"With the Reviews I have been much entertained. It requires to be as far from England as I am to relish a periodical paper properly: it is like soda-water in an Italian summer. But what cruel work you make with Lady * * * *! You should recollect that she is a woman; though, to be sure, they are now and then very provoking; still, as authoresses, they can do no great harm; and I think it a pity so much good invective should have been laid out upon her, when there is such a fine field of us Jacobin gentlemen for you to work upon. "I heard from Moore lately, and was sorry to be made aware of his domestic loss. Thus it is--'medio de fonte leporum'--in the acme of his fame and his happiness comes a drawback as usual. "Mr. Hoppner, whom I saw this morning, has been made the father of a very fine boy[15].--Mother and child doing very well indeed. By this time Hobhouse should be with you, and also certain packets, letters, &c. of mine, sent since his departure.--I am not at all well in health within this last eight days. My remembrances to Gifford and all friends. "Yours, &c. "B. "P.S. In the course of a month or two, Hanson will have probably to send off a clerk with conveyances to sign (Newstead being sold in November last for ninety-four thousand five hundred pounds), in which case I supplicate supplies of articles as usual, for which, desire Mr. Kinnaird to settle from funds in their bank, and deduct from my account with him. "P.S. To-morrow night I am going to see 'Otello,' an opera from our 'Othello,' and one of Rossini's best, it is said. It will be curious to see in Venice the Venetian story itself represented, besides to discover what they will make of Shakspeare in music." [Footnote 15: On the birth of this child, who was christened John William Rizzo, Lord Byron wrote the four following lines, which are in no other respect remarkable than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into no less than ten different languages; namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan:-- "His father's sense, his mother's grace In him, I hope, will always fit so; With (still to keep him in good case) The health and appetite of Rizzo." The original lines, with the different versions just mentioned, were printed, in a small neat volume (which now lies before me), in the seminary of Padua.] * * * * * LETTER 309. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Venice, February 28. 1818. "My dear Sir,