AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A. B. GRANYILLE, M.D., F.E.S. mrr AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A. B. GRANVILLE, M.B., r.E.S.,— BEING EIGHTY-EIGHT YEARS OF THE LIFE OF A PHYSICIAN WHO PRACTISED HIS PROFESSION IN ITALY, GREECE, TURKEY, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, THE WEST INDIES, RUSSIA, GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND. EDITED,' WITH A BBIEI’ ACCOUNT OF THE LAST YEARS OF HIS LIFE, BY HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER, PAULINA B. GRANVILLE. VOL. I. SECOND EDITION. HpNEY S. King & Co., 65 CoENHiLL, & 12 Paternoster Ro'w, London. 1874. Or \ [All Rights Reserved. \ TO THE REV. AUGUSTUS KERR, WALTER LONG, ARTHUR ALLEYNE, AND TO THEIR YOUNGEST SISTER, BAULINA, MY BELOVED SURVIVING CHILDREN, I liTStrib THE PRESENT RECORDS OF MY LABORIOUS. CAREER IN LIFE. "J O 05 O CNl a. UJ 377677 CONTENTS. — • CHAPTER I PAGE Birth — Reflections on an infant — -Parentage — The Bozzi family— Chevalier Rapazzini — Bevil Granville 1 CHAPTER II. 1783—99. Infancy — Remarks on wet-nursing — Go to school at the age of six — An ' educational question — Mathematics a check to imagination — Enter the Collegio di Merate — Fondness for classic authors and Latin poetry — Obtain a certificate with a qualification — Invasion of Lom- bardy by the French, and entry of Bonaparte into Milan — A republi- can ringleader — Return Lome — A tendency for the Church — Le Sj^steme de la Nature ’’—Desultory occupations — Try Architecture, Music, aiid Painting . . . , . . . . . 9 CHAPTER III. 1799—1801. What is he to be ? — Enter the University of Pavia — Ugo Foscolo — Zeal for republicanism — Monti — An amateur actor — Italy’s invaders — Arrested and imprisoned in S. Antonio — Professor Rasori and others my companions— Transferred to a convent — Manzoni — Spallanzani : his discoveries — Antonio Scarpa — Professor Rasori and the Brunoniaii doctrine — Volta : his discovery of voltaic electricity ... 25 CHAPTER IV. 1802. A diploma — Reception at home— The conscription — Monti and Lattanzi — Produce a poem in terza rima — Study practical surgery in L’Osjiital Maggiore — Determine to escape the conscription — -Bid a last farewell to my mother— Reach Genoa — Music an impediment to a professional man — Join a party of comedians as amoroso— Journej^ to Venice — Visit Ferrara — A declamation from Dante — Arrive at Venice — Disappoint the impresario — Singular rencontre — End of a real play . 48 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. 1802—3. PAGE Venice — Farewell to Italy — The Quarnero — Le Bocche cli Cattaro — Meleda^ the place of St. Paul’s shipwreck — Arrive at Cephalonia — • The Ionian Islands in 1803 and 1870 — Sir Charles Napier’s opinions — Beach Corfu — Society there — Meeting with Mr. Hamilton — Become physician to the English Embassy — First step towards England ............ 67" CHAPTER VI. 1803. Preparations to leave Corfu — Temporary loss of the Elgin Marbles — Departure for the Greek continent — Arrive at Parga — The Acheron — Reach Prevesa — Arta — Enter Janina — The floating islands — Old Charon— Interviews with Ali Pasha — Professional attendances — A lucrative appointment declined — Origin and career of Ali — His character . . . . . . . . . . . .83' CHAPTER VII. 1803. Dodona — Leave Janina — Met^ovo — The Pindus — Meteora — Singular incident— Ascent to the Monastery of the Meteora — Trikkala — H^sculapius forgotten at his birthplace — Pharsalus — Larissa — A tumble — Ambelakia — The Turkey-red dye — Mount Ossa — Heights of Olympus — Lagora — Jason and the Golden Fleece — Volo — Arrival at Athens 100 CHAPTER VIII. 1803. A Lombard in Athens — Signor Lusieri — The Acropolis — State of the sculptures— Vandals and spoliators — Theban fever — Departure of Mr. Hamilton — Temple of Jupiter Olympus — Temple of Theseus — Early morning on the Acro]3olis— The Parthenon — The Erechtheum — A missing Caryatid —Sanitary condition of Athens — Domestic life of ancient Greece . . . . ' . . . ..118 CHAPTER IX. 1803—5. \ Departure from Athens — First view of Stamboul — Arrival at the English embassy — Seized with the Plague — The cpiestion of contagion — Eusebio Valli and inoculation — Constantinople Past and Present- Domestic physician to a Greek family — The Hospodars— Children of niy host ............ 