"Of Italian or rather Lombard manners, I could tell you little or nothing: I went two or three times to the governor's conversazione, (and if you go once, you are free to go always,) at which, as I only saw very plain women, a formal circle, in short a _worst sort_ of rout, I did not go again. I went to Academie and to Madame Albrizzi's, where I saw pretty much the same thing, with the addition of some literati, who are the same _blue_[132], by ----, all the world over. I fell in love the first week with Madame * *, and I have continued so ever since, because she is very pretty and pleasing, and talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is naive. "Very truly, &c. "P.S. Pray send the red tooth-powder by a _safe hand_, and speedily.[133] "To hook the reader, you, John Murray, Have publish'd 'Anjou's Margaret,' Which won't be sold off in a hurry (At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still further to bewilder 'em, Without remorse you set up 'Ilderim;' So mind you don't get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail. And mind you do _not_ let escape These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry, Which would be _very_ treacherous--_very_, And get me into such a scrape! For, firstly, I should have to sally, All in my little boat, against a _Gally_; And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight, Have next to combat with the female knight. "You may show these matters to Moore and the select, but not to the _profane_; and tell Moore, that I wonder he don't write to one now and then." [Footnote 132: Whenever a word or passage occurs (as in this instance) which Lord Byron would have pronounced emphatically in speaking, it appears, in his handwriting, as if written with something of the same vehemence.] [Footnote 133: Here follow the same rhymes ("I read the Christabel," &c.) which have already been given in one of his letters to myself.] * * * * * LETTER 269. TO MR. MOORE. "Venice, March 31. 1817. "You will begin to think my epistolary offerings (to whatever altar you please to devote them) rather prodigal. But until you answer, I shall not abate, because you deserve no better. I know you are well, because I hear of your voyaging to London and the environs, which I rejoice to learn, because your note alarmed me by the purgation and phlebotomy therein prognosticated. I also hear of your being in the press; all which, methinks, might have furnished you with subject-matter for a middle-sized letter, considering that I am in foreign parts, and that the last month's advertisements and obituary would be absolute news to me from your Tramontane country.