[50] It is possible that this lending office may have been organised as a method of charity, corresponding to the original Monte di Pieta, the modern clergymen having imagined, in consequence of the common error about interest, that they could improve the system of Venice by ignoring its main condition—the lending gratis,—and benefit themselves at the same time. [51] Read Isaiah vi. through carefully. [52] The reader will perhaps now begin to see the true bearing of the earlier letters in Fors. Re-read, with this letter, that on the campaign of Crecy. [53] I wish I could find room also for the short passages I omit; but one I quoted before, “As no one will deny that man possesses carnivorous teeth,” etc., and the others introduce collateral statements equally absurd, but with which at present we are not concerned. [54] I must warn you against the false reading of the original, in many editions. Fournier’s five volume one is altogether a later text, in some cases with interesting intentional modifications, probably of the fifteenth century; but oftener with destruction of the older meaning. It gives this couplet, for instance,— “Si n’avoit el plaisir de rien, Que quant elle donnoit du sien.” The old reading is, “Si n’avoit elle joie de rien, Fors quant elle povoit dire, ‘tien.’ Didot’s edition, Paris, 1814, is founded on very early and valuable texts; but it is difficult to read. Chaucer has translated a text some twenty or thirty years later in style; and his English is quite trustworthy as far as it is carried. For the rest of the Romanee, Fournier’s text is practically good enough, and easily readable. [55] Fr. ‘chetive,’ rhyming accurately to ‘ententive.’ [56] Fr. Sarrasinesse. [57] Even after eighteen hundred years of sermons, the Christian public do not clearly understand that ‘two coats,’ in the brief sermon of the Baptist to repentance, mean also, two petticoats, and the like. I am glad that Fors obliges me to finish this letter at Lucca, under the special protection of St. Martin. [58] Fr., “Si que par oula la chemise Lui blancheoit la char alise.” Look out ‘Alice,’ in Miss Yonge’s Dictionary of Christian Names and remember Alice of Salisbury. [59] I believe the pale roses are meant to be white, but are tinged with red that they may not contend with the symbolic brightness of the lilies. [60] Macintosh, 24, Paternoster Row. [61] 2 Esdras iv. 4. [62] See ‘Modern Painters,’ vol. iii., “The Firmament.” [63] Compare Dante, Purg., end of Canto V. [64] See the part of examination respecting communication held with the brother of the prisoner. [65] See statement at close of accounts. [66] See second letter in Notes and Correspondence. [67] I don’t know how far it turned out to be true,—a fight between a dwarf and a bulldog (both chained to stakes as in Roman days), described at length in some journals.