able pertinacity of 'the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and
asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained
as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the
Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call him?' said she. 'A great chemist,'
quoth I. 'What can he do?' repeated the lady 'Almost any thing,' said I.
'Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my
eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come
off; and besides, they don't grow. Can't he invent something to make them
grow?' All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be
surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated
and clever. But they speak like children, when first out of their convents;
and, after all, this is better than an English bluestocking."

POPE--AND OTHER MATTERS.

_To Mr. Moore._

"Ravenna, July 5th, 1821.

"How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that _could_ be
said on your account to weigh with _me_? I only regret that Bowles had not
_said_ that you were the writer of that note until afterwards, when out he
comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me.
D--n the controversy!

"D--m Twizzle,
D--n the bell,
And d--n the fool who rung it--Well!
From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd.

"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw
her) who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the
world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years,
&c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A., and has not a word of 'cant' or
preachment in it upon _any_ opinions. She merely says that she is dying,
and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she
thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which,
by the way, I can _not_ do, as I look upon such a letter, in such
circumstances, as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a
letter from Drontheim, in _Norway_ (but not from a dying woman) in verse,
on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at
times believe oneself a poet. But if I must believe that ----, and
such fellows, are poets, also, it is better to be out of the corps.

"I am now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve
months, besides _proses_; so you perceive that I am