"Why, I do like one or two vices, to be sure; but I can back a
horse and fire a pistol 'without thinking or blinking' like Major
Sturgeon; I have fed at times for two months together on sheer
biscuit and water (without metaphor); I can get over seventy or
eighty miles a day _riding_ post, and _swim five_ at a stretch, as
at Venice, in 1818, or at least I _could do_, and have done it
ONCE.

"I know Henry Matthews: he is the image, to the very voice, of his
brother Charles, only darker--his laugh his in particular. The
first time I ever met him was in Scrope Davies's rooms after his
brother's death, and I nearly dropped, thinking that it was his
ghost. I have also dined with him in his rooms at King's College.
Hobhouse once purposed a similar Memoir; but I am afraid that the
letters of Charles's correspondence with me (which are at Whitton
with my other papers) would hardly do for the public: for our
lives were not over strict, and our letters somewhat lax upon most
subjects.[10]

"Last week I sent you a correspondence with Galignani, and some
documents on your property. You have now, I think, an opportunity
of _checking_, or at least _limiting_, those _French
republications_. You may let all your authors publish what they
please _against me_ and _mine_. A publisher is not, and cannot be,
responsible for all the works that issue from his printer's.

"The 'White Lady of Avenel' is not quite so good as a _real well
authenticated_ ('Donna Bianca') White Lady of Colalto, or spectre
in the Marca Trivigiana, who has been repeatedly seen. There is a
man (a huntsman) now alive who saw her also. Hoppner could tell you