On that day the Phenix (not the Insurance Office, but) the theatre of that
name opens: I have got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, one
of which is, that the music is remarkably good. The Contessa Albrizzi, of
whom I have made mention, is the De Staël of Venice--not young, but a very
learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, I
believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are. She has written
very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume of Characters, besides
other printed matter. She is of Corfu, but married a dead Venetian--that
is, dead since he married.

"My flame (my 'Donna,' whom I spoke of in my former epistle, my Marianna)
is still my Marianna, and I, her--what she pleases. She is by far the
prettiest woman I have seen here, and the most loveable I have met with
any where--as well as one of the most singular. I believe I told you the
rise and progress of our _liaison_ in my former letter. Lest that should
not have reached you, I will merely repeat that she is a Venetian,
two-and-twenty years old, married to a merchant well to do in the world,
and that she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which
her eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I
do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The
nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race--the gentry rather better.
And now, what art _thou_ doing?

"What are you doing now,
Oh Thomas Moore?
What are you doing now,
Oh Thomas Moore?
Sighing or suing now,
Rhyming or wooing now,
Billing or cooing now,