Heraldic note on coat of arms of Lord Grenville (see 37, 49, 135).
Goodenough asks leave to nominate PE as steward of the 'Westminster meeting' for 1824, and for recommendations for a text book for the 6th Form.
J Allen from Rome (Via Bambuino). About to take a villa in Frascati - news of friends - PE has only recently left.
J Black encloses a parcel of books from Prof Hermann in Leipzig, and offers to take parcels to Germany on his monthly expeditions.
R Finch in Rome to PE in Florence. Apologises for not having accomplished PE's 2 commissions. Niebuhr has been ill, and he hopes to persuade Amati on the morrow to collate the 4 mss of Sophocles. Hopes Jenkyns will not succeed Parsons as Master of Balliol (he did). Has heard of a good ms of Suidas in the Roman College. Miller has fallen and hurt his shoulder. The Holy Roman Emperor (??? - tear in letter) has placed restrictions on ruin-hunters. Talk of the dating of some Roman antiquities. Ashbridge and Miller disagree on the merits of Vasi's Itinerary (of Naples).
Invitation from J Rowe to join a few friends one evening.
Collingwood (of the Clarendon Press) with costings for printing the Bacchae. Pencilled quotation from Johannes Malala on back.
Undated and unsigned, but apparently a first draft of the following letter (identical opening sentence, referring to the previous letter). More on the dishonest clerk. Carnival began on PE's birthday, Saturday, 8th February, and continued to Shrove Tuesday, 18th February - subtract 2 Sundays and 1 Saturday, this makes 8 days of carnival proper. Disguises (but not ecclesiastical, under penalty of whipping and excommunication) - devils, harlequins, cuckolds with long horns and most commonly white dresses like a domino. Walk on the Corso and pelt each other with confetti (formerly sugar-plums, but now limes); horse race (but no riders); masquerade at one of the theatres; all very innocent and stupid. Rome even safer to stay in than London. Detained 14 weeks in Rome by a Eur. ms in the Vatican Library. Foolish, having come so far, not to continue to Naples - only 150 miles on a good road, which would take 20 hours in England, but took PE 36 hours in Italy - brief description of route, passing from papal territory into the Kingdom of Naples.
Naples. Ship sailing this evening for Malta. Repeats (in case previous letters have not Arrived) that he has not heard from sister-in-law since November - and to pay the
Florence. Short opening times of the Laurentian library - about 14 hours a week - but able to work in his own room, so does not have to kill time. Italians a race of professed loungers. Loves Florence, but despises the Florentine gentry for their meanness. Depends on expatriate Englishmen for society - many half-pay officers (who would be dandies if they had the means of being so). The Hon. Brownlow-Charles Colyear a good example of the travelling youth of England (died in Rome because of wounds received from bandits whilst en route from Naples - but according to PE from a typhus fever). Dreadful weather over the winter - rain and fog - so cold that the cellars of confectioners contain blocks of ice thick even by English standards. Now lovely, though odd to see the surrounding hills white with snow. The weather changed with the arrival of the Emperor of Austria on 7th March, a person of mean presence. His fourth wife young enough to be PE's daughter - daughter married to Napoleon, and allowed to speak to no one. Florence very cheap - has only spent