Henry Crabb Robinson, 66 Piazza di Spagna, Naples, to Colonel Robert Finch, Rome, 10 January 1830.

My dear Sir

       Has Bereford’s [“]Miseries of Human Life” a chapter on ‘Living in a foreign country’? if not, there should be one in the next edition. I could supply a few articles –

         I have twice called at your house in the evening with the intention of chatting an hour, but in vain.

       The last time was on Friday at Eight, an hour after the time I thought you had mentioned, And as I thought you had no party with you, And I understood dinner was over & you were at coffee I was desirous that your servant should send up my name (my card I had unluckily left at home) I could not get him to do so. The only word of his answer which I could not understood [sic] was nessuno

       The misunderstanding has probably been, in some way or another, my own –

       Excuse my bad memory – I forgot till the other day that you had requested And I had promised a copy of Wordsworth’s Sonnet written from memory, it may be incorrect –

            Very truly your’s

                        H. C. Robinson

66 Piazza di Spagna

10 Jan: 1830.

Text:  Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Eng. Lett., d. 458, f. 169.