[117] at the end of December or beginning of January. Venice is a sort of jumping-off place. I am here equally distant from Vienna and Athens. I can be at either in less than seven days. I have ordered my letters to Vienna, where I expect to find a batch of two months. This is a temptation to the North; but there are the Piraeus and Marathon! I am strongly tempted. My next will be to you from Vienna or Athens. Which had you rather it should be? Tell me in your next. I hope you will encourage Felton in his plan of travel. Speed him in every possible way. As ever, affectionately yours, P. S. Remember me to Forbes1 when you write him. It is something to send a wish from Venice to Canton vid Boston. It is equal to Pope's ‘Waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.’ I have seen every thing in Venice now, and been in a gondola to my heart's content. A little boy asked me the other day if he should not go with me to sing ‘Tasso.’ The gondoliers are a better set of men than any of the cabmen or hackmen I have had to do with in other places.
To Thomas Crawford.
Milan, Oct. 5, 1839.dear Crawford,—To-morrow I quit Italy with a beating heart. I love it, and am sad on leaving it. I have taken my place in a malle-poste,to cross the Alps by the Stelvio to Innsbruck. I hope your labors go on well. There will be many of our countrymen in Rome this winter, and I feel confident you will reap a full harvest. By accident, I encountered in this place two friends of my own age, who are bound for Rome via; Naples; so that they will not reach you short of a month or six weeks. Both of them wish to spend some money in paintings, engravings, and sculpture. I have promised them your friendly counsel, and have given them a letter of introduction to you, and also to Greene, and wish you would show them what you can about art in Rome. Go to the Vatican with them, and let them see the work of your studio. . . . So be of good cheer! And yet I do not know that all these grounds of hope may not fail. I would not have you, therefore, too sanguine; though you should never lose the confidence of ultimate and distinguished success. I wish to be kept informed of your works; and am, As ever, very sincerely yours,
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1 Captain R. B. Forbes, ante, Vol. I. p. 163
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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