"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; and indeed he brought it upon himself, as far as I could learn, for I was not present at the squabble itself. I believe this is the real state of his case; and I tell it you because I believe things sometimes reach you in England in a false or exaggerated form. We found Milan very polite and hospitable[127], and have the same hopes of Verona and Venice. I have filled my paper.
"Ever yours," &c.
LETTER 251. TO MR. MOORE.
"Verona, November 6. 1816.
"My dear Moore,
"Your letter, written before my departure from England, and addressed to me in London, only reached me recently. Since that period, I have been over a portion of that part of Europe which I had not already seen. About a month since, I crossed the Alps from Switzerland to Milan, which I left a few days ago, and am thus far on my way to Venice, where I shall probably winter. Yesterday I was on the shores of the Benacus, with his fluctibus et fremitu. Catullus's Sirmium has still its name and site, and is remembered for his sake: but the very heavy autumnal rains and mists prevented our quitting our route, (that is, Hobhouse and myself, who are at present voyaging together,) as it was better not to see it at all than to a great disadvantage.
"I found on the Benacus the same tradition of a city, still visible in calm weather below the waters, which you have preserved of Lough Neagh, 'When the clear, cold eve's declining.' I do not know that it is authorised by records; but they tell you such a story, and say that the city was swallowed up by an earthquake. We moved to-day over the frontier to Verona, by a road suspected of thieves,—'the wise convey it call,'—but without molestation. I shall remain here a day or two to gape at the usual marvels,—amphitheatre, paintings, and all that time-tax of travel,—though Catullus, Claudian, and Shakspeare have done more for Verona than it ever did for itself. They still pretend to show, I believe, the 'tomb of all the Capulets'—we shall see.