135 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER X. 1804. PAGE Terapia — Dr. Toselli — Study the Turkish language — Alarming illness of one of the family^ — Omens — Fasts of the Greek Church — Appointed second physician to the Turkish fleet — A Milanese in Oriental attire 148 CHAPTER XI. 1804. Join the Vice- Admiral’s flag-ship — The Peacock — Proceed to collect the annual tribute — La Justice— Yhii Tenedos, Lesbos, and Chios — Adarnantius Korai — Samos : beauty of its women— -A Princess of Samos— Ferocity of the Grand Admiral — Arrive at St. Jean d’Acre — Djezzar Pasha— Visit Mount Carmel .159 CHAPTER XII, 1804. Obtain leave to visit the Holy Land — Anecdote of Consul Damiani — Arrive at J erusalem — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — The Mount of Olives — Bethleliem, and the Church of the Nativity — Arrive at Jericho — The Jordan— Return to the fleet — Regulations on hoard a Turkish man-of-war 177 CHAPTER XIII. 1804. Surrender of Acre, and death of Djezzar Pasha — Resign my appointment — Transferred to the Active — Arrive at Cyprus — Catarina Cornaro — Alexandria — Baron Larrey the first to employ horseflesh as human food — Reach Rhodes, and quit the Turkish service — Description of Rhodes — Visit Cos on the way to Smyrna . . , . .190 CHAPTER XIV. 1804—5. Arrival at Smyrna — The Turkish costume— Become supercargo of a Venetian polacca — Leave Smyrna for Messina — Take refuge in Port Tero — Enter the port of Messina— Effects of an earthquake — Steer for Malaga — Chasedby an Algerine corsair — Arrive at Malaga — Herr Carl Miiller — Spanish tertulias — Sor, the guitarist — The guitar as a serenading instrument— Yellow fever Ineaks out in Malaga — Mea- sures adopted — The Cathedral of Malaga ...... 203 X CONTIiNTS. CHAPTER XV. 1803. PAGE Climate of Malaga — Travelling in Spain — Granada : its Alliambra — Visit Cordova — The Mezqnita Tower — Count Florida Blanca — Seville as a capital — The Alcazar — Visit Gibraltar — Trafalgar captures — ^^Pre- parations to leave Malaga — Journey to Madrid .... 218 CHAPTER XVI. 1806. Madrid — Don Miguel Godoi — The medical profession in Madrid — State of society — Poverty of the public buildings — The Spanish language — The Countess of Villaviciosa — El Hospital General — Lawlessness of the poj^ulace —Attacked by robbers — Visit the Plaza de Toros — Public and private picture galleries — The Correggios in the National Gallery — Bonellhs impositions — Sad news from home— Adopt the surname of my maternal ancestors — Joseph Bonaparte — A million" aire 1 — Leave Madrid for Lisbon — Appointed to the Beal Garlotta — Introduction to Captain McKinlay — Resign my Portuguese appoint- ment ... 234 CHAPTER XVII. 1807—9. Appointed to H.M.S. Capture a prize— Arrive at Portsmouth — Medical examinations — Join the Millbrooh—rA foray in a sheep-fold — Wrecked ojff the Berlengas — A court-martial — Return to Ports- mouth in La Venus — Appointed to the Cordelia — Attacked l3y rheu- matism — The English liturgy — Appointed to the Doi^er — Study of the English language — Confession of faith ..... 257 CHAPTER XVIII. . 1809—11. Marriage — Become a Freemason — Appointed to the Arachne — Attacked by yellow fever in the West Indies— Topical treatment — San Domingo — Barbadoes — Suffer from acute rheumatism — Join the Gloire — Bolivar y Ponte — Bearer of despatches to the Colonial Office — Again meet Mr. Hamilton — John Dalton — First literary efforts in England 27 CHAPTER XIX. ' 1812. Appointed to the Maidstone~A bewildered captain — Edward Parry — Arrive at Quiberon Bay- — Escape of the French squadron — Bombard- ment of Cadiz — Gibraltar — Port Mahon — The Duchess of Orleans — Transferred to the Swiftsure — Monotony of a blockading life — The cat-o^-nine tails — Edmund Lyons — Palermo — Louis Philippe . . 293 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XX. 1812. PAGE Departure from Port Mahon-— Tlie voyage home — Arrive at Plymouth — Prospects of a seafaring life — Obtain leave to go to Liverpool — Move to Manchester with my wife and infant daughter — A member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society— John Dalton and his theory — Arrange to enter a new phase in my career — Tlie Rev. Legh Richmond— A clap of thunder , . \ . , .312 CHAPTER XXL 1813—14. Installed in London — -Instruct Mr. Hamilton’s children in Latin, mathe- matics, and chemistry — A pupil at Westminster Hospital — Mr. Car- lisle : his eccentricities — Sir Joseph Banks’s Sunday evenings — Colonel Leake and Mr. Salt — Blanco White and John Morier — Aspasia’slyre — The duties of an Under- Secretary of State— Letters of Vetus — A fete atWauxhall— The Lancastrian system of education — Birth of a son — The Italico ” — Enrolled a member of the Royal College of Surgeons — Admitted a member of the Royal Institution — ^The Society of Arts — Honorary physician to the Italian Opera House .323 CHAPTER XXII. 1814. Domiciled at Brompton — Mr. Hamilton’s book of reference for the F oreign Office — Arrival of Madame de Stael in London — The fair on the Thames — Fire at the Custom House— Great stock-jobbing fraud — Fall of Napoleon I.— An offer to go to Paris and Milan — Reach Paris with Mr. Hamilton — Charles de Lafolie — Mr. J. Ritchie — Start for Milan with despatches — Reception by my father — Marshal Bellegarde — Discussions with Sir Robert Wilson — The public mind in Italy — Carlo Botta— Revisit Pavia — Tour through the chief Italian cities , . . . ' . . . . , . . , 343 CHAPTER XXIII. 1814. Arrival at Bologna — Cornelia Mar tinetti— Cardinal Mezzo fanti — His method of acquiring languages — Medical Science in Bologna Na]3oleon and the Institute— La Signora Tambroni — Her lecture on Homer — Public buildings in Bologna— r Italians fail to imitate the English constitutional system— Barbarian discipline— Leave Bologna for Florence — Threatened with brigands— The first to recommend a prince of the house of Savoy as king of united Italy — Danger of restoring old sovereigns . , . 