by all accounts, well; and is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent.  I think, with luck, he will turn out a useful member of society (from which he will lop the diseased members) and the College of Physicians.  If you can be of any use to him, or know any one who can, pray be so, as he has his fortune to make.  He has kept a medical journal under the eye of Vacca (the first surgeon on the Continent) at Pisa:  Vacca has corrected it, and it must contain some valuable hints or information on the practice of this country.  If you can aid him in publishing this also, by your influence with your brethren, do; I do not ask you to publish it yourself, because that sort of request is too personal and embarrassing.  He has also a tragedy, of which, having seen nothing, I say nothing:  but the very circumstance of his having made these efforts (if they are only efforts), at one-and-twenty, is in his favour, and proves him to have good dispositions for his own improvement.  So if, in the way of commendation or recommendation, you can aid his objects with your government friends, I wish you would, I should think some of your Admiralty Board might be likely to have it in their power.”

* * * * *

LETTER 261.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “Venice, February 15. 1817.

     “I have received your two letters, but not the parcel you mention. 
     As the Waterloo spoils are arrived, I will make you a present of
     them, if you choose to accept of them; pray do.

“I do not exactly understand from your letter what has been omitted, or what not, in the publication; but I shall see probably some day or other.  I could not attribute any but a good motive to Mr. Gifford or yourself in such omission; but as our politics are so very opposite, we should probably differ as to the passages.  However, if it is only a note or notes, or a line or so, it cannot signify.  You say ‘a poem;’ what poem?  You can tell me in your next.

“Of Mr. Hobhouse’s quarrel with the Quarterly Review, I know very little except * * ’s article itself, which was certainly harsh enough; but I quite agree that it would have been better not to answer—­particularly after Mr. W.W., who never more will trouble you, trouble you.  I have been uneasy, because Mr. H. told me that his letter or preface was to be addressed to me.  Now, he and I are friends of many years; I have many obligations to him, and he none to me, which have not been cancelled and more than repaid; but Mr. Gifford and I are friends also, and he has moreover been literally so, through thick and thin, in despite of difference of years, morals, habits, and even politics; and therefore I feel in a very awkward situation between the two, Mr. Gifford and my friend Hobhouse, and can only wish that they had no difference, or that