covering my
strength, though looking somewhat cadaverous upon the
occasion.

[Footnote 60: [On the 17th of March, Scott had written
to Joanna Baillie: "Two _remarkables_ struck me in my
illness: the first was, that my great wolf-dog clamored
wildly and fearfully about my bed when I was very ill,
and would hardly be got out of the room; the other, that
when I was recovering, all acquired and factitious
tastes seemed to leave me, and I could eat nothing but
porridge, and listen to no better reading than a stupid
Scottish diary which would have made a whole man
sick."--_Familiar Letters_, vol. i. p. 421.]]

I much approve of your going to Italy by sea; indeed it is
the only way you ought to think of it. I am only {p.154}
sorry you are going to leave us for a while; but indeed the
isle of Mull might be Florence to me in respect of
separation, and cannot be quite Florence to you, since Lady
Compton is not there. I lately heard her mentioned in a
company where my interest in her was not known, as one of
the very few English ladies now in Italy whom their
acquirements, conduct, and mode of managing time, induce
that part of foreign society, whose approbation is valuable,
to consider with high respect and esteem. This I think is
very likely; for, whatever folks say of foreigners, those of
good education and high rank among them, must have a supreme
contempt for the frivolous, dissatisfied, empty, gad-about
manners of many of our modern belles. And we may say among
ourselves, that there are few upon whom high accomplishments
and information sit more gracefully.

John Kemble is here to take leave, acting over all his great
characters, and with all the spirit of his best years. He
played Coriolanus last night (the first time I have ventured
out) fully as well as I ever saw him; and you know what a
complete model he is of the Roman. He has made a great
reformation in his habits; given up wine, which he used to
swallow by pailfuls,--and renewed his youth like the eagles.
He seems to me always to play best those characters in which
there is a predominating tinge of some overmastering
passion, or acquired habit of acting and speaking, coloring