3 gq xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIV. 1814. PAGE Florence- — Signor Ferroni — N iccolini — Mascagni — Raph ael Morglien — Benveniiti — State of Italy — Sympathy, in England — Proceed to Lucca — Letter to Mr. Hamilton — Bonaparte’s flight predicted . . 380 CHAPTER XXV. 1814. Leghorn — ^^Mr. Consul Grant — Visit the Lazaretto — The Countess d’ Albany — Signor Papi — Proceed to Pisa — Professor Vacca — Pro- fessor Ciampi — Carlo Botta — Vicissitudes of an Italian historian . 399 CHAPTER XXVI. 1814. Quit Florence for Bologna — Presentiments of coming evil. — An awkward horseman — A challenge — Arrested in the Opera House — An Austrian proces-verhcU - — Shuffling of the officials — General Montresor obtains my release — Reach Modena — Farewell to Milan — Grassi . . , 412 CHAPTER XXVII. ' 1814. Arrive at Geneva — Visit, Sir Humphry Davy — Madame de Stael — Lady Charlotte Campbell — Mr. Faraday — Invitation to Coppet — Meet Sismondi and Pictet— What is a gentleman? — Letters of Dr. John Davy . , . . . 433 Appendix . 448 ERRATA TO VOL. I. Page 6, line 28. For Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, read Francis. ,', 21, footnote. Le Code de I’Athlisme is erroneously attributed to J. B. Mirabeau, it having been wrkten by Baron d’Holbach. AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. A. B. GEANVILLE. CHAPTER I. th — Beflections on an infant — Parentage — The Bozzi family— Chevalier Bapazzini — Bevil Granville. 3k the seventh day of October, 1783, at early morn, at an, Maria Antonietta Rapazzini added a third son to progeny of Carlo Bozzi, her husband, which in process time extended to the number of nine children, of all of lom I remain the solitary survivor. There were festivals and rejoicings on the occasion at the palace of the Postmaster-general of the Austro-Lombard provinces in Milan, which building the father of the new- born infant occupied in virtue of his office as chief in that depa^rtment, and the young stranger, in accordance with he bustom and religious rites of the country, was at once placed under patrocinium of St. Augustine, with the nan: e of Augustus^ at the baptismal font. M hen a son is born to a father occupying some conspi- cuous station, a host of reflections present themselves to jhe anxious and sanguine parents, relations, and even to ordinary friends of the family, as to his future destiny. What is he likely to be ? Will he exercise any influence over his fellow-men, and carve out for himself a career of usefulness creditable to his kindred % Or is he fated to VOL. I. B AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. follow the humdrum course of his nearest ancestors, and die as most die who were fruges consumere nati/^ and nothing more Such, or pretty nearly, are the conjectures that arise on similar occasions. But no one ever thinks of asking those other questions — Is this tiny creature — this speck of humanity, now at this moment added to the millions of beings already in existence — destined to exercise any in- fluence, and of what kind, on the fate of other hum^m creatures born at the same instant in his own or in ai y other country ? Will this little stranger exercise an influence on some one or other of the people who occupy more or less distinguished position in the world, wi whom he is likely to come in contact at a future tiir Such reflections occur to me now, having before i besides the recollection of the date of the year and da} my birth, a seemingly inexhaustible mass of written mei ran da and reminiscences culled in various parts of i world, and which I, the obscure entity just emerged in existence in one of the streets of Milan, was destined to I connected with or implicated in. General and public events of importance were not wanting to mark the year of my birth so as to impress it strongly on my memory in after years — none greater or more pregnant with significant results than the declaratioi of independence by the United States of America. I find many such reminiscences ; for example, the suppression of the Academia della Crusca at Florence, the opening of the Campo Santo at Pisa, and the Peace of Versailles, all occurrences of 1783. And was not that terrible convulsion of Nature, which shook the Italian peninsula, destroyed Messina, and (not far from Milan) swallowed up in ai instant the city of Casal Nuovo, with its 5000 .inhabitants and their Princess Grimaldi, likely ever after to bring to PARENTAGE. 