CHAPTER XI

Continuation Of His Travels.

After staying about three months in Naples, Spencer sets out with Barrington, to travel through Sicily, on the 27th February. The voyage was very smooth until they came to Stromboli, and passed near the cave of AEolus, who "puffed at them accordingly," and delayed their landing at Messina until March 2. He goes to a ceremony in the cathedral there, and says, "the priests seem nourishing and very numerous here." On his way to Mount Etna he remarks, with a kind of incredulous air, that he went to see the lions of the five chestnuts and the bridge, which has the same legend attached to its origin as the Devil's Bridge in Wales, "dogs being, in both cases, sent over first to pay the forfeit for having built it." [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: The most circumstantial legend bearing upon the remark in the text is that about the Bridge of Rimini. Here there was a fearful rapid, without a stone within the distance of 70 miles that was available for building purposes. The bridge-builder of the town may or may not have had the contract; but, at all events, he set down in a confused state of mind as to how it might be done. The devil appeared to him and contracted for the building of the bridge on these easy terms--getting the first that crossed it for his own. The bargain was struck, and in the twinkling of an eye some thousands of infernal imps were scampering down the mountains with a gigantic stone on the shoulder of each. One-third of them were quite sufficient, and the arch-fiend who presided over the building cried out, that no more were wanted: when each devil threw down his load where he happened to be when the master's yell reached his ears. This is said to account for the rocks one sees strewn about near this bridge. The bridge itself is a circle, and was built in one night, and indeed some kind of infernal machine would seem necessary to remove the blocks of stone of which it is composed. Now came the trial. The Christian builder of bridges had no fancy for going to hell, and he was too charitable to send anyone else there. He bethought him of an expedient, and calling out his dog he took a small loaf, and threw it across the bridge with all his might. The dog, of course, ran after it. Whereupon the devil seized him, and in a rage flung him up to somewhere near the moon, and the dog falling from this height upon the bridge, made a hole in its only arch which cannot be filled up to this day. The legend embodies at least a specimen of the Catholic instinct: viz., the anxiety of the devil for our destruction, and how all hell thinks it cheap to turn out for a day's hard labour in the hopes of gaining one single soul.]

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He chiefly lodges in convents during his rambles through Sicily, the inns being so very bad that they drive travellers away. He and his companion sleep in different convents, and are very well treated; but that scarcely evokes a word of thanks. Poor monks! they have a bad name in Protestant nations, and what would be praiseworthy in others is only an equivocal quality in them. This is very sad; that men who have bid farewell to the world should, on that very account, be considered hardly entitled to the bare rights of human beings. Yet go on, poor souls, in your vocation; your Master before you received the same treatment from the world, and you are not greater than He. Spencer meets one or two monks whom he likes pretty well--one was the superior of the Carmelites at Grirgenti. The rest he calls "stupid friars," "lazy monks," and so forth, according to the tone of mind he happens to be in. In one monastery they shut the door of the room allowed them in the face of one of the brethren, because, forsooth, they were "bored by visits from the monks." His journey does not always lie through convents, and he meets others who are not monks; one of these was a wine-merchant at Marsala, a native of England. It seems the pair of tourists were received as handsomely by their countryman as they had been by the "stupid friars," for he is thus described in the journal: "He seems to think himself commissioned to keep up the English character in a strange land, for he is a John Bull in caricature in his manner." We are also told, a little lower down, that he is very hospitable to all English who pass by that way. They had the novelty of seeing an {76} Italian Good Friday in Marsala; the impression is thus noted:

"Friday, Mar. 31.--This was Good Friday. The first, and I hope the last, I shall spend without going to church; not that I should not like to be abroad another year. We were reminded of the day by quantities of groups representing the Passion and Crucifixion, almost as large as life, carried about on men's shoulders, which, absurd as they are, seemed to make an impression on the populace. Men dressed in black accompanied them, with crowns of thorns and crosses. It strikes me as direct idolatry, nearly. The gentry were all in mourning, and the sentinels had their muskets with the muzzles inverted. We all three (Sir H. Willoughby accompanied Barrington and Spencer) took a walk up to the top of Monte di Trapani, the ancient Eryx, where is a town of the same name. We examined what was to be seen there, and came down again to dinner. We dined at 6½, and had _some meat_, which we have not been able to get for some days, it being Passion Week." He spent Easter Sunday in Palermo, and here are his comments on its observance:

