"If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you for as long as you like; (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is spacious: it is on the Arno;) and I have four carriages, and as many saddle-horses (such as they are in these parts), with all other conveniences, at your command, as also their owner. If you could do this, we may, at least, cross the Apennines together; or if you are going by another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I hope. I address this to the post-office (as you desire), and you will probably find me at the Albergo di _San Marco_. If you arrive first, wait till I come up, which will be (barring accidents) on Saturday or Sunday at farthest. "I presume you are alone in your voyages. Moore is in London _incog._ according to my latest advices from those climes. "It is better than a lustre (five years and six months and some days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from Tadcaster in the farce ('Love laughs at Locksmiths'), whose acquaintances, including the cat and the terrier, who 'caught a halfpenny in his mouth,' were all 'gone dead,' but too many of our acquaintances have taken the same path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, &c. &c. almost every body of much name of the old school. But 'so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,' therefore let us make the most of our remainder. "Let me find two lines from you at 'the hostel or inn.' "Yours ever, &c. "B." * * * * * LETTER 465. TO MR. MOORE. "Ravenna, Oct. 28. 1821. "''Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,' and in three hours more I have to set out on my way to Pisa--sitting up all night to be sure of rising. I have just made them take off my bed-clothes--blankets inclusive--in case of temptation from the apparel of sheets to my eyelids. "Samuel Rogers is--or is to be--at Bologna, as he writes from Venice. "I thought our Magnifico would 'pound you,' if possible. He is trying to 'pound' me, too; but I'll specie the rogue--or, at least, I'll have the odd shillings out of him in keen iambics. "Your approbation of 'Sardanapalus' is agreeable, for more reasons than one. Hobhouse is pleased to think as you do of it, and so do some others--but the 'Arimaspian,' whom, like 'a Gryphon in the wilderness,' I will 'follow for his gold' (as I exhorted you to do before), did or doth disparage it--'stinting me in my sizings.' His notable opinions on the 'Foscari' and 'Cain' he hath not as yet forwarded; or, at least, I have not yet received them, nor the proofs thereof, though promised by last post.