an Irish bogtrotter,' &c. &c. Now I, who music — returned wrote a letter to the know Dr. Parr, and who know (not by expe- Lord Chamberlain to request him to prevent rience — for I never should have presumed the theatres from representing the Doge. so far as to contend with him — but by hear- which the Italian papers say that they are ing him with others, and of others) that it is going to act. This is pretty work — what! not so easy a matter to dress him,' thought without asking my consent, and even in opMr. Edgeworth an assertor of what was not position to it! true. He could not have stood before Parr

" January 21. 1821. an instant. For the rest, he seemed intelli

Fine, clear, frosty day — that is to say, gent, vehement, vivacious, and full of life.

an Italian frost, for their winters hardly He bids fair for a hundred years. 1 “ He was not much admired in London, knows how to skate (or skait)

get beyond snow ; for which reason nobody

- a Dutch and I remember a ‘ryghte merrie’ and con- and English accomplishment. Rode out, as ceited jest which was rife among the gallants usual, and fired pistols. Good shooting of the day, — viz. a paper had been presented broke four common, and rather small, bottles, for the recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage, in four shots, at fourteen paces, with a com(she having lately taken leave, to the loss of mon pair of pistols and indifferent powder. ages,

for nothing ever was, or can be, like Almost as good wafering or shooting — conher,) to which all men had been called to sidering the difference of powder and pistol, subscribe. Whereupon Thomas Moore, of

-as when, in 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812, 1813, profane and poetical memory, did propose 1814, it was my luck to split walking-sticks, that a similar paper should be subscribed wafers, half-crowns, shillings, and even the and circumscribed for the recall of Mr. eye of a walking-stick, at twelve paces, with Edgeworth to Ireland.'.

a single bullet — and all by eye and calcula« The fact was — every body cared more tion; for my hand is not steady, and apt to about her. She was a nice little unassuming change with the very weather. To the ‘Jeanie Deans-looking body,' as we Scotch prowess which I here note, Joe Manton and say - and, if not handsome, certainly not others can bear testimony ; for the former ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet taught, and the latter has seen me do, these as herself. One would never have guessed feats. she could write her name ; whereas her father “ Dined - visited - came home — read, talked, not as if he could write nothing else, Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's Corbut as if nothing else was worth writing.

respondence, which says that • Regnard et “As for Mrs. Edgeworth, I forget ex. la plûpart des poëtes comiques étaient gens cept that I think she was the youngest of bilieux et mélancoliques ; et que M.de Vol. the party. Altogether, they were an excel- taire, qui est très gai, n'a jamais fait que des lent cage of the kind ; and succeeded for tragedies — et que la comédie gaie est le seul two months, till the landing of Madame de genre où il n'ait point réussi. C'est que Stael. “ To turn from them to their works, I hommes fort différens.'

celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux

Vol. VI. admire them ; but they excite no feeling, “At this moment I feel as bilious as the and they leave no love — except for some best comic writer of them all, (even as Reg. Irish steward or postillion. However, the nard himself, the next to Molière, who has impression of intellect and prudence is pro- written some of the best comedies in any found – and may be useful. 3

language, and who is supposed to have com

mitted suicide 4,) and am not in spirits to “ January 21, 1821.

continue my proposed tragedy of Sardanapa“ Rode-fired pistols. Read from Grimm's lus, which I have, for some days, ceased to Correspondence. Dined — went out-heard

66

1821. Here lies

of the Past,

“ To-morrow is my birth-day that is to at eight — made the usual visit. Heard of say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight, i. e. in nothing but war, -the cry is still, They twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty come.' The Carbonari seem to have no plan and three years of age !!!- and I go to my nothing fixed among themselves, how, bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived when, or what to do. In that case, they will so long, and to so little purpose.

make nothing of this project, so often post“ It is three minutes past twelve. — "'Tis poned, and never put in action. the middle of the night by the castle clock,' “ Came home, and gave some necessary and I am now thirty-three !

orders, in case of circumstances requiring “ Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,

a change of place. I shall act according to Labuntur anni ;

what may seem proper, when I hear decibut I don't regret them so much for what I dedly what the Barbarians mean to do. At have done, as for what I might have done. present, they are building a bridge of boats “ Through life's road, so dim and dirty,

over the Po, which looks very warlike. A I have dragged to three-and-thirty.

few days will probably show. I think of reWhat have these years left to me?

tiring towards Ancona, nearer the northern Nothing except thirty-three.

frontier ; that is to say, if Teresa and her • January 22. 1821. father are obliged to retire, which is most

likely, as all the family are Liberals. If not, I shall stay. But my movements will depend upon the lady's wishes

- for myself, it is much the same. interred in the Eternity

“ I am somewhat puzzled what to do with

my little daughter, and my effects, which are from whence there is no

of some quantity and value, - and neither of Resurrection

them do in the seat of war, where I think of for the Days - Whatever there may be for the Dust

going. But there is an elderly lady who the Thirty-Third Year

will take charge of her, and T. says that the of an ill-spent Life,

Marchese C. will undertake to hold the chatWhich, after

tels in safe keeping. Half the city are geta lingering disease of many months,

ting their affairs in marching trim. A pretty sunk into a lethargy,

Carnival ! The blackguards might as well and expired, January 22d, 1821, A. D.

have waited till Lent. Leaving a successor

January 24. 1821. Inconsolable

“Returned — met some masques in the for the very loss which occasioned its

Corso — Vive la bagatelle !' – the GerExistence.

mans are on the Po, the Barbarians at the gate, and their masters in council at Leybach (or whatever the eructation of the sound may syllable into a human pronunciation), and lo! they dance and sing and make merry,

‘for to-morrow they may die.. Who can say CHAPTER XLII.

that the Arlequins are not right ? Like the Lady Baussiere, and my old friend Burton

- I rode on.' 1821.

“ Dined —(damn this pen!)— beef tough RAVENNA. - DIARY CONTINUED.

- there is no beef in Italy worth a curse ; TIONS OF THE CARBONARI.-LORD SYDNEY

unless a man could eat an old ox with the CHARITY.

hide on, singed in the sun. CAIN. - FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

“ The principal persons in the events RIUS, — WHAT IS POETRY ? — PAST AND which may occur in a few days are gone out

on a shouting party. If it were like a high- FREDERICK SCHLEGEL, GENTLENESS

land hunting,' a pretext of the chase for a

grand re-union of counsellors and chiefs, it LAZINESS. -GRIMM'S CORRESPONDENCE.

would be all very well. But it is nothing - ST. LAMBERT AND THOMSON.

more or less than a real snivelling, popping,

small-shot, water-hen waste of powder, amGray's ELEGY. - INDIGESTIOX. - HOPE,

munition, and shot, for their own special

“ January 23. 1821. amusement : a rare set of fellows for a man “ Fine day. Read rode fired pistols, to risk his neck with,' as 'Marishall Wells' and returned. Dined — read. Went out says in the Black Dwarf.

- OPERA

OSBORNE.

SOCRATES,

TIBE

FUTURE. HOPE AND

FEAR.

DEATH.

OF DANTE. VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

-LOW
POPE.

SPIRITS.

BOWLES

VERSUS

6

* If they gather, —'whilk is to be doubt- lightened us more upon this important point; ed,' — they will not muster a thousand men. for, according to the Christian dispensation, The reason of this is, that the populace are no one can know whether he is sure of salnot interested, - only the higher and middle vation - even the most righteous — since a orders. I wish that the peasantry were ; single slip of faith may throw him on his they are a fine savage race of two-legged back, like a skaiter, while gliding smoothly leopards. But the Bolognese won't -- the to his paradise. Now, therefore, whatever Romagnuoles can't without them. Or, if the certainty of faith in the facts may be, they try what then? They will try, and the certainty of the individual as to his hap man can do no more — and, if he would but piness or misery is no greater than it was try his utmost, much might be done. The under Jupiter. Dutch, for instance, against the Spaniards - “ It has been said that the immortality of then the tyrants of Europe, since, the slaves, the soul is a 'grand peut-être'— but still it and, lately, the freedmen.

is a grand one. Every body clings to it“ The year 1820 was not a fortunate one the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of for the individual me, whatever it may be for human bipeds is still persuaded that he is the nations. I lost a lawsuit, after two de- immortal. cisions in my favour. The project of lending money on an Irish mortgage was finally re

January 26. 181. jected by my wife's trustee after a year's "Fine day—a few mares' tails portending hope and trouble. The Rochdale lawsuit change, but the sky clear, upon the whole. had endured fifteen years, and always pros- Rode-fired pistols-good shooting. Coming pered till I married ; since which, every thing back, met an old man. Charity - purchased has gone wrong — with me at least.

a shilling's worth of salvation. If that was “ In the same year, 1820, the Countess to be bought, I have given more to my felT. G. nata G'. G'. in despite of all I said low-creatures in this life- sometimes for and did to prevent it, would separate from vice, but, if not more often, at least more conher husband, Il Cavalier Commendatore Gi. siderably, for virtue — than I now possess. I &c. &c. &c. and all on the account of .P.P. never in my life gave a mistress so much as clerk of this parish.' The other little petty I have sometimes given a poor man in honest vexations of the year — overturns in car- distress ; but no matter. The scoundrels riages — the murder of people before one's who have all along persecuted me (with the door, and dying in one's beds--the cramp help of * * who has crowned their efforts) in swimming — colics — indigestions and bi- will triumph ; — and, when justice is done lious attacks, &c. &c. &c.

to me, it will be when this hand that writes “ Many small articles make up a sum,

is as cold as the hearts which have stung me. And hey ho for Caleb Quotem, oh!"

