To Mr. George Borrow
(Translated from the Spanish)
Piazza di Spagna 17, Rome, 7 April 1838.
Dear Friend,—I received your letter, and thank you for the same. I know the works under the name of 'Boz,' about which you write, and also the Memoirs of the Pickwick Club, and although they seemed to me good, I have failed to appreciate properly their qualities, because much of the dramatic style and dialogue in the same are very difficult for those who know English merely from books. I made here a better acquaintance than that of Mezzofanti (who knows nothing), namely, that of Prof. Michel-Angelo Lanci, already well-known on account of his work, La sacra scrittura illustrata con monumenti fenico-assiri ed egiziani, etc., etc. (The Scriptures, illustrated with Phœnician-Assyrian and Egyptian monuments), which I am reading at present, and find very profound and interesting, and more particularly very original. He has written and presented me a book, Esposizione dei versetti del Giobbe intorno al cavallo (Explanation of verses of Job about a horse), and in these and other works he proves himself to be a great philologist and Oriental scholar. I meet him almost daily, and I assure you that he seems to me to know everything he treats thoroughly, and not like Gayangos or Calderon, etc., etc. His philosophic works have created a great stir here, and they do not please much the friars here; but as here they are not like the police barbarians there, they do not forbid it, as they cannot. Lanci is well known in Russia and in Germany, and when I bring his works there, and you are there and have not read them, you will read them and judge for yourself.
Wishing you well, and always at your service, I remain, always yours,
Luis de Usóz Y Rio.