3 my mind the date of the year in which it was (as the l^reacher in Holy Writ says) my time to be born ” ? If from a natural feeling, considering my present position in this country, I experience an inward pride at my con- nection with English blood on my mothers side, the more intimate relation with my father's line of descent is no less a source of self-gratulation, and has influenced materially my career on many occasions. Carlo Bozzi, my father, filled during a period of sixty years, under the Austrian Archdukes and the subsequent republican government, the place of Postmaster-general — a post analogous to that held by Sir Francis Freeling and by Sir Eowland Hill In this country. In virtue of his office, he, with his family, occupied the half of the large edifice called the Post Office, at the back; of the archducal palace ; the other half forming the residence of the Director-general. To the latter post, during the subsequent aiid short reign of the Vice-King placed by Napoleon over Italy, my father might have readily succeeded, from his popularity and seniority, had he not, from innate modesty, which might be called shyness, declined the offered promotion on grounds that showed how indifferent he was to civil distinctions and how free from ambition. Having passed my youthful days under a rough republican regime, neither the pride of genealogy nor the means of making it available ever entered my head. I knew there A"as noble blood in our family, but I had never made any boast of the fact. The family of Bozzi is of great antiquity in Lombardy, and the name is peculiar to that part of Italy ,.being chiefly confined to the branches of a single tree, the founder of which was settled in the town of Aron a, sit uated on the smiling borders of the Lago Maggiore, well known for the colossal bronze statue of St. Charles Borromeo, the pious B 2 - 4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. and philanthropic Archbishop of Milan. Its Latin equiva- lent in those days was Bosius, or Botins.^ In Milan our own was the only family of that name in a population of 200,000 inhabitants. At Genoa, relatives had long been settled as merchants ; and there was also a, branch at Verona, where the Museo Bozzianof still exists — ^a re- markable collection of fossils from the Euganean Hills, presented to the town by one of my ancestors. In connection with the learned profession I adopted, I may mention that my father was the fifth direct lineal descendant of Bartolomeo Bozzi, or Bosius (as the name was written in the Lombard Latin of the 16th century),, well known in the history of Milan as a learned scholar,, poet, physician, and the friend of St. Charles Borromeo already mentioned, whom he constantly attended in hisi pious visits to the pest-hospital and the dwellings of the poor stricken with the terrible plague which, for more than six months, scourged the city of Milan in 1576. Bosius,, or Bozzi, had a brother (my great-great-uncle) who settled as a merchant at Genoa at the same epoch, scared away by the plague from his native city of Milan. One of his descendants passed over into Corsica with a government appointment at the time when the all-powerful Eepublic of Genoa held that island, and there he finally settled. Maz- zuchelli, among the writers on the family of Bozzi, cites a Paolo and a Carlo, Christian appellations, by-the-by„ which have been religiously preserved and adopted in * See Mazziichelliz Scrittori cF Italia/’ article Bozzi. My paternal coat-of- arms bears on an azure less two bulls gules regardant, denoting our unmistak- able descent from the aboriginal Italians ; for, according to Gellius, the word Italos signifying Bos, that animal became the symbol of Italy, and hence such families as carried that representation on their shield or escutcheon are descend- ants of the aboriginal Italians. t Ittiologia Veronese del Museo Bozziano, colla versione latina. Verona, Giulari, 1796, 2 vols. fob Del Conte Giovanni Bozzi. Reprinted in Verona in 1808 with many plates. PARENTAGE. 5 every subsequent generation. Bartliolomew was also a patronymic adopted in the family, such having been the name of Carlo Borromeo's friend and of the Bozzi who made Genoa and Corsica their country. My father was one of a family of four children — two sons and two daughters, whose mother belonged to the family of Negri, merchant bankers of that name still sub- sisting in Milan, who claim to be descended from the Negri of Florence. My mother, Maria Antonietta, was one of four daughters of the Chevalier Bapazzini, who filled an important post under government in the Secretary of State’s Department. He was superannuated at eighty-three years of age, and died in 1799, without ever having known a day of ill health or bodily suffering. Eapazzini in 1761 took for a second wife a very young English lady, born in Italy, whither her father, Bevil Granville, a Cornish gentleman implicated in some political troubles, had withdrawn, and where his wife, Eosa Granville, had presented him with a daughter. This daughter, also named Eosa, grew up and was educated in a convent," which she left at the age of fifteen to become the wife of Eapazzini and the mother of his daughter Maria Antonietta, who in due time married Carlo Bozzi, and was my mother. The Chevalier Eapazzini had been in the habit, to the last week of his life, of calling on foot at our house every day to inquire after the