"P.S. Last year (in June, 1819), I met at Count Mosti's, at Ferrara, an Italian who asked me 'if I knew Lord Byron?' I told him _no_ (no one knows himself, _you_ know). 'Then,' says he, 'I do; I met him at Naples the other day.' I pulled out my card and asked him if that was the way he spelt his name: he answered, _yes_. I suspect that it was a blackguard navy surgeon, who attended a young travelling madam about, and passed himself for a lord at the post-houses. He was a vulgar dog--quite of the cock-pit order--and a precious representative I must have had of him, if it was even so; but I don't know. He passed himself off as a gentleman, and squired about a Countess * * (of this place), then at Venice, an ugly battered woman, of bad morals even for Italy." * * * * * LETTER 390. TO MR. MURRAY. "Ravenna, 8bre 8 deg., 1820. "Foscolo's letter is exactly the thing wanted; firstly, because he is a man of genius; and, next, because he is an Italian, and therefore the best judge of Italics. Besides, "He's more an antique Roman than a Dane; that is, he is more of the ancient Greek than of the modern Italian. Though 'somewhat,' as Dugald Dalgetty says, 'too wild and sa_l_vage' (like 'Ronald of the Mist'), 'tis a wonderful man, and my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him; and they are good judges of men and of Italian humanity. "Here are in all _two_ worthy voices gain'd: Gifford says it is good 'sterling genuine English,' and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian. Shakspeare and Otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being _dead_ from one to two centuries, and having been both born blackguards (which ARE such attractions to the gentle living reader); let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly have--that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the local spirit of it. I claim no more. "I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's _spitting_ at Bertram; _that's_ national--the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and therefore _object_ to it on the stage as _too familiar_. But we who _spit_ nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not likely to feel this. Remember _Massinger_, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach-- "Lord! _thus_ I _spit_ at thee and at thy counsel!