“I have recently written to you rather frequently, but without any late answer. Mr. Hobhouse and myself set out for Venice in a few days; but you had better still address to me at Mr. Hentsch’s, Banquier, Geneva; he will forward your letters.
“I do not know whether I mentioned to you, some time ago,
that I had parted with the Dr. Polidori a few
weeks previous to my leaving Diodati. I know no great harm of him; but he had an
alacrity of getting into scrapes, and was too young and heedless; and having enough to
attend to in my own concerns, and without time to become his tutor, I thought it much
better to give him his congé. He arrived at Milan some weeks before
Mr. Hobhouse and myself. About a week ago, in
consequence of a quarrel at the theatre with an Austrian officer, in which he was
exceedingly in the wrong, he has contrived to get sent out of the territory, and is gone
to Florence. I was not present, the pit having been the scene of altercation; but on
being sent for from the Cavalier Breme’s
box, where I was quietly staring at the ballet, I found the man of medicine begirt with
grenadiers, arrested by the guard, conveyed into the guard-room, where there was much
swearing in several languages. They were going to keep him there for the night; but on
my giving my name, and answering for his apparition next morning, he was permitted
egress. Next day he had an order from the government to be gone in twenty-four hours,
and accordingly gone he is, some days ago. We did what we could for him, but to no
purpose;
| A. D. 1816. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 47 |