health of the family, and in order to avoid the stairs he always insisted on one or two of the children being exhibited to him on the balcony in the inner court. He was in the act of sipping his chocolate in bed one morning when he expired, eighteen months before reaching a century. He left a son, Antonio Eapazzini, who obtained the place his father had occupied under the government, and became Secretary of State for the Interior 6 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. in the time of the Cisalpine and Italian Eepublics during the French occupation, which post he held down to the day of his death, at the age of sixty. My mother had received an education of the most culti- vated kind, including a knowledge of Latin, Avhich enabled her to direct her three boys in their early grammatical exercises and themes. She had read much herself, and possessed the art of applying the varied information she had thus acquired. Two years before the Eevolution she had had the honour of being appointed Lettrice (Eeader) to the reigning Archduchess of Austria. My father’s brother settled in Genoa and engaged in ship- ping and banking operations, and there, at an advanced age^ he died a few years after my visit to him in 1802, leaving a considerable fortune, none of which, however, went to hisl nephews or nieces. Of my two aunts, one, whom I knew but little, was the widow of a general officer in the Austrian service ; the other, Teresa, had early in life retired into a. convent, where she lived to a good old age in the exercise of every pious and moral duty. She was permitted to visit her relations in the town, and was a fine portly dame, with much good sense, but little culture. Up to the period of his death, in 1826, my fcother had never had a day’s illness, and I cannot recollect a single- instance of his having kept his bed for a day, or having had. occasion for medical advice. The first symptoms of indis- position manifested themselves soon after the visit of Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, to Milan, on which occasion the Emperor desired my father to be presented to him, that he might reward him for sixty years of faithful service. The excitement of the occasion brought on that illness which proved fatal to him at the age of eighty-three. In his personal appearance, my father exhibited a perfect specimen of the ancien regime. He was above the middle PARENTAGE. 7 height, rather stout, and a good figure. He wore powder to the last, but not with the view of concealing any indication of old age, for not a single hair on his head had turned grey. He persevered — and I think he must have been unique in that respect — in wearing silk stockings with knee and shoe buckles throughout the bustling and stirring times of the revolutionary changes in Italy, when every one hastened to adopt either a republican or a military kind of attire, and Avhen the appearance of hair-powder and silk stockings exposed the wearer to the suspicion of Royalism, and consequently to danger. Even in the worst of weathers, whether on foot or in a carriage, he would not go out otherwise than in such a garb. The last time I saw him was in 1819, when he had attained his seventy- sixth year, on which occasion I presented him to the widow of the great Lord Ellenborough. There was not a wrinkle on his face, and his teeth were as intact and as white as when he was twenty years of age. He lived very abste- miously, took regular exercise, retired to bed early, and never ate suppers, although he dined always at two ohlock. Te rose early, and after dinner invariably indulged in half an hour's siesta. My eldest brother, born in 1780, died on the 29th of July, 1852, after having filled the post of Governor, or ■Delegato Imperiale, of the city and province of Como first, and next of Bergamo, for a long period of yeans, not only under the Austrian, but successively under the republican and French rule. He had been created Cavaliere cV Orobio- A fili and Knight of the Iron Crown by the Emperor Fer- dinand, while visiting his sub-alpine provinces and residing in the official palace of his Delegato in Bergamo. Born under the rule of Austria in Italy, and employed by the Austrian government, when the French invaded Lombardy in 1796, he followed the fortunes of Austria, 8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. emigrating to avoid the French military conscription. Continuing in the Austrian service under adverse not less than prosperous circumstances, this most excellent man was never abandoned by his superiors, but found at length a dignified repose in an elevated civil position. CHAPTER II. 1783—99. Infancy — Remarks on wet-nursing — Go to school at the age of six — An educa- tional question — Mathematics a check to imagination — Enter theCollegio di Merate — Fondness for classic authors and Latin poetry — Obtain a certificate with a qualification — Invasion of Lombardy by the French, and entry of Bonaparte into Milan — A republican ringleader — Return home — A tendency for the Church — “ Le Systeme