"Ravenna, February 21. 1820.
"The bull-dogs will be very agreeable. I have only those of this
country, who, though good, have not the tenacity of tooth and
stoicism in endurance of my canine fellow-citizens: then pray send
them by the readiest conveyance--perhaps best by sea. Mr. Kinnaird
will disburse for them, and deduct from the amount on your
application or that of Captain Tyler.
"I see the good old King is gone to his place. One can't help being
sorry, though blindness, and age, and insanity, are supposed to be
drawbacks on human felicity; but I am not at all sure that the
latter, at least, might not render him happier than any of his
subjects.
"I have no thoughts of coming to the coronation, though I should
like to see it, and though I have a right to be a puppet in it; but
my division with Lady Byron, which has drawn an equinoctial line
between me and mine in all other things, will operate in this also
to prevent my being in the same procession.
"By Saturday's post I sent you four packets, containing Cantos
third and fourth. Recollect that these two cantos reckon only as
_one_ with you and me, being, in fact, the third canto cut into
two, because I found it too long. Remember this, and don't imagine
that there could be any other motive. The whole is about 225
stanzas, more or less, and a lyric of 96 lines, so that they are no
longer than the first _single_ cantos: but the truth is, that I
made the first too long, and should have cut those down also had I
thought better. Instead of saying in future for so many cantos, say
so many stanzas or pages: it was Jacob Tonson's way, and certainly
the best; it prevents mistakes. I might have sent you a dozen
cantos of 40 stanzas each,--those of 'The Minstrel' (Beattie's) are
no longer,--and ruined you at once, if you don't suffer as it is.
But recollect that you are not _pinned down_ to any thing you say
in a letter, and that, calculating even these two cantos as _one_
only (which they were and are to be reckoned), you are not bound by
your offer. Act as may seem fair to all parties.
"I have finished my translation of the first Canto of 'The Morgante
Maggiore' of Pulci, which I will transcribe and send. It is the
parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but of all jocose Italian poetry.
You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I
wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza,
and often line for line, if not word for word.
"You ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on Italy. Perhaps I am in
the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have
lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where
Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place
particularly); but there are many reasons why I do not choose to
treat in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and
in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 'amico di
casa,' and sometimes as 'amico di cuore' of the Dama, and in
neither case do I feel myself authorised in making a book of them.
Their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you
would not understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German,
which you would all understand. The conventual education, the
cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and living are so
entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more
striking the more you live intimately with them, that I know not
how to make you comprehend a people who are at once temperate and
profligate, serious in their characters and buffoons in their
amusements, capable of impressions and passions, which are at once
_sudden_ and _durable_ (what you find in no other nation), and who
actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by
their comedies; they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni, and
that is because they have no society to draw it from.
"Their conversazioni are not society at all. They go to the theatre
to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. The _women_ sit in
a circle, and the men gather into groups, or they play at dreary
faro, or 'lotto reale,' for small sums. Their academic are concerts
like our own, with better music and more form. Their best things
are the carnival balls and masquerades, when every body runs mad
for six weeks. After their dinners and suppers they make extempore
verses and buffoon one another; but it is in a humour which you
would not enter into, ye of the north.
"In their houses it is better. I should know something of the
matter, having had a pretty general experience among their women,
from the fisherman's wife up to the Nobil Dama, whom I serve. Their
system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to
be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits
few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely
tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting their lovers even
to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them
in public as in private, whenever they can. In short, they transfer
marriage to adultery, and strike the _not_ out of that commandment.
The reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for
themselves. They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour,
while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You
hear a person's character, male or female, canvassed not as
depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their
mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto, I don't know that I could
do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed
that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be
paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their
Serventi--particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which
is not often the case, however); so that you would often suppose
them relations--the Servente making the figure of one adopted into
the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or
divide, or make a scene: but this is at starting, generally, when
they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or
some such anomaly,--and is always reckoned unnecessary and
extravagant.
"You enquire after Dante's Prophecy: I have not done more than six
hundred lines, but will vaticinate at leisure.
"Of the bust I know nothing. No cameos or seals are to be cut here
or elsewhere that I know of, in any good style. Hobhouse should
write himself to Thorwaldsen: the bust was made and paid for three
years ago.
"Pray tell Mrs. Leigh to request Lady Byron to urge forward the
transfer from the funds. I wrote to Lady Byron on business this
post, addressed to the care of Mr. D. Kinnaird."
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