I see by a letter of Devrient's, that one I wrote to him from Venice, and which I took to the post myself on the 17th of October, had not reached him on the 19th of November. It would appear also, that another which I sent the same day to Munich had not arrived; both these letters contained music, and this accounts for the loss. At that very time in Venice they carried off all my manuscripts to the Custom-house, after visiting my effects at night, shortly before the departure of the post, and I only received them again here, after much worry and writing backwards and forwards. Every one assured me that the cause of this was a secret correspondence being suspected in cipher in the manuscript music. I could scarcely credit such intolerable stupidity; but as my two letters from Venice containing music have not arrived, and these only, the thing is clear enough. I intend to complain of this to the Austrian ambassador here, but it will do no good, and the letters are lost, which I much regret. Farewell!
For a week past we have had the most lovely spring weather. Young girls are carrying about nosegays of violets and anemones, which they gather early in the morning at the Villa Pamfili. The streets and squares swarm with gaily attired pedestrians; the Ave Maria has already been advanced twenty minutes, but what is become of the winter? Some little time ago it indeed reminded me of my work, to which I now mean to apply steadily, for I own that during the gay social life of the previous weeks, I had rather neglected it. I have nearly completed the arrangement of "Solomon," and also my Christmas anthem, which consists of five numbers; the two symphonies also begin to assume a more definite form, and I particularly wish to finish them here. Probably I shall be able to accomplish this during Lent, when parties cease (especially balls) and spring begins, and then I shall have both time and inclination to compose, in which case I hope to have a good store of new works. Any performance of them here is quite out of the question. The orchestras are worse than any one could believe; both musicians, and a right feeling for music, are wanting. The two or three violin performers play just as they choose, and join in when they please; the wind instruments are tuned either too high or too low; and they execute flourishes like those we are accustomed to hear in farm-yards, but hardly so good; in short the whole forms a Dutch concert, and this applies even to compositions with which they are familiar.