"Ravenna, 9bre 23°, 1820.
"The 'Hints,' Hobhouse says, will require a good deal of slashing
to suit the times, which will be a work of time, for I don't feel
at all laborious just now. Whatever effect they are to have would
perhaps be greater in a separate form, and they also must have my
name to them. Now, if you publish them in the same volume with Don
Juan, they identify Don Juan as mine, which I don't think worth a
Chancery suit about my daughter's guardianship, as in your present
code a facetious poem is sufficient to take away a man's rights
over his family.
"Of the state of things here it would be difficult and not very
prudent to speak at large, the Huns opening all letters. I wonder
if they can read them when they have opened them; if so, they may
see, in my MOST LEGIBLE HAND, THAT I THINK THEM DAMNED SCOUNDRELS
AND BARBARIANS, and THEIR EMPEROR a FOOL, and themselves more fools
than he; all which they may send to Vienna for any thing I care.
They have got themselves masters of the Papal police, and are
bullying away; but some day or other they will pay for all: it may
not be very soon, because these unhappy Italians have no
consistency among themselves; but I suppose that Providence will
get tired of them at last, * *
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *