this present 2d of January, the month of my birth,—­and various other astrologous matters, which I have no time to enumerate.

“By the way, you might as well write to Hentsch, my Geneva banker, and enquire whether the two packets consigned to his care were or were not delivered to Mr. St. Aubyn, or if they are still in his keeping.  One contains papers, letters, and all the original MS. of your third Canto, as first conceived; and the other, some bones from the field of Morat.  Many thanks for your news, and the good spirits in which your letter is written.

“Venice and I agree very well; but I do not know that I have any thing new to say, except of the last new opera, which I sent in my late letter.  The Carnival is commencing, and there is a good deal of fun here and there—­besides business; for all the world are making up their intrigues for the season, changing, or going on upon a renewed lease.  I am very well off with Marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me; firstly, because I do not tire of a woman personally, but because they are generally bores in their disposition; and, secondly, because she is amiable, and has a tact which is not always the portion of the fair creation; and, thirdly, she is very pretty; and, fourthly—­but there is no occasion for further specification.  So far we have gone on very well; as to the future, I never anticipate—­carpe diem—­the past at least is one’s own, which is one reason for making sure of the present.  So much for my proper liaison.

“The general state of morals here is much the same as in the Doges’ time; a woman is virtuous (according to the code) who limits herself to her husband and one lover; those who have two, three, or more, are a little wild; but it is only those who are indiscriminately diffuse, and form a low connection, such as the Princess of Wales with her courier, (who, by the way, is made a knight of Malta,) who are considered as overstepping the modesty of marriage.  In Venice, the nobility have a trick of marrying with dancers and singers; and, truth to say, the women of their own order are by no means handsome; but the general race, the women of the second and other orders, the wives of the merchants, and proprietors, and untitled gentry, are mostly bel’ sangue, and it is with these that the more amatory connections are usually formed.  There are also instances of stupendous constancy.  I know a woman of fifty who never had but one lover, who dying early, she became devout, renouncing all but her husband.  She piques herself, as may be presumed, upon this miraculous fidelity, talking of it occasionally with a species of misplaced morality, which is rather amusing.  There is no convincing a woman here that she is in the smallest degree deviating from the rule of right or the fitness of things in having an amoroso.  The great sin seems to lie in concealing it, or having more than