"La Mira, near Venice, July 1. 1817.
"Since my former letter, I have been working up my impressions into
a _fourth_ Canto of Childe Harold, of which I have roughened off
about rather better than thirty stanzas, and mean to go on; and
probably to make this 'Fytte' the concluding one of the poem, so
that you may propose against the autumn to draw out the
conscription for 1818. You must provide moneys, as this new
resumption bodes you certain disbursements. Somewhere about the end
of September or October, I propose to be under way (_i.e._ in the
press); but I have no idea yet of the probable length or calibre of
the Canto, or what it will be good for; but I mean to be as
mercenary as possible, an example (I do not mean of any individual
in particular, and least of all, any person or persons of our
mutual acquaintance) which I should have followed in my youth, and
I might still have been a prosperous gentleman.
"No tooth-powder, no letters, no recent tidings of you.
"Mr. Lewis is at Venice, and I am going up to stay a week with him
there--as it is one of his enthusiasms also to like the city.
"I stood in Venice on the 'Bridge of Sighs,' &c. &c.
"The 'Bridge of Sighs' (_i.e._ Ponte de'i Sospiri) is that which
divides, or rather joins, the palace of the Doge to the prison of
the state. It has two passages: the criminal went by the one to
judgment, and returned by the other to death, being strangled in a
chamber adjoining, where there was a mechanical process for the
purpose.
"This is the first stanza of our new Canto; and now for a line of
the second:--
"In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier,
Her palaces, &c. &c.
"You know that formerly the gondoliers sung always, and Tasso's
Gierusalemme was their ballad. Venice is built on seventy-two
islands.
"There! there's a brick of your new Babel! and now, sirrah! what
say you to the sample?
"Yours, &c.
"P.S. I shall write again by and by."
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