"Sunday, April 2, Easter-day.--We set off from Ahamo about 7¼. I walked on for an hour, and then rode forward all the way to Monreale, where I stopped an hour till the others came up. We then proceeded together to Palermo. In the villages we passed, the people were all out in their best clothes, which was a very pretty sight. Bells were clattering everywhere, and _feux de joie_ were fired in several villages as we passed, with a row of little tubes loaded with gunpowder, in the market-places, and processions went about of people in fancy dresses with flags and drums. This religion is most extraordinary. It strikes me as impious; but I suppose it takes possession of the common people sooner than a sensible one."

He completed the tour of the island by arriving in Messina, after a most successful attempt to see Mount Etna, on the 14th of April. They left Sicily for Reggio in a boat, and arrived there "with a good ducking." They both went to visit Scylla, which was guarded as a citadel by armed peasants. The sturdy yeomen refused to admit them, whereupon George, with true English curiosity, climbed up the wall to {77} get a peep at the sea, and perhaps inside. Scarcely had he got half-way up when he was taken prisoner by the sentinel. He was accordingly invited to visit the interior of the castle, and had to gaze at the bleak walls of its keep for an hour, until Willoughby procured his release from the commandant. They travelled on, and George does not seem to be satisfied with the people of Salerno, whom he designates as "surly and gothic." He heard his companions had to get an escort of gendarmes, to save them from robbers, all along here. Returns to Naples, April 26, delighted at being safe in life and limb; he goes to the old lodgings to a party, and reflects thus on his return: "I came home about one, rather sad with seeing the representation of what I had enjoyed in the winter--but all the people changed. _Gaiety after all does not pay_." This last sentence is not underlined by Spencer himself. It is done to point a moral that may be necessary for a certain class of persons. It is often supposed that monks, and the like people, paint the world blacker than it is in reality, and that it is a kind of morose sourness of disposition that makes recluses cry down the enjoyments of those outside convent-walls. This line will perhaps defend F. Ignatius from such an imputation. He wrote that after the pure natural enjoyment of scenery had been compared with the excitement of a ball-room; if he thought, in his wildness, that gaiety did not pay, no wonder that his opinion was confirmed in the quiet tameness of his after-life. A passage from the autobiography, omitted above, comes in here opportunely. He was speaking of the absence of the fear of God from his miserable mind:--

"This was almost true concerning the entire period. One occasion I will mention when I was impressed with some shame at my wretched state. While I was making the tour of Sicily, my father and mother left Naples in the _Revolutionnaire_, a fine frigate which had been placed at their disposal, and by which they went to Marseilles, to shorten their land journey homewards. When I returned to Naples I found a long letter from my father, full of kindness and affection for me, in which he explained to me his wishes as to the course of my journey home. This letter I believe I {78} have not kept, but I remember in it a passage nearly as follows: 'As to your conduct, my dear George, I need not tell you how important it is for your future happiness and character that you should keep yourself from all evil; especially considering the sacred profession for which you are intended. But, on this subject, I have no wish concerning you but to hear that you continue to be what you have hitherto been.' 'Ah!' thought I to myself, 'how horrible is the difference between what I am and what this sentence represents me.' But worldly shame was yet more powerful in me than godly shame, and this salutary impression did not produce one good resolution."

On May 3rd, 1820, he came to Rome a second time. His first visit this time also was to St. Peter's, which, he says, "looked more superb to me than ever." He attended Cardinal Litta's funeral from curiosity, and has no remark about it worth extracting. There are two passages in the journal relating to the ceremonies of Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi, which may be interesting as being indicative of his notions of Catholic ritual:--

"Thursday, May 11.--Got up early, and wrote till breakfast. At 9½ went off with Barrington and Ford to St. John of Lateran, where there were great ceremonies to take place for the Ascension Day. The old Pope was there, and was carried round the church blessing, with other mummeries. It was a fine sight when he knelt down and prayed (or was supposed to do so) in the middle of the church, with all the Cardinals behind him. Now this goes for nothing in comparison to what it must have been when the Pope was really considered infallible (_sic_). We then all went out of the church to receive the blessing, from the principal window in the façade. The Pope came to this in his chair, and performed the spreading of his hands very becomingly. The whole thing was too protracted, perhaps, to be as striking as it should; but I was not as disappointed as I expected to be. The cannonry of St. Angelo and the band certainly gave effect; and the crowd of people on the space before the church was a scene to look at."

