Count Fosco's a Bastard, don't believe him

Will Ladislaw in Middlemarch has been labelled as "An Italian with white mice", I'm wondering, is it a reference to Count Fosco of Wilkie Collins' The Women in White? Answers on a postcard please...
By the way yous may want to check out my new BLOG, blast me for a freeking' pumpkin' if I ain't got time to maintain THIS one let alone my other 2 about Porto Alegre, and now a NEW one! What?! I mean bloody hell! Anyway, I'll try and like I says in the info, I've been teaching English here in Brazil for more than 16 years, s'bout time I wrote some crap about it. What the fuck is Present Perfect again?