de la Nature ” — Desultory occupations — Try Architecture, Music, and Painting. It is needless to mention all the marks of affection lavished on the little stranger after he had been recalled from the hands of an honest, handsome, and cheerful wet- nurse, who with her husband, a farming man, lived on the hills of Brianza, the so-called garden of Lombardy, a few miles distant from Milan. No healthier place or more Invigorating air could have been selected in which an infant fshould pass the first two years of his existence. Perhaps I 'Owe my innate taste for cheerful scenery to the hills «clad with vineyards, growing in well-cultivated prairies 'chequered with the tiny lakes' of Annone and Pusiano, and traversed by the rapid Adda, which daily met my infant fcyes. That taste I have never lost, and it has been a frequent source of gratification to me, whether contem- pilating a real or a well-painted landscape. The good nurse, who had lost her own child at its birth, ibecam.e so attached to her nursling, that throughout the .succeeding years of her life she would often make inquiries after him, and send long strings of “ castagne secche ” (dried chestnuts) for the grown-up bambino to munch. Years after, when I visited Milan for the first time since I left home. 10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the good creature hobbled down from her native hills into the big city/’ to see and most warmly embrace her foster child. How do I know that the excellent constitution I have enjoyed through a long life may not have been rendered so by the pure and healthy nourishment I imbibed in my early days, rather than that it was a chance gift due to my birth ? With the light of my long experience as a physi- cian, I cannot on general principles assent to the propriety of extending for a lengthened time the period of suckling an infant ; still less am I an advocate for a strange wet- nurse, except in extreme cases ; but it is better at all events to give an infant alien nutriment from a thoroughly healthy woman, than suffer it to imbibe diseased milk from a mother in bad health, who is herself injured by the process of suck- ling her offspring. On reflection I am disposed to believe', from many professional facts that have made a great im- pression on my mind, that in consigning to a vicarious mother a fragile babe inheriting tendencies to disease, not of the body physical only, but of the body intellectual also,, those tendencies have been neutralized, if not actually eradicated, by healthy wet-nursing. After this professional homily, this will perhaps be the- place to introduce some remarks that might have been more appropriately inserted in a preface. There is no book' whether on general or special subjects, however insignifi- cant, out of which a reader may not learn something he was ignorant of before. Likewise, in the written life of anj/ individual, however obscure, who has devoted himself to the public service, there will be found in the narrative of its> events, faithfully and unreservedly told, some facts, some; occurrences or adventures, useful and instructive to some, amusing (perhaps the contrary) to many others. In my own case especially, as a professional man, whatever opi- SCHOOL DAYS, 11 nions I may offer from time to time, some tangible advan- tage may be derived from them as lessons, cautions, or as advice deduced from a long experience, which must thus far be valuable. Of this truth many illustrative examples will be found scattered through these volumes. Further- more, when an autobiography has been made the butt of supercilious criticism, and condemned, we can still gather from its pages some moral lessons to guard us against vanity, ambition, errors of judgment, precipitate conclu- sions, and over-sanguine expectations. I am setting down these reminiscences of my earliest years when within a few months of completing the 88th year of my age. The track is long through which memory will have to shadow forth many events, chapters of acci- dent, and the ups and downs of life. A sound and healthy constitution does not necessarily imply intelligence, or the disposition to do as you are bidden. Temper may depend on health ; but the last does not always ensure a good temper. I perfectly well re- member, being sent at six years of age, as a very trouble- Ksome boy and much in the way, to learn reading, writing, Mild arithmetic at a small preparatory school in our neigh- bourhood. It was kept by an old lady, for whom, and her married daughter, who showed me great kindness, I enter- tanned a sincere regard to the end of their lives. , Ifc was not long before I was transferred to a more im- portant pedagogue named Castoldi, who styled himself Professor of Mathematics and Classical Learning,^' and who was desired to initiate me into the mysteries of commercial 3 natters, as my father intended I should become a merchant. At all events, here was a step in the education of an unruly boy. I think that my progress at this second academy was slow, and by no means promising. There