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"Thursday, June 1.--To-day is the feast of Corpus Domini, one of the greatest in the Catholic Church; so at eight we went, having breakfasted [a fact, by the bye, he seldom omits to mention], to St. Peter's, to see the _funzioni_, which are very grand on this occasion. There was a great procession round the _cortile_--first of the religious orders, about 450 monks only; and the boys of St. Michael's Hospital, of the Collegio Romano, &c. Then came curates, and priests temporal and secular, prelates, and monsignores, the ensigns or canopies of the seven basilicas with their chapters, and the priests belonging to them following; next came bishops, then cardinals, and then the Pope, carried on four men's shoulders. He was packed up on the top of the stand with his head out alone. He seemed more dead than alive, and worse than on May 11 at S. Giovanni's. The group of people about him, with their robes and splendid mitres, made a very brilliant sight. The former part of the procession rather showed the decadence of the Church from a great height, than its present glory. After the Pope came the _guardia nobile_, and other soldiers, in splendid uniforms. After the procession there were functions in the Church, and a benediction from the Altar, and which I did not see so well. St. Peter's never showed so well as with a crowd of people in it, when one may estimate its dimensions from the comparison of their littleness."

This is a fair specimen of how a candid, prejudiced Protestant stares at Catholic services. He puts down as undisputed that all is absurd before he goes, and if the Man of Sin himself, the poor Pope, is in the middle of it, it rises to the very highest pitch of abomination. A man who could consider holiday attire and exultation impious on Easter Sunday, and the mourning and fasting and processions of Good Friday something worse, cannot be very well qualified to comprehend the Ascension and Corpus Christi in Rome. Catholics _do_ believe in the authority of the Pope and the power of the Keys, and also in the Real Presence; will it not follow, as a natural conclusion, that the four quarters of the globe should get its spiritual Father's blessing one day in the year, and that we should try to find out the best way of honouring our Incarnate God in the Blessed Sacrament? {80} But consistency is not a gift one finds among Protestants, especially when they give their opinion on what they think too absurd to try to understand. They must admit the Catholic ceremonial is imposing; but then it is only to quarrel with it for being so. They can understand pageantry and pomp in honouring an earthly monarch; but does it occur to them that every best gift is from above, and that the King of kings should be honoured with every circumstance of splendour and oblation a creature can offer?

One or two of the salient points of his character come out in a few extracts we shall produce from the journal now. He says, on leaving Rome--"How delightful, and yet how melancholy, was my walk about those dear rooms at the Vatican; after next Thursday I believe I am never to see them again, so farewell to them now." This illustrates his better nature; he was very affectionate, and could love whatever was really worth loving; he was not very demonstrative of this feeling, but when it came to leave-taking, he had to give vent to it. A peculiar caste of his mind was to listen to every proposition, and weigh the reasons adduced to support it. If they were unanswerable, he at once admitted it, and, if possible, tested it by experience. This was the great key to his conversion and subsequent life. In conversation, perhaps, with a medical friend, he was told that it was far the best way, whilst on the move in travelling, neither to eat nor drink. This was supported by reasons drawn from the digestive principles, and so forth. He thought it was well proved, and could find no valid objection against it, so he determined to try it, and travelled from Rome to Sienna without tasting a morsel for forty-two hours, and says in his journal--"It is much the best way in travelling." In Florence we have other tokens of the regret with which he parts from his friends; and in the same page a very different feeling on parting with some Franciscans. These "entertained him uncommonly well for mendicants," and showed him all their treasures of art and piety with the greatest kindness; yet it did not prevent him calling them "lazy old monks" when they let him away at three o'clock in the morning.

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He walks about the country a good deal, and finds it pleasant, "as the common people here are much more conversable than ours." This striking difference between a Catholic and a Protestant peasantry is patent to the most superficial observer. The poor Irish, French, or Italian labourer, who can neither read nor write, is quite at his ease with the merchant or the noble. He will have his joke and his laugh, very often at the expense of his superior, and never outstep the bounds of due respect. He is light-hearted and gay everywhere, and the exact opposite of the English navvy.

