“I am at length joined to Bologna, where I am settled like a
sausage, and shall be broiled like one, if this weather continues. Will you thank
Mengaldo on my part for the Ferrara
acquaintance, which was a very agreeable one. I staid two days at Ferrara, and was much
pleased with the Count Mosti, and the little the
shortness of the time permitted me to see of his family. I went to his conversazione,
which is very far superior to any thing of the kind at Venice—the women almost all
young—several pretty—and the men courteous and cleanly. The lady of the mansion, who is
young, lately married, and with child, appeared very pretty by candlelight (I did not
see her by day), pleasing in her manners, and very lady-like, or thoroughbred as we call
it in England,—a kind of thing which reminds one of a racer, an antelope, or an Italian
greyhound. She seems very fond of her husband, who is amiable and accomplished; he has
been in England two or three times, and is young. The sister, a Countess somebody—I
forget what—(they are both Maffei by birth, and Veronese of course)—is a lady of more
display; she sings and plays divinely; but I thought she was a d—d
| 216 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1819. |
“I had but a bird’s-eye view of these people, and shall not probably see them again; but I am very much obliged to Mengaldo for letting me see them at all. Whenever I meet with any thing agreeable in this world, it surprises me so much, and pleases me so much (when my passions are not interested one way or the other), that I go on wondering for a week to come. I feel, too, in great admiration of the Cardinal Legate’s red stockings.
“I found, too, such a pretty epitaph in the Certosa cemetery, or rather two: one was
‘Martini Luigi
Implora pace;’ |
‘Lucrezia Picini
Implora eterna quiete.’ |
“In about a day or two after you receive this letter, I will
thank you to desire Edgecombe to prepare for my
return. I shall go back to Venice before I village on the Brenta. I shall stay but a few
days in Bologna. I am just going out to see sights, but shall not present my
introductory letters for a day or two, till I have run over again the place and
pictures; nor perhaps at all, if I find that I have books and sights enough to do
without the inhabitants. After that, I shall return to
| A. D. 1819. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 217 |
“I hope my daughter is well.
“P.S. I went over the Ariosto MS. &c. &c. again at Ferrara, with the castle, and cell, and house, &c. &c.
“One of the Ferrarese asked me if I knew ‘Lord Byron,’ an acquaintance of his, now at Naples. I told him ‘No!’ which was true both ways; for I know not the impostor, and in the other, no one knows himself. He stared when told that I was the real Simon Pure.—‘Another asked me if I had not translated ‘Tasso.’ You see what Fame is! how accurate! how boundless! I don’t know how others feel, but I am always the lighter and the better looked on when I have got rid of mine; it sits on me like armour on the Lord Mayor’s champion; and I got rid of all the husk of literature, and the attendant babble, by answering, that I had not translated Tasso, but a namesake had; and by the blessing of Heaven, I looked so little like a poet, that every body believed me.”
