"I have also sent, two months ago, a further letter on Bowles, &c.; but he seems to be so taken up with my 'respect' (as he calls it) towards him in the former case, that I am not sure that it will be published, being somewhat too full of' pastime and prodigality.' I learn from some private letters of Bowles's, that _you_ were 'the gentleman in asterisks.' Who would have dreamed it? you see what mischief that clergyman has done by printing notes without names. How the deuce was I to suppose that the first four asterisks meant 'Campbell' and _not_ 'Pope,' and that the blank signature meant Thomas Moore[39]? You see what comes of being familiar with parsons. His answers have not yet reached me, but I understand from Hobhouse, that _he_ (H.) is attacked in them. If that be the case, Bowles has broken the truce, (which he himself proclaimed, by the way,) and I must have at him again. "Did you receive my letters with the two or three concluding sheets of Memoranda? "There are no news here to interest much. A German spy (_boasting_ himself such) was stabbed last week, but _not_ mortally. The moment I heard that he went about bullying and boasting, it was easy for me, or any one else, to foretell what would occur to him, which I did, and it came to pass in two days after. He has got off, however, for a slight incision. "A row the other night, about a lady of the place, between her various lovers, occasioned a midnight discharge of pistols, but nobody wounded. Great scandal, however--planted by her lover--_to be_ thrashed by her husband, for inconstancy to her regular Servente, who is coming home post about it, and she herself retired in confusion into the country, although it is the acme of the opera season. All the women furious against her (she herself having been censorious) for being _found out_. She is a pretty woman--a Countess * * * *--a fine old Visigoth name, or Ostrogoth. "The Greeks! what think you? They are my old acquaintances--but what to think I know not. Let us hope howsomever. "Yours, "B."