"There is an ancient custom still existing at Fano, ten miles from Pesaro, of celebrating a bull-fight at this season; to which a great concourse of people resort from the surrounding towns. A few days ago the first celebration took place. A truly ferocious bull was turned into the arena. It is a law, that whoever chooses to attack the animal may descend into the lists. No one dared expose himself to this infuriated creature, and all the dogs who ventured to assail him were tossed and killed. At length a peasant presented himself, and, to the wonder of all, approached the tremendous animal. He boldly went close to him; and the bull became quite mild, allowing himself to be patted and stroked, while he licked the hand that caressed him; every one was astonished, when, all of a sudden, a fellow among the spectators starts up, and calls out, 'The man is a sorcerer!' 'A sorcerer! a magician!' exclaimed several others in a fury. 'Burn the magician! burn the magician!' every one exclaims. The president of the games is also persuaded that this prodigy can only be the work of the devil; and he sends four soldiers, who seize on the magician, drag him from the lists, and throw him into prison. The poor fellow asked the cause of this violence; he was told, 'You are a magician; you will be hanged and burnt!' 'What are you saying about a magician?' cried the man; 'does not his excellency and his reverence know that the bull let me touch him because he knew me? I am his master.' This testimony, being confirmed by several who knew the man to be the master of the bull, and who took oaths to this effect, ought to have cured the president of his folly; but the poor magician is still in prison, and they are still disputing what to do with him." At the same time that Monti writes thus to his wife, his letters to his other friends are equally full of the pleasure he enjoyed at this time. "You will like to know," he writes to one, "how I am passing my life. Most happily; but not in idleness. Happily, because I am with my children; and enjoy a season so mild and serene, that winter resembles the opening of spring. Not in idleness, because I pursue my studies, and mean to give a last, short, critical treatise." But a few months after, in the July of the same year, 1822, Monti again visited Pesaro, in circumstances that form a painful contrast with the tranquil and domestic happiness that occasioned him so much pleasure during his former one. Perticari had died, suddenly, and Monti went to assist and console his sorrowing daughter. He thus writes, on this occasion, to his friend Mustoxidi, in a letter dated Pesaro, 30th July, 1822:--