Chapter 5

"Ravenna, 9bre 9°, 1820.

"The talent you approve of is an amiable one, and might prove a 'national service,' but unfortunately I must be angry with a man before I draw his real portrait; and I can't deal in '_generals_,' so that I trust never to have provocation enough to make a _Gallery_. If '_the_ parson' had not by many little dirty sneaking traits provoked it, I should have been silent, though I _had observed_ him. Here follows an alteration: put--

Devil with _such_ delight in damning, That if at the resurrection Unto him the free election Of his future could be given, 'Twould be rather Hell than Heaven;

that is to say, if these two new lines do not too much lengthen out and weaken the amiability of the original thought and expression. You have a discretionary power about showing. I should think that Croker would not disrelish a sight of these light little humorous things, and may be indulged now and then.

"Why, I do like one or two vices, to be sure; but I can back a horse and fire a pistol 'without thinking or blinking' like Major Sturgeon; I have fed at times for two months together on sheer biscuit and water (without metaphor); I can get over seventy or eighty miles a day _riding_ post, and _swim five_ at a stretch, as at Venice, in 1818, or at least I _could do_, and have done it ONCE.

"I know Henry Matthews: he is the image, to the very voice, of his brother Charles, only darker--his laugh his in particular. The first time I ever met him was in Scrope Davies's rooms after his brother's death, and I nearly dropped, thinking that it was his ghost. I have also dined with him in his rooms at King's College. Hobhouse once purposed a similar Memoir; but I am afraid that the letters of Charles's correspondence with me (which are at Whitton with my other papers) would hardly do for the public: for our lives were not over strict, and our letters somewhat lax upon most subjects.[10]

"Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some documents on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity of _checking_, or at least _limiting_, those _French republications_. You may let all your authors publish what they please _against me_ and _mine_. A publisher is not, and cannot be, responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's.

"The 'White Lady of Avenel' is not quite so good as a _real well authenticated_ ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you all about her, and so can Rose, perhaps. I myself have _no doubt_ of the fact, historical and spectral.[11] She always appeared on particular occasions, before the deaths of the family, &c. &c. I heard Madame Benzoni say, that she knew a gentleman who had seen her cross his room at Colalto Castle. Hoppner saw and spoke with the huntsman who met her at the chase, and never _hunted_ afterwards. She was a girl attendant, who, one day dressing the hair of a Countess Colalto, was seen by her mistress to smile upon her husband in the glass. The Countess had her shut up in the wall of the castle, like Constance de Beverley. Ever after, she haunted them and all the Colaltos. She is described as very beautiful and fair. It is well authenticated."

[Footnote 10: Here follow some details respecting his friend Charles S. Matthews, which have already been given in the first volume of this work.]

[Footnote 11: The ghost-story, in which he here professes such serious belief, forms the subject of one of Mr. Rogers's beautiful Italian sketches.--See "Italy," p. 43. edit. 1830.]

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