“I shall be (the gods willing) in Bologna on Saturday next.  This is a curious answer to your letter; but I have taken a house in Pisa for the winter, to which all my chattels, furniture, horses, carriages, and live stock are already removed, and I am preparing to follow.

“The cause of this removal is, shortly, the exile or proscription of all my friends’ relations and connections here into Tuscany, on account of our late politics; and where they go, I accompany them.  I merely remained till now to settle some arrangements about my daughter, and to give time for my furniture, &c. to precede me.  I have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs, and tables, and a mattress for the week to come.

“If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you for as long as you like; (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is spacious:  it is on the Arno;) and I have four carriages, and as many saddle-horses (such as they are in these parts), with all other conveniences, at your command, as also their owner.  If you could do this, we may, at least, cross the Apennines together; or if you are going by another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I hope.  I address this to the post-office (as you desire), and you will probably find me at the Albergo di San Marco.  If you arrive first, wait till I come up, which will be (barring accidents) on Saturday or Sunday at farthest.

     “I presume you are alone in your voyages.  Moore is in London
     incog. according to my latest advices from those climes.

“It is better than a lustre (five years and six months and some days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from Tadcaster in the farce (’Love laughs at Locksmiths’), whose acquaintances, including the cat and the terrier, who ’caught a halfpenny in his mouth,’ were all ‘gone dead,’ but too many of our acquaintances have taken the same path.  Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, &c. &c. almost every body of much name of the old school.  But ‘so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,’ therefore let us make the most of our remainder.

     “Let me find two lines from you at ‘the hostel or inn.’

     “Yours ever, &c.

     “B.”

* * * * *

LETTER 465.  TO MR. MOORE.

     “Ravenna, Oct. 28. 1821.

“‘’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,’ and in three hours more I have to set out on my way to Pisa—­sitting up all night to be sure of rising.  I have just made them take off my bed-clothes—­blankets inclusive—­in case of temptation from the apparel of sheets to my eyelids.

     “Samuel Rogers is—­or is to be—­at Bologna, as he writes from
     Venice.

     “I thought our Magnifico would ‘pound you,’ if possible.  He is
     trying to ‘pound’ me, too; but I’ll specie the rogue—­or, at least,
     I’ll have the odd shillings out of him in keen iambics.