care, the other day.”

* * * * *

LETTER 255.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Venice, December 4, 1816.