Lord B---- came back laden with presents for me.

Some of them are quite beautiful, and would excite the envy of half my sex.
Received letters from good, dear Sir William Gell, and the no less dear and good Archbishop of Tarentum, both urging us to return to Italy to see them, as they say, once more before they die.

Receiving letters from absent friends who are dear to us, has almost as much of sadness as of pleasure in it; for although it is consolatory to know that they are in life, and are not unmindful of us, still a closely written sheet of paper is but a poor substitute for the animated conversation, the cordial grasp of the hand, and the kind glance of the eye; and we become more sensible of the distance that divides us when letters written many days ago arrive, and we remember with dread that, since these very epistles were indited, the hands that traced them may be chilled by death.

This fear, which recurs so often to the mind in all cases of absence from those dear to us, becomes still more vivid where infirmity of health and advanced age render the probability of the loss of friends the greater.
Italy--dear, beautiful Italy--with all its sunshine and attractions, would not be the same delightful residence to me if I no longer found there the friends who made my _sejour_ there so pleasant; and among these the Archbishop and Sir William Gell stand prominent.
Gell writes me that some new and interesting discoveries have been made at Pompeii.

Would that I could be transported there for a few days to see them with him, as I have beheld so many before when we were present at several excavations together, and saw exposed to the light of day objects that had been for two thousand years buried in darkness! There was a thrilling feeling of interest awakened in the breast by the first view of these so-long-interred articles of use or ornament of a bygone generation, and on the spot where their owners perished.