rom the fortress to Malamocco,
the which contributes considerably to my health and spirits.

"I have hardly had a wink of sleep this week past. We are in the
agonies of the Carnival's last days, and I must be up all night
again, as well as to-morrow. I have had some curious masking
adventures this Carnival; but, as they are not yet over, I shall
not say on. I will work the mine of my youth to the last veins of
the ore, and then--good night. I have lived, and am content.

"Hobhouse went away before the Carnival began, so that he had
little or no fun. Besides, it requires some time to be
thoroughgoing with the Venetians; but of all this anon, in some
other letter.

"I must dress for the evening. There is an opera and ridotto, and I
know not what, besides balls; and so, ever and ever yours,

"B.

"P.S. I send this without revision, so excuse errors. I delight in
the fame and fortune of Lalla, and again congratulate you on your
well-merited success."

[Footnote 13: This possibly may have been the subject of the Poem given
in p. 152. of the first volume.]

[Footnote 14: Having seen by accident the passage in one of his letters
to Mr. Murray, in which he denounces, as false and worthless, the
poetical system on which the greater number of his contemporaries, as
well as himself, founded their reputation, I took an opportunity, in the
next letter I wrote to him, of jesting a little on this opinion, and his
motives for it. It was, no doubt (I ventured to say), excellent policy
in him, who had made sure of his own immortality in this style of
writing, thus to _throw overboard_ all _us poor devils_, who were
embarked with him. He was, in fact, I added, behaving towards us much in
the manner of the methodist preacher who said to his congregation--"You
may think, at the Last Day, to get to heaven by laying hold on my
skirts; but I'll cheat you all, for I'll wear a spencer, I'll wear a
spencer!"]

* * * * *

Of his daily rides on the Lido, which he mentions in this letter, the
following account, by a gentleman who lived a good deal with him at
Venice, will be found not a little interesting:--

"Almost immediately after Mr. Hobhouse's departure, Lord Byron proposed
to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido. One of the long narrow
islands which separate the Lagune, in the midst of which Venice stands,
f