“I have been requested by the Countess Albrizzi here to present her with ‘the Works;’ and wish you therefore to send me a copy, that I may comply with her requisition. You may include the last published, of which I have seen and know nothing, but from your letter of the 13th of December.
“Mrs. Leigh tells me that most of her friends prefer the two first Cantos. I do not know whether this be the general opinion or not (it is not hers); but it is natural it should be so. I, however, think differently, which is natural also; but who is right, or who is wrong, is of very little consequence.
“Dr. Polidori, as I
hear from him by letter from Pisa, is about to return to England, to go to the Brazils
on a medical speculation with the Danish consul. As you are in the favour of the powers
that be, could you not get him some letters of recommendation from some of your
government friends to some of the Portuguese settlers he understands his profession
well, and has no want of general talents; his faults are the faults of a pardonable
vanity and youth. His remaining with me was out of the question: I have enough to do to
manage my own scrapes; and as precepts without example are not the most gracious
homilies, I thought it better to give him his congé: but I know no great harm of him,
and some good. He is clever and accomplished; knows his profession, by all accounts,
well; and is honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent. I think, with luck,
he will turn out a useful member of society (from which he will lop the diseased
members) and the College of Physicians. If you can be of any use to him, or know any one
who can, pray be so, as he has his fortune to make. He has kept a medical journal under the eye of Vacca (the first surgeon on the continent) at Pisa:
Vacca has corrected it, and it must contain some valuable hints
or information on the practice of this country. If you can aid him in publish-
| A. D. 1817. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 75 |
