"Last night finished the first act of Sardanapalus. To-night, or to-morrow, I ought to answer letters.
"Last night Il Conte P.G. sent a man with a bag full of bayonets, some muskets, and some hundreds of cartridges to my house, without apprizing me, though I had seen him not half an hour before. About ten days ago, when there was to be a rising here, the Liberals and my brethren Ci. asked me to purchase some arms for a certain few of our ragamuffins. I did so immediately, and ordered ammunition, &c. and they were armed accordingly. Well--the rising is prevented by the Barbarians marching a week sooner than appointed; and an _order_ is issued, and in force, by the Government, 'that all persons having arms concealed, &c. &c. shall be liable to,' &c. &c.--and what do my friends, the patriots, do two days afterwards? Why, they throw back upon my hands, and into my house, these very arms (without a word of warning previously) with which I had furnished them at their own request, and at my own peril and expense.
"It was lucky that Lega was at home to receive them. If any of the servants had (except Tita and F. and Lega) they would have betrayed it immediately. In the mean time, if they are denounced or discovered, I shall be in a scrape.
"At nine went out--at eleven returned. Beat the crow for stealing the falcon's victuals. Read 'Tales of my Landlord'--wrote a letter--and mixed a moderate beaker of water with other ingredients.
"The news are that the Neapolitans have broken a bridge, and slain four pontifical carabiniers, whilk carabiniers wished to oppose. Besides the disrespect to neutrality, it is a pity that the first blood shed in this German quarrel should be Italian. However, the war seems begun in good earnest: for, if the Neapolitans kill the Pope's carabiniers, they will not be more delicate towards the Barbarians. If it be even so, in a short time 'there will be news o' thae craws,' as Mrs. Alison Wilson says of Jenny Blane's 'unco cockernony' in the 'Tales of my Landlord.'
"In turning over Grimm's Correspondence to-day, I found a thought of Tom Moore's in a song of Maupertuis to a female Laplander.
"'Et tous les lieux, Où sont ses yeux, Font la Zone brûlante.'
"'And those eyes make my climate, wherever I roam.'