He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Bartorini, dead two centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold'. Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna; for instance:-- '_Martini Luigi Implora pace.' 'Lucrezia Picini Implora eterna quiete_.' Can anything be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they _implore_! There is all the helplessness, and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave--'_implora pace_'. I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think of 'pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall'. I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could help it. So, as Shakespeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who died at Venice (see _Richard II_), that he, after fighting Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens, And toiled with works of war, retired himself To Italy, and there, at _Venice_, gave His body to that _pleasant_ country's earth, And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long. Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr. Hobhouse's sheets of _Juan_. Don't wait for further answers from me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time. All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well.... My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady. I have never heard anything of Ada, the little Electra of my Mycenae.... But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it.... What a long letter I have scribbled! PS. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine. TO THE SAME _In rebellious mood_ Bologna, 24 _Aug_. 1819.