"I opened my letter to say, that on reading _more_ of the four volumes on Italy, where the author says 'declined an introduction,' I perceive (_horresco referens_) it is written by a WOMAN!!! In that case you must suppress my note and answer, and all I have said about the book and the writer. I never dreamed of it until now, in my extreme wrath at that precious note. I can only say that I am sorry that a lady should say any thing of the kind. What I would have said to one of the other sex you know already. Her book too (as a _she_ book) is not a bad one; but she evidently don't know the Italians, or rather don't like them, and forgets the _causes_ of their misery and profligacy (_Matthews_ and _Forsyth_ are your men for truth and tact), and has gone over Italy in _company_--_always_ a _bad_ plan: you must be _alone_ with people to know them well. Ask her, who was the '_descendant of Lady M.W. Montague_,' and by whom? by Algarotti? "I suspect that, in Marino Faliero, you and yours won't like the _politics_, which are perilous to you in these times; but recollect that it is _not a political_ play, and that I was obliged to put into the mouths of the characters the sentiments upon which they acted. I hate all things written like Pizarro, to represent France, England, and so forth. All I have done is meant to be purely Venetian, even to the very prophecy of its present state. "Your Angles in general know little of the _Italians_, who detest them for their numbers and their GENOA treachery. Besides, the English travellers have not been composed of the best company. How could they?--out of 100,000, how many gentlemen were there, or honest men? "Mitchell's Aristophanes is excellent. Send me the rest of it. "These fools will force me to write a book about Italy myself, to give them 'the loud lie.' They prate about assassination; what is it but the origin of duelling--and '_a wild justice_,' as Lord Bacon calls it? It is the fount of the modern point of honour in what the laws can't or _won't_ reach. Every man is liable to it more or less, according to circumstances or place. For instance, I am living here exposed to it daily, for I have happened to make a powerful and unprincipled man my enemy;--and I never sleep the worse for it, or ride in less solitary places, because precaution is useless, and one thinks of it as of a disease which may or may not strike. It is true that there are those here, who, if he did, would 'live to think on't;' but that would not awake my bones: I should be sorry if it would, were they once at rest." * * * * * LETTER 389. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 8bre 6 deg., 1820.