The real cause of the difference is the want of religion in the poor Briton. The Catholic religion inculcates humility on the great. It brings the Lord of the Manor and his servant to the same confessional and the same altar: they may be as far asunder as pole from pole outside the church, but inside it they are both on a level. The works of mercy are insisted on, and high-born ladies are most frequently the ministering angels of the poor man's sick-bed, and the instructors of his children, and nurses of his orphans. "Blessed are the poor" is not a dead letter in Catholic theology, and until it be, and that poverty becomes felony, the same ease and happiness will pervade the peasantry of Catholic countries, which now gives them such grace and beauty. The doctrine of self-worship and money-adoration can never fuse races; there is a wide wide chasm between the upper and the lower orders in Protestant countries, which no amount of mechanics' lectures, and patronizing condescension, can bridge over, as long as the germs of the worldly system remain rooted in the education and manners of the people. Of course, these remarks do not apply to the general state of things, for there is oppression in Catholic countries as well as elsewhere; they simply concern the working of a Christian principle, if it get fair play.

He visits Pisa, Lucca, Carrara, Sestri, and stops at Genoa. A bit of the Protestant breaks out here. "We went to see that foolish _sacro catino_ at the Cathedral, which I have no doubt is glass instead of emerald." He says {82} again: "It makes me rather onked to be alone now, though sometimes I wish to be so. But the only solitude that is disagreeable is among numbers in a large town. The solitude of the Apennines, and such places as last night's habitation, is a pleasure to me." Now one _vetturino_ hands him over "to another more blackguard than himself" on his way to Bologna, where he has a very satisfactory meeting with Mezzofanti once more. Off he starts through Ferrara, Rovigo, and Padua, for Venice; he visits the Piazza S. Marco, and is told complacently by a French doctor, who proved to be a terrible bore by-and-by, that it is nothing to the Palais Royal. He visits Mantua on a pilgrimage to Virgil's birthplace, and says of a sight he saw by accident: "I was amused by a figure of S. Zeno, just like a smiling Otaheitan idol of the largest dimensions, which is the great protector of the town." It is not hard to tell which way his devotion lay. Spencer and a Mr. Lefevre, who was now his travelling companion, go to a _villegiatura_ here, and are splendidly entertained for a couple of days. They travel on for Germany through the Tyrol; from Verona to Riva they chiefly travel by the Lago di Garda, and the only incidents he chooses to record, until they come to "dem goldenen Adler" (the golden Eagle) at Brixen, are the cicerone's opinions of Catullus, whom that well-informed individual thought to have been a brigand chief. They had to bring the bill of fare before the police in Riva, but were not successful in getting a single charge diminished; he enjoyed a good deal of idyllic life along here, and did not seem to think much _pro_ or _con_ of the little town of Trent, though one should fancy he would say something, if it were only a few angry words about the Great Council.

He considers the Germans more honest than the Italians, and was inclined to admire their solidity and steadiness; but his driver fell asleep on their way to Innspruck, and let the reins fall on the horse's neck when descending a steep, and he veers round to the opinion that if they were a little livelier, it would be much better. On his way through Bavaria to Munich he thinks the country very like England--well cultivated and flourishing. "The costumes extraordinary, {83} but not so pretty as the Tyrolese. The people themselves, both men and women, are the ugliest race I ever saw." They had letters of introduction to Prince Loewenstein and Count Peppenheim, two aides-de-camp of the King of Bavaria; they were invited to a royal _chasse_. Perhaps it is as well to give the whole account from the Journal, as it conveys an idea of German sports too fine to be overlooked.