Returning, on the bridge near the mill, met an old woman. I asked her age — she

said • Tre croci? I asked my groom (though January 25. 1821.

myself a decent Italian) what the devil ker “ Received a letter from Lord S.O.", state three crosses meant. He said, ninety years, secretary of the Seven Islands — a fine fel and that she had five years more to boot !! low - clever — dished in England five years repeated the same three times — not to ago, and came abroad to retrench and to mistake - ninety-five years !!!- and she

He wrote from Ancona, in his way was yet rather active — heard my question, back to Corfu, on some matters of our own. for she answered it — saw me, for she adHe is son of the late Duke of L. by a se- vanced towards me; and did not appear at cond marriage. He wants me to go to Corfu. all decrepit, though certainly touched with Why not?— perhaps I may, next spring: years. Told her to come to-morrow, and

“ Answered Murray's letter read will examine her myself. I love phenomena. lounged. Scrawled this additional page of If she is ninety-five years old, she must relife's log-book. One day more is over of it collect the Cardinal Alberoni, who was legate and of me:- but which is best, life or here. death, the gods only know,' as Socrates said “On dismounting, found Lieutenant E. to his judges, on the breaking up of the tri- just arrived from Faenza. Invited him to bunal.o Two thousand years since that dine with me to-morrow. Did not invite sage's declaration of ignorance have not en- him for to-day, because there was a small

renew.

2

[Lord Sidney-Godolphin Osborne, son of FrancisGodolphin, fifth Duke of Leeds, by Catherine, daughter of Thomas Anguish, Esq.]

? [“ It is time that I retire to death, and you to your affairs of life: which of us has the better is known to the gods, but to no mortal man." - Cicero: Tusc. Questa

turbot, (Friday, fast regularly and religiously,) which I wanted to eat all myself. Ate it.

“ Memoranda. “ Went out — found T. as usual — music.

“ What is Poetry? The feeling of a The gentlemen, who make revolutions and Former world and future. are gone on a shooting, are not yet returned. They don't return till Sunday — that is to

Thought Second. say, they have been out for five days, buffooning, while the interests of a whole country Why, at the very height of desire and are at stake, and even they themselves com- human pleasure, — worldly, social, amorous, promised.

ambitious, or even avaricious, — does there “ It is a difficult part to play amongst such mingle a certain sense of doubt and sorrow a set of assassins and blockheads — but, when - a fear of what is to come — a doubt of

the scum is skimmed off, or has boiled over, what is — a retrospect to the past, leading good may come of it. If this country could to a prognostication of the future? (The but be freed, what would be too great for best of Prophets of the future is the Past.) the accomplishment of that desire > for the Why is this, or these — I know not, exextinction of that Sigh of Ages ? Let us cept that on a pinnacle we are most sushope. They have hoped these thousand years. ceptible of giddiness, and that we never fear The very revolvement of the chances may falling except from a precipice — the higher, bring it — it is upon the dice.

the more awful, and the more sublime ; and, “ If the Neapolitans have but a single therefore, I am not sure that Fear is not a Massaniello amongst them, they will beat the pleasurable sensation ; at least, Hopre is; and bloody butchers of the crown and sabre. what Hope is there without a deep leaven of Holland, in worse circumstances, beat the Fear ? and what sensation is so delightful Spains and Philips ; America beat the En- as Hope? and, if it were not for Hope, glish ; Greece beat Xerxes ; and France beat where would the Future be? - in hell. 'It Europe, till she took a tyrant ; South Ame- is useless to say where the Present is, for rica beats her old vultures out of their nest; most of us know ; and as for the Past, what and, if these men are but firm in themselves, predominates in memory ? — Hope baffled. there is nothing to shake them from without. Ergo, in all human affairs, it is Hope

Hope — Hope. I allow sixteen minutes,
January 28. 1821. though I never counted them, to any given

or supposed possession. From whatever
* Lugano Gazette did not come. Letters
from Venice. It appears that the Austrian must end. And yet, what good is there in

place we commence, we know where it all
brutes have seized my three or four pounds knowing it? It does not make men better
of English powder. The scoundrels!—I
hope to pay them in ball for that powder. the greatest plagues, (Athens and Florence,

or wiser. During the greatest horrors of Rode out till twilight. “ Pondered the subjects of four tragedies velli,) men were more cruel and profligate

for example – see Thucydides and Machiato be written (life and circumstances per than ever. It is all a mystery. I feel most mitting), to wit, Sardanapalus, already begun; things, but I know nothing, except Cain, a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred, but in five acts, perhaps, with the chorus ; Francesca of Rimini, in five acts; and I am not sure that I would not try Tiberius. . I think that I could extract å something, of my tragic, at least, out

