Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/153

Rh Viscount Duncan, and wife of Sir Hew D. Hamilton. Somers is mentioned on p. 150: this is probably the correct spelling, not (as here) Summers. Matthew Gregory Lewis (whom I had occasion to name before) was the author of The Monk, which he wrote at the early age of nineteen, of the musical drama The Castle Spectre, and of other works whose celebrity has not survived into the present day. He was now near the end of his brief career, for he died in 1818, aged forty-two.]

The society I have been in may be divided into three sets: the canton of Genthoud, Coppet, and Geneva. The canton is an assemblage of a neighbourhood of about seven or eight families, meeting alternately on Sundays at each other's houses, and every Thursday at the Countess Breuss's. The Countess Breuss lives at Genthoud in a villa she has bought. She has two husbands, one in Russia, one at Venice; she acted plays at the Hermitage under Catherine. Not being able to get a divorce, she left Russia, went to Venice for six days, stayed as many years, married (it is said), bought villas etc. in the Venetian's name, and separated. Her family consists of Madame Gatelier, a humble friend, a great lover of medicaments etc., Abate, her Almoner, an excellent Brescian, great lover of religionists. A mania in the family for building