"Your apprehensions (arising from Scott's) were unfounded. There are _no damages_ in this country, but there will probably be a separation between them, as her family, which is a principal one, by its connections, are very much against _him_, for the whole of his conduct;--and he is old and obstinate, and she is young and a woman, determined to sacrifice every thing to her affections. I have given her the best advice, viz. to stay with him,--pointing out the state of a separated woman, (for the priests won't let lovers live openly together, unless the husband sanctions it,) and making the most exquisite moral reflections,--but to no purpose. She says, 'I will stay with him, if he will let you remain with me. It is hard that I should be the only woman in Romagna who is not to have her Amico; but, if not, I will not live with him; and as for the consequences, love, &c. &c. &c.'--you know how females reason on such occasions. "He says he has let it go on till he can do so no longer. But he wants her to stay, and dismiss me; for he doesn't like to pay back her dowry and to make an alimony. Her relations are rather for the separation, as they detest him,--indeed, so does every body. The populace and the women are, as usual, all for those who are in the wrong, viz. the lady and her lover. I should have retreated, but honour, and an erysipelas which has attacked her, prevent me,--to say nothing of love, for I love her most entirely, though not enough to persuade her to sacrifice every thing to a frenzy. 'I see how it will end; she will be the sixteenth Mrs. Shuffleton.' "My paper is finished, and so must this letter. "Yours ever, B. "P.S. I regret that you have not completed the Italian Fudges. Pray, how come you to be still in Paris? Murray has four or five things of mine in hand--the new Don Juan, which his back-shop synod don't admire;--a translation of the first Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, excellent;--short ditto from Dante, not so much approved; the Prophecy of Dante, very grand and worthy, &c. &c. &c.;--a furious prose answer to Blackwood's Observations on Don Juan, with a savage Defence of Pope--likely to make a row. The opinions above I quote from Murray and his Utican senate;--you will form your own, when you see the things. "You will have no great chance of seeing me, for I begin to think I must finish in Italy. But, if you come my way, you shall have a tureen of macaroni. Pray tell me about yourself, and your intents. "My trustees are going to lend Earl Blessington sixty thousand pounds (at six per cent.) on a Dublin mortgage. Only think of my becoming an Irish absentee!"