"The fever with which I was prostrate at my landing is now intermittent; and though I wake every morning with a headache raging, and shaking fits, and a most disordered tongue, with proper care, as the day wears on, I regain my strength, and am passably fit to be taken to this and the other banquet and festa in the evening--things which I hate, but cannot refuse for fear of giving offence and damaging His Majesty's Service. There is not only Their Majesties to consider, but the Ambassadors of the friendly Powers, and the leading nobles. These last are very important; for it cannot be denied that though the _lazzaroni_ and the humbler class generally are devoted to the good Queen and her husband, there is among the younger members of the noble families a wicked and pernicious tendency to welcome the new and infernal doctrines begotten in France. I do not myself believe that they are with the French at heart, but there is in the mind of the educated Italian a certain levity which makes him scoff at anything established, be it religion or the laws of his country, and disposed to trifle with the last new toy in theories. "I am writing at too great length that which is only written for the writing, and never to be seen of the public eye; but I feel that I must defend myself to myself, since it is the first time that my conscience has doubted me. "It was necessary that I should attend these assemblages, whose miserable conduct maddens my irritable temper. But I could not have done it were it not for the goodness, the overpowering goodness, of Lady Hamilton. Not only has she given me this chamber and nourished me with this extreme care, but every morning she would do something to take me out of my poor wretched self, to stop the thumping my head gives from the hurt I had at the Nile. One morning, after light refreshment had been brought in and I had eaten what I could, and lay back on my pillow trying, by closing my eyes, to hide myself from the pain and feeling of sickness, while Comyn and Campbell and Will and the boy [myself--T. T.], and perhaps Troubridge, were standing or sitting round in affectionate and respectful silence, waiting for me to be able to raise my head and give directions for the ordering of the squadron, I heard Lady Hamilton's glorious rich voice singing in some part of the palace at the distance to be soothing; and as a morning or two later, I mended, I opened my eyes to see her, before an enraptured audience expressing their applause with silent admiration, in those Attitudes all Europe has heard of for their wonderful grace and fidelity to what they represent.