“ Thought for a Speech of Lucifer, in the of the gloomy sequestration and old age of

Tragedy of Cain :the tyrant -- and even out of his sojourn at

“ Were Death an evil, would I let thee live? Caprea — by softening the details, and ex

Fool ! live as I live - as thy father lives,
hibiting the despair which must have led to

And thy son's sons shall live for evermore.
those very vicious pleasures. For none but
a powerful and gloomy mind overthrown

“ Past Midnight. One o' the clock.
would have had recourse to such solitary
horrors, — being also, at the same time, old,

“ I have been reading Frederick Schlegel 2
and the master of the world.

(brother to the other of the name) till now,
and I can make out nothing. He evidently

2

a

- a

-ça ira !

shows a great power of words, but there is Alberoni 2 (legate here), but will ask her nothing to be taken hold of. He is like next time. Gave her a louis--ordered her Hazlitt, in English, who talks pimples a new suit of clothes, and put her upon a red and white corruption rising up (in little weekly pension. Till now, she had worked imitation of mountains upon maps), but con- at gathering wood and pine-nuts in the forest

, taining nothing, and discharging nothing, ex- - pretty work at ninety-five years old! She cept their own humours.

had a dozen children, of whom some are I dislike him the worse, (that is, Schle- alive. Her name is Maria Montanari. gel) because he always seems upon the verge “ Met a company of the sect (a kind of of meaning; and, lo, he goes down like sun- Liberal Club) called the “ Americani’ in the set, or melts like a rainbow, leaving a rather forest, all armed, and singing, with all their rich confusion, to which, however, the might, in Romagnuole-Sem tutti soldat above comparisons do too much honour. per la liberta' (* we are all soldiers for li

Continuing to read Mr. Frederick Schle- berty'). They cheered me as I passed – I gel. He is not such a fool as I took him returned their salute, and rode on. This may for, that is to say, when he speaks of the show the spirit of Italy at present. North. But still he speaks of things all over My to-day's journal consists of what I the world with a kind of authority that a omitted yesterday. To-day was much as philosopher would disdain, and a man of usual. Have rather a better opinion of the common sense, feeling, and knowledge of his writings of the Schlegels than I had fourown ignorance, would be ashamed of. The and-twenty hours ago ; and will amend it man is evidently wanting to make an im- still further, if possible. pression, like his brother, - or like George “They say that the Piedmontese have at in the Vicar of Wakefield, who found out length arisen that all the good things had been said already Read Schlegel. Of Dante he says, ' that on the right side, and therefore 'dressed up at no time has the greatest and most nasome paradoxes’ upon the wrong side-inge- tional of all Italian poets ever been much nious, but false, as he hiinself says— to which the favourite of his countrymen.' 'Tis false! “the learned world said nothing, nothing at

There have been more editors and comnienall, sir.'' The learned world, however, has tators (and imitators, ultimately) of Dante said something to the brothers Schlegel. than of all their poets put together. Not a

“It is high time to think of something favourite! Why, they talk Dante — unite : else. What they say of the antiquities of Dante — and think and dream Dante at this the North is best.

moment (1821) to an excess, which would

be ridiculous, but that he deserves it.

January 29. 1921. Yesterday, the woman of ninety-five gondolas on the Arno- a precious fellow to years of age was with me. She said her dare to speak of Italy! eldest son (if now alive) would have been

He says also that Dante's chief defect is seventy. She is thin — short, but active

a want, in a word, of gentle feelings. Of hears, and sees, and talks incessantly. Se- gentle feelings ! — and Francesca of Rimini veral teeth left — all in the lower jaw, and - and the father's feelings in Ugolino — and single front teeth. She is very deeply wrinkled, Beatrice — and ‘La Pia!' Why, there is and has a sort of scattered grey beard over gentleness in Dante beyond all gentleness

, her chin, at least as long as my mustachios. when he is tender. It is true that, treating Her head, in fact, resembles the drawing in of the Christian Hades, or Hell, there is not crayons of Pope the poet's mother, which is much scope or site for gentleness — but who in some editions of his works.

but Dante could have introduced any 'gentleI forgot to ask her if she remembered ness' at all into Hel? Is there any in Mil

.of

66

1