“I have seen the finest parts of Switzerland, the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Swiss and Italian lakes; for the beauties of which, I refer you to the Guidebook.  The north of Italy is tolerably free from the English; but the south swarms with them, I am told.  Madame de Stael I saw frequently at Copet, which she renders remarkably pleasant.  She has been particularly kind to me.  I was for some months her neighbour, in a country house called Diodati, which I had on the Lake of Geneva.  My plans are very uncertain; but it is probable that you will see me in England in the spring.  I have some business there.  If you write to me, will you address to the care of Mons. Hentsch, Banquier, Geneva, who receives and forwards my letters.  Remember me to Rogers, who wrote to me lately, with a short account of your poem, which, I trust, is near the light.  He speaks of it most highly.

“My health is very endurable, except that I am subject to casual giddiness and faintness, which is so like a fine lady, that I am rather ashamed of the disorder.  When I sailed, I had a physician with me, whom, after some months of patience, I found it expedient to part with, before I left Geneva some time.  On arriving at Milan, I found this gentleman in very good society, where he prospered for some weeks:  but, at length, at the theatre he quarrelled with an Austrian officer, and was sent out by the government in twenty-four hours.  I was not present at his squabble; but, on hearing that he was put under arrest, I went and got him out of his confinement, but could not prevent his being sent off, which, indeed, he partly deserved, being quite in the wrong, and having begun a row for row’s sake.  I had preceded the Austrian government some weeks myself, in giving him his conge from Geneva.  He is not a bad fellow, but very young and hot-headed, and more likely to incur diseases than to cure them.  Hobhouse and myself found it useless to intercede for him.  This happened some time before we left Milan.  He is gone to Florence.

“At Milan I saw, and was visited by, Monti, the most celebrated of the living Italian poets.  He seems near sixty; in face he is like the late Cooke the actor.  His frequent changes in politics have made him very unpopular as a man.  I saw many more of their literati; but none whose names are well known in England, except Acerbi.  I lived much with the Italians, particularly with the Marquis of Breme’s family, who are very able and intelligent men, especially the Abate.  There was a famous improvvisatore who held forth while I was there.  His fluency astonished me; but, although I understand Italian, and speak it (with more readiness than accuracy), I could only carry off a few very common-place mythological images, and one line about Artemisia, and another about Algiers, with sixty words of an entire tragedy about Etocles and Polynices.  Some of the