neighbour at La Mira? Well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love
with a Venetian girl of family, and no fortune or character; took
her into his mansion; quarrelled with all his former friends for
giving him advice (except me who gave him none), and installed her
present concubine and future wife and mistress of himself and
furniture. At the end of a month, in which she demeaned herself as
ill as possible, he found out a correspondence between her and
some former keeper, and after nearly strangling, turned her out of
the house, to the great scandal of the keeping part of the town,
and with a prodigious éclat, which has occupied all the canals and
coffee-houses in Venice. He said she wanted to poison him; and she
says--God knows what; but between them they have made a great deal
of noise. I know a little of both the parties: Moncada seemed a
very sensible old man, a character which he has not quite kept up
on this occasion; and the woman is rather showy than pretty. For
the honour of religion, she was bred in a convent, and for the
credit of Great Britain, taught by an Englishwoman.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 302. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, December 3. 1817.

"A Venetian lady, learned and somewhat stricken in years, having,
in her intervals of love and devotion, taken upon her to translate
the Letters and write the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montague,--to
which undertaking there are two obstacles, firstly, ignorance of