"P.S. My sister tells me that you sent to her to enquire where I was, believing in my arrival, _driving a curricle_, &c. &c. into Palace-yard. Do you think me a coxcomb or a madman, to be capable of such an exhibition? My sister knew me better, and told you, that could not be me. You might as well have thought me entering on 'a pale horse,' like Death in the Revelations." * * * * * LETTER 387. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, Sept. '23. 1820. "Get from Mr. Hobhouse, and send me a proof (with the Latin) of my Hints from Horace; it has now the _nonum prematur in annum_ complete for its production, being written at Athens in 1811. I have a notion that, with some omissions of names and passages, it will do; and I could put my late observations _for_ Pope amongst the notes, with the date of 1820, and so on. As far as versification goes, it is good; and, on looking back to what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how _little_ I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times. If I can trim it for present publication, what with the other things you have of mine, you will have a volume or two of _variety_ at least, for there will be all measures, styles, and topics, whether good or no. I am anxious to hear what Gifford thinks of the tragedy: pray let me know. I really do not know what to think myself. "If the Germans pass the Po, they will be treated to a mass out of the Cardinal de Retz's _Breviary_. * *'s a fool, and could not understand this: Frere will. It is as pretty a conceit as you would wish to see on a summer's day. "Nobody here believes a word of the evidence against the Queen. The very mob cry shame against their countrymen, and say, that for half the money spent upon the trial, any testimony whatever may be brought out of Italy. This you may rely upon as fact. I told you as much before. As to what travellers report, what _are travellers_? Now I have _lived_ among the Italians--not _Florenced_, and _Romed_, and galleried, and conversationed it for a few months, and then home again; but been of their families, and friendships, and feuds, and loves, and councils, and correspondence, in a part of Italy least known to foreigners,--and have been amongst them of all classes, from the Conte to the Contadine; and you may be sure of what I say to you. "Yours," &c. * * * * * LETTER 388. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, Sept. 28. 1820.