"Monday, Aug. 21.--At 4½ this morning we started for the _chasse_ in the mountains about three leagues off. At the end of two leagues we were stopped and obliged to walk, as the road became too narrow for the King to pass us, in case we had been in the way when he came up. So we walked the rest till we came to the toils where Loewenstein received us. The _chasse_ was in a deep valley, shut in on the sides by precipitous rocks: into this they had tracked about 80 or 90 head of deer, and shut them in by toils at both ends; then little green enclosures were made for the guns to be posted in. We had one of these guns given us in conjunction with other spectators, the shooter who was to have been there not having arrived. Before the line was a broad course of a torrent, and beyond that was a wood into which they had forced the game, and from which they drove it again with dogs, and even into the way of the guns. This went on for 4 or 5 hours, during which they cannonaded very quick, but with little effect, for I never saw a much greater proportion of misses. The result was about 70 head of deer. We were much surprised in the middle of the time at seeing Devon walk up. He came from Salzburg for the purpose of this _chasse_, and stayed with us through it. After it we were standing near the place where the King was counting out the game, when Peppenheim presented us to him, and he asked us to dine at Berchtesgaden. As our carriage was so far off, we were obliged to be carried as we could, and I was taken in by Loewenstein, who is, by the bye, about the fattest man in Bavaria. We dressed directly, both ourselves and Devon, who had nothing here; and even so we were late for dinner. However, the King was so gracious and good-humoured that it all went off capitally. It was an interesting dinner for the faces that {84} we saw. Eugene Beauharnais, Prince Schwartzenberg, Reichenbach, engineer, Maréehal Wrede, and about 16 more, were there. We stayed till about 6, and then came home.

"Tuesday, Aug. 22.--To-day we again followed the motions of the Court. Devon came over with horses from Hallein, where he had returned last night; and so we went about comfortably. Schwartzenberg took us to a famous machine of Mr. Reichenbach's, without the King. This machine is employed to raise the salt water, which is brought from the mines here, and convey it over the mountains to Reichenhall, about 3 leagues distant, where is a manufactory for extracting the salt. The reason of this is, that there is not enough wood for consumption here. It is a vast forcing-pump, which is worked by fresh water from a height of 400 feet, and raises the salt water 1,200. This water is in the proportion of 53 to 44 heavier than fresh water. I did not understand the whole explanation, being in German, but I admired the machine, which works in a room so quietly as actually not to be perceptible from the noise, except a little splashing. After this we came to a miserable dinner at the inn, which was too full to attend to us. At 1½, about, we started again to a romantic lake, König See, where another scene of this royal drama was to be enacted. The King came, with his whole party, an hour after us, and we were invited by Loewenstein into his royal boat, which was rowed by 11 men and one pretty damsel. "We went all down the lake, with several other boats full following, one of which had 4 small cannons, which they constantly discharged for the echo. The thing we came though for was, two artificial cascades from the top of the mountains, one in the course of a small torrent, which had been stopped above and made into a lake, full of large pieces of timber, which were precipitated all at once with surprising effect. The other was a dry cascade, down which two heaps of timber were discharged, like the launching of a ship from an inclined plane, the smallest of which, as I could judge from below, was twice the height of a man, and four times the length at least. The finest part of this was the prodigious {85} splashing at the bottom, which resembled, in appearance and sound, a line of cannonading. By way of sport, this is the most superb child-amusement one could conceive. We rowed back in the same boat, and disembarked about sunset. We proceeded directly to a salt-mine, without the King, where was to be an illumination. We all were decked out in miners' habits, and embarked, in little carts drawn by two men, down a shaft 1,800 feet long, lighted by candles all the way, ourselves having one each, like white penitents. At the end of this we were surprised by entering a large chamber, perhaps 200 yards round, with a gallery at the top; the whole was surrounded by festoons of lamps, and below it was a rich star of fire, which showed the depth of the mine off to great advantage. A band of music was playing, and mines were exploded at the bottom with really tremendous noise. Altogether, this scene pleased me more than any I have seen here, or perhaps anywhere.

"Wednesday, August 23.--At 5 we started in the carriage, with Devon's servant, for the second _chasse_ (of chamois); we found ourselves among a long train of other carriages also going there. We passed through the _chasse_ of Monday, and went about 3 miles further on foot. We found that of 60 chamois which had been collected in the toils, 40 had escaped; so the _chasse_ was but of about an hour's duration before they were all killed. The stands of shooters were confined, so we were made to climb up a little mountain, or rather a large rock, from which we had an excellent view of everything. The scenery was superb and wild. Before, behind, and everywhere, were immense mountains of solid and shagged rock, 9,000 feet high above the sea, with nothing like vegetation but patches of stunted firs, which did not, even so, reach halfway up their height, and looked like moss. It made a contrast with the tameness of the _chasse_, where about 16 chamois were driven about and killed out of little boxes, in an enclosure of a few acres. It was not so fine in that respect as the deer _chasse_. The King asked us again to dinner, near a small house in the valley of the deer _chasse_ (Wimbach). The table was put on a platform under a sycamore-tree in a glorious situation. {86} I was unexpectedly called upon to sit next to Prince Schwartzenberg, and always called _milord_, which probably was the original mistake. The whole business went off very satisfactorily. The King's manners are most affable, and made everything comfortable about him."

