to Rome) I passed upon the Brenta.  In Venice I winter, transporting my horses to the Lido, bordering the Adriatic (where the fort is), so that I get a gallop of some miles daily along the strip of beach which reaches to Malamocco, when in health; but within these few weeks I have been unwell.  At present I am getting better.  The Carnival was short, but a good one.  I don’t go out much, except during the time of masques; but there are one or two conversazioni, where I go regularly, just to keep up the system; as I had letters to their givers; and they are particular on such points; and now and then, though very rarely, to the Governor’s.

“It is a very good place for women.  I like the dialect and their manner very much.  There is a naivete about them which is very winning, and the romance of the place is a mighty adjunct; the bel sangue is not, however, now amongst the dame or higher orders; but all under i fazzioli, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads);—­the vesta zendale, or old national female costume, is no more.  The city, however, is decaying daily, and does not gain in population.  However, I prefer it to any other in Italy; and here have I pitched my staff, and here do I purpose to reside for the remainder of my life, unless events, connected with business not to be transacted out of England, compel me to return for that purpose; otherwise I have few regrets, and no desires to visit it again for its own sake.  I shall probably be obliged to do so, to sign papers for my affairs, and a proxy for the Whigs, and to see Mr. Waite, for I can’t find a good dentist here, and every two or three years one ought to consult one.  About seeing my children I must take my chance.  One I shall have sent here; and I shall be very happy to see the legitimate one, when God pleases, which he perhaps will some day or other.  As for my mathematical * * *, I am as well without her.

“Your account of your visit to Fonthill is very striking:  could you beg of him for me a copy in MS. of the remaining Tales?[17] I think I deserve them, as a strenuous and public admirer of the first one.  I will return it when read, and make no ill use of the copy, if granted.  Murray would send me out any thing safely.  If ever I return to England, I should like very much to see the author, with his permission.  In the mean time, you could not oblige me more than by obtaining me the perusal I request, in French or English,—­all’s one for that, though I prefer Italian to either.  I have a French copy of Vathek which I bought at Lausanne.  I can read French with great pleasure and facility, though I neither speak nor write it.  Now Italian I can speak with some fluency, and write sufficiently for my purposes, but I don’t like their modern prose at all; it is very heavy, and so different from Machiavelli.

“They say Francis is Junius;—­I