were too many idle schoolfellows. The most vivid impression I retain is 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. that of reading out on one occasion^ by way of exercise, a circumstantial and detailed account of the death of Louis XVL, in the Milanese Gazette/^ extracted from the Gazzetta di Lugano/' then the most popular journal of the day for foreign news. I was much affected by that tale of blood, and shed tears, for which I got well laughed at. But the perusal of that single event was the turning-point to my frivolous young mind for more serious reading, and history, whether ancient or modern, became henceforth my favourite occupation during the hours of recreation. This habit of serious reading accompanied me through the academic institutions or colleges I was placed in afterwards, and had the effect of withdrawing me from the greater number of my companions, whom I beheld daily engaged in sports and games in the playground during their leisure hours. Livy and Tacitus became my favourite authors when I had reached my twelfth year, and the daily themes on Cornelius Nepos given to me by my master, led me to look for a richer biographical store of information in Plutarch,; which formed one of the principal books in the upper classes of the literae humaniores." My acquaintance with Latin, in which I had made steady progress, enabled me to enjoy these writers, whose difficulties of style I overcame by referring to the editions in Usum Delphini." Were it allowable to one who writes his own biography to make a leap from twelve years of age to the three^score years and ten," and by the aid of accumulated knowledge and experience to judge and determine which is the pre- ferable education for the first of the two mentioned periods I should condemn at once the mode of training very young people's minds which was adopted in my own case, a mode more or less pursued still among most continental nations. A writer at the commencement of the eighteenth century. LA CHAPELLE ON MATHEMATICS. 13 in an essay Sur T Esprit humain/^ declares that, En pedagogie, comme en niedecine, il fant s’en tenir a Texpe- rience ; et un vienx praticien vaut cent fois mieux qn’un innovateur specnlatif qni ne sait qne soutenir des theses et debiter des paradoxes.’^ This is all very well as a bit of eloquence, but the many improvements in public instruc- tion that have taken place since the date of the essay in question, show that progress has been made when old expe- rience has been disregarded. Mathematics,^^ said Abbe la Chapelle, when treating of the nature of that science, is a study that extinguishes imagination. To combine, therefore, the study of writers in classical learning, which is intended to give a full development to the imagination of young people, with mathematics, is an injudicious associa- tion in our system of the earliest education. The theory of numbers has a captivating attraction on some young minds. They feel so attached to it, that some of the ancient writers vhose language they are expected to learn (and when we say language, we mean sentiment and opinions) become utterly indifferent to them. Hence a slow or difficult progress in the very branch of knowledge which is to form the true foundation of a complete gentlemanly education. Besides, the time required for mastering this desirable object is necessarily so lengthened by its own inherent difficulties, that to charge the mind at the same period of life with an additional subject of learning which demands undivided attention, is to paralyze it between two pursuits, the complete success of either of which is thus rendered unattainable."” This is what I experienced when placed under the before- named Castoldi, a well-known teacher of Latin and mathe- matics. I became only a tolerable arithmetician and a sorry Latin scholar until, by good luck, an acquaintance of rny mother, the Padre Emenegildo Pini, Professor of Ex- 14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, perimeutal Philosophy in the Lyceum of S. Alessandro, recommended that I should be entered as a pupil in that establishment (an analogous one to our St. Pauhs school), directed by the Padri Barnabiti. This religious confra- ternity was universally held to be not inferior to the Jesuits as teachers, though they professed different psychologic and ethic principles. This high school, or Lyceum, situated in the centre of Milan, enjoyed great and merited reputation for learning and science. There I studied the Latin gram- mar, the literse humaniores, poetry, both Latin and Italian, and received the first rudiments of mechanical philosophy. I still remember some of the rudimentary experiments in that science, with which chemical knowledge was combined, and which our friend Padre Pini showed us in class. To that single fact I owe my after-life attachment to experi- mental science, which I was destined at a distant- period of my life to impart to others in a public medical school in London. At the age of fourteen my father removed me from this public school, and