After this grand performance, our tourists took a ride through a salt-mine, astride of a plank, with a man before and behind running as fast as could be; they come finally to daylight, and shortly afterwards to Salzburg. They travelled the country to Lintz, and sailed down the Danube to Vienna, where they found the police "ridiculously strict about passports." A few days after their arrival in Vienna they took a drive through the _Prater_, and "during the drive we conversed on the subject of family calamities, and on one's means of bearing them. Soon after we came home, Lord Stewart's _attaché_, Mr. Aston, called with a letter for me from Mr. Allen, which told me of the horrible news of my brother Bob's death in America, killed in an affray with his first lieutenant! How strangely fulfilled were our yesterday's prognostics. This is a sort of thing that is too great and deep an accident to feel in the common way. I hardly understand it at this distance: I shall though before long. I went with Lefevre after dinner to Lord Stewart's, where I found a German courier was to start soon for England. I shall accompany him." This is from the Journal; we shall now give an extract from the Autobiography:--

"My first tour abroad was suddenly terminated at Vienna by a letter which I received to recall me home, from the Rev. J. Allen, now Bishop of Ely. This letter gave me notice of the supposed death of my brother Robert, in South America, who, it was reported, had been killed in an affray with his first lieutenant. This most strange story, for which there was not the slightest foundation in truth, was conveyed to our family in England in such a way as gained it entire belief, and all had been for two or three weeks in deep mourning and under the greatest affliction, when the falsehood of the report was discovered. This affliction was considered a sufficient cause for gathering together all the {87} members of the family who were at liberty to come home; and so I was desired to return immediately. I bought a carriage at Vienna, and, travelled for some nights and days without ceasing, during which I thought to try an experiment on how little nourishment I could subsist; and from a sort of curiosity to amuse myself, for I can hardly attribute it to a better motive, I accomplished a fast which it would appear a dreadful hardship to be reduced to by necessity, and a very small approach to which, in these times, would be by most persons looked on as a most unreasonable austerity. I passed those successive intervals of 38, 50, and 53 hours, as I find in my journal, without touching the least particle of food to eat or drink; and what I took between the intervals was only a little tea and bread and butter. This matter is not worth noticing, except to show that, as I went through this, while travelling, which is rather an exhausting employment, without the least detriment to my health, and without a feeling of hunger almost all the time, it is a sad delusion for people in good health to fancy they need so many indulgences and relaxations to go through the fasts appointed by the Church.

"It was when I got to Calais that I went to the English news-room to see further accounts in the newspapers of my brother's death, the report of which, though at first I had some suspicions it might be false, I afterwards had made up my mind entirely to believe. My joy was exceeding great at finding an explicit contradiction to it in one of the latest papers. I remember going on my knees to thank God, in the news-room, when I found myself alone, which I believe was the first occasion for a long, long time I had made a prayer of any sort, or gone on my knees, except in church-service time. This I never gave up entirely, and during this time I never gave up receiving the Sacrament explicitly, though I do not find that I received it all the time I was abroad. I did not intend to commit acts of hypocrisy, but must have gone on from custom and a certain sense of propriety, without considering that I was mocking God."

{88}

On his arrival at Althorp he found the family all in the most joyous mood possible. A little passage of his Journal gives an idea of the character of the noble family in their relations with the tenantry:--

"Friday, Sept. 22. Bread and meat given to the poor of Brington, Brampton, and Harleston, as a rejoicing for Bob's recovery. Three oxen were killed, and the effect seemed very good. They gave some lively cheers as they departed."

