"Ask Mr. Gifford if, in the fifth act of 'The Doge,' you could not contrive (where the sentence of the _Veil_ is passed) to insert the following lines in Marino Faliero's answer? "But let it be so. It will be in vain: The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name, And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments, Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits Which glitter round it in their painted trappings, Your delegated slaves--the people's tyrants.[33] "Yours, truly, &c. "P.S. Upon _public_ matters here I say little: you will all hear soon enough of a general row throughout Italy. There never was a more foolish step than the expedition to Naples by these fellows. "I wish to propose to _Holmes_, the miniature painter, to come out to me this spring. I will pay his expenses, and any sum in reason. I wish him to take my daughter's picture (who is in a convent) and the Countess G.'s, and the head of a peasant girl, which latter would make a study for Raphael. It is a complete _peasant_ face, but an _Italian_ peasant's, and quite in the Raphael Fornarina style. Her figure is tall, but rather large, and not at all comparable to her face, which is really superb. She is not seventeen, and I am anxious to have her face while it lasts. Madame G. is also very handsome, but it is quite in a different style--completely blonde and fair--very uncommon in Italy; yet not an _English_ fairness, but more like a Swede or a Norwegian. Her figure, too, particularly the bust, is uncommonly good. It must be _Holmes_; I like him because he takes such inveterate likenesses. There is a war here; but a solitary traveller, with little baggage, and nothing to do with politics, has nothing to fear. Pack him up in the Diligence. Don't forget." [Footnote 33: These lines--perhaps from some difficulty in introducing them--were never inserted in the Tragedy.] * * * * * LETTER 417. TO MR. HOPPNER. "Ravenna, April 3. 1821;