"It is a very good place for women. I like the dialect and their manner very much. There is a _naivete_ about them which is very winning, and the romance of the place is a mighty adjunct; the _bel sangue_ is not, however, now amongst the _dame_ or higher orders; but all under _i fazzioli_, or kerchiefs (a white kind of veil which the lower orders wear upon their heads);--the _vesta zendale_, or old national female costume, is no more. The city, however, is decaying daily, and does not gain in population. However, I prefer it to any other in Italy; and here have I pitched my staff, and here do I purpose to reside for the remainder of my life, unless events, connected with business not to be transacted out of England, compel me to return for that purpose; otherwise I have few regrets, and no desires to visit it again for its own sake. I shall probably be obliged to do so, to sign papers for my affairs, and a proxy for the Whigs, and to see Mr. Waite, for I can't find a good dentist here, and every two or three years one ought to consult one. About seeing my children I must take my chance. One I shall have sent here; and I shall be very happy to see the legitimate one, when God pleases, which he perhaps will some day or other. As for my mathematical * * *, I am as well without her. "Your account of your visit to Fonthill is very striking: could you beg of _him_ for _me_ a copy in MS. of the remaining _Tales_?[17] I think I deserve them, as a strenuous and public admirer of the first one. I will return it when read, and make no ill use of the copy, if granted. Murray would send me out any thing safely. If ever I return to England, I should like very much to see the author, with his permission. In the mean time, you could not oblige me more than by obtaining me the perusal I request, in French or English,--all's one for that, though I prefer Italian to either. I have a French copy of Vathek which I bought at Lausanne. I can read French with great pleasure and facility, though I neither speak nor write it. Now Italian I _can_ speak with some fluency, and write sufficiently for my purposes, but I don't like their _modern_ prose at all; it is very heavy, and so different from Machiavelli. "They say Francis is Junius;--I think it looks like it. I remember meeting him at Earl Grey's at dinner. Has not he lately married a young woman; and was not he Madame Talleyrand's _cavaliere servente_ in India years ago?