He goes to London, and hears Henry Brougham's speech on Queen Caroline's trial; and immediately after, he starts for Switzerland to see his sister, Lady Georgiana Quin. We shall relate this in his own words in the Autobiography:--

"I became so fond of the business of travelling that, as I was returning homewards, my mind was occupied constantly with plans for further excursions. I intended to have gone with Lefevre from Vienna to Dresden and Berlin on our way home, but I could not think of regarding this as my last journey. I was longing to see Greece. I had had thoughts of Spain, Russia, Egypt, and various indeed have been the fancies and inclinations which have passed through my mind. The regular travelling mania had its turn about this time, and I wonder not, by my feelings then, at so many of our countrymen, whom I have known myself, who have left England for a short excursion, and not having professional engagements, nor wise parents and relations, as I had, to control them, have become regular wanderers, and have spent, in travelling about, the years on the good employment of which, at home, depended mainly their success in after-life. It may be judged how truly I was possessed with this spirit of wandering, at the time of which I speak, by my remaining but one fortnight at Althorp with my family before I was again on wing. My sister, Lady Georgiana Quin--whose society had made to me one of the chief charms of the winter at Naples, and whose being at Naples with Lord George, her husband, and her children, had been the main inducement for my father and mother to make an undertaking, at their age, and with their habits, so extraordinary as this long journey--had left Naples during my tour in Sicily, and was settled at a country-house called the Château de Bethusy, near Lausanne. I proposed going to {89} see her, and to give her the full account of all that concerned the strange report about my brother Robert. I wonder at my having had my parents' consent to make another departure so soon, and with apparently so insufficient an object. I suppose they thought it reasonable to give me this liberty, by way of compensation for the sudden cutting-off of my first grand tour. This time I passed by Dieppe to Paris, thence by Lyons to Bethusy, where, having stayed a fortnight--the pleasantest, and, alas! almost the last days I had in my sister's company--I returned by Nancy to Paris, and thence through Calais to England. I reached Althorp on the 19th of November, 1820. And so the fancy for travelling soon died away, as my prospects for fresh journeys met with no encouragement at home; and here is an end of all my travellings for mere travelling's sake. When next I left England, it was, thank God, with thoughts and views far other than before."

An extract from the Journal of this time may not be without interest:--

"October 17, 1820.--With this day's journal ends the third year that I have kept it. This year has been the most interesting and varied I have ever passed, and probably ever shall, for my travelling will not last long. I certainly have reaped advantages in some respects, and great ones. I have had experience in the world, and have learnt to shift for myself better than I could have done by any other means. I have, I hope, increased the confidence of my family in me; and, above all, I have nearly expelled that melancholy disposition I gained at college; but most active I feel I must be to prevent its return when I again remain quiet in England. I have still a damper to my prospects that occasionally overwhelms me, but I must, I trust, get over that too; as I have now persuaded myself on sober reflection, though I am sadly slow in beginning to act on the principle, that one quality alone is within all our reach, and that one object alone is worth trying for. God grant this thought may often occur to me. I have this year enjoyed the pleasures and diversions most enlivening, and which I always most desired; but even they are insufficient to make {90} one happy alone, though nearer to it than any others. Let us then look to what certainly can."

This train of thought seemed to have occupied his mind between his leaving Paris, and returning to it again during the last visit to his sister. There is one paragraph in the Autobiography which refers to both; here it is, and it is the last morsel of that interesting document that remains unwritten in his life:--

"The most remarkable impression of religion which I remember in all this period, was in a place where it might have been least expected. No other than the Italian Opera at Paris. I passed through that city, as I have said before, in my last journey to Lausanne, and on my return a month later. Both times I went to see the opera of _Don Giovanni_, which was the piece then in course of representation. I conceived that after this journey I should give up all thoughts of worldly vices. I was likely to be fixed at home till the time of my ordination, and should assume something of the character of a candidate for holy orders. In short, I felt as if it was almost my last occasion, and I was entertaining, alas! some wicked devices in my mind when I went to this most dangerous and fascinating opera, which is in itself, by the subjects it represents, one of the most calculated to beguile a weak soul to its destruction. But the last scene of it represents Don Giovanni, the hero of the piece, seized in the midst of his licentious career by a troop of devils, and hurried down to hell. As I saw this scene, I was terrified at my own state. I knew that God, who knew what was within me, must look on me as one in the same class with such as Don Giovanni, and for once this holy fear of God's judgment saved me: and this holy warning I was to find in an opera-house at Paris."

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