placed me in the same college in which my two elder brothers had been educated, and in which I remained eighteen months, visiting my family only during the few holidays, which were not of long duration. As the school of S. Alessandro was preparatory to the collegial te rule of Merate, the place to which I was now sent, so was the Collegio di Merate the introductory institution to the University of Pavia, which was to be my ultimate desti- nation. Merate, twenty miles from Milan, is an exceedingly pretty and healthy village among the undulations of the Cisalpine range of hills, in the same joyous district of Brianza in which I had been nursed. The Adda, a verv important river issuing from the lake of Lecco, only a few miles distant, was but a short walk from the college, and A QUALIFIED CERTIFICATE. 15 afforded an opportunity for boating as at Eton and Oxford, with this difference, that we had here a rapid and deep stream of real aqua ccerulea. At this college severer studies were pursued, and I acquired a still greater taste for historical reading : Tacitus, Livy, Polybius, besides Csesar and Plutarch, being my favourite authors. I did not neglect Mathematics, in which, however, I made but slow progress, finding them to interfere with my other more congenial studies. On the contrary, I took warmly to Latin poetry ; Virgil, Horace, and Ovid being ever in my hands. I also made steady advances in Latin versification, a pursuit in which I was much encouraged by the Professor of Belles Lettres. At the distribution of prizes at the termination of the first term of my collegiate education, I received il primo premio di Poesia;^^ but the announcement of the prize was accompanied by a qualifying opinion of my personal character from the Eector, which greatly damped the satis- faction of my parents. I was reported to be of a restless disposition, of an aspiring spirit, always dissatisfied with the present, and aiming at bringing about changes in the plan and management of the institution to which I belonged. Nor had I been calumniated in that respect. The circum- stances which induced this restlessness of disposition were more than sufficient to produce it in a vigorous youth full of life and. health, not ill looking, and otherwise socially acccmplished, who had constituted himself the centre of a circle of young collegians whose parents were almost all acquainted one with the other, forming a class apart and Fclect in the society of the capital. The V er y nature of my classical readings — the story of "/i]:ginmSj of Cains Licinius, and far more modern annals, that of Nicolo Rienzi the Roman tribune, whose life, written in Latin, we read in secret ; all this, coupled with the 16 AXJTOBIOGHIAPHY OF DE. GRANVILLE. surreptitious perusal of political newspapers, in which we found the stirring proclamations of the 'new republican government, tended to make , me desire to become a caporione, a ringleader in fact. The French had invaded Italy, and had been for about two years masters of Milan, which city Bonaparte had con- stituted the capital of the Cisalpine Republic. The impres- sion left on my mind on the 15th of May, 1796, of the first sightofthe “little man” who commanded the troops that had just crossed the Alps to drive the Imperial Eagles of Austria from the fair face of Lombardy, is as vivid at this day as in that on which I first received it. An under-sized man, with a lank, sallow face, rather compressed than meagre, or, as he himself used to say, “ J’etais un vrai parchemin ” ; with sparkling eyes, overshadowed by straight black hair, which, descending over a large forehead, came down the sides of the head and touched the shoulders. A grey overcoat covering a double-breasted uniform edged with gold embroidery, and buttoned ^up to the chin ; a black neck- cloth, a tri-coloured sash round his waist ; white cashmere breeches, and top-boots well spurred, but rusty looking, and a small, square, black cocked hat with ostrich feathei’s and a tiny tri-coloured cockade under a gold loop com- pleted the costume.' His sword was in its scabbard, not carried in the right hand, as was the case with all who followed him. Riding a white horse that seemed nearly exhausted with fatigue, he came at an easy pace through the Porta Romana towards the archiepiscopal palace, in which he was to take up his residence, and in the vicinity of winch we lived. He was followed by his tattered infantry battalions, the heroes of Montenotte, Millesima, and Lod:, looking very much like the tatterdemalions Falstafi' refugee to lead through Coventry. Reviewing them shortly after, “ Soldats,” said Bonaparte, “ vous Mes nus, mal nourris ; on FRENCH GENERALS IN MILAN. 17 nous doit beaucoup ! and soon were tliese famished and weary soldiers fed, newly equipped, and officered by men who, as they defiled past us in the Piazza del Duomo, were pointed out as Massena, Augereau, Berthier, Lannes, Victor, and the young aide-de-camp at the battle of Mon- dovi, Murat, destined to become the commander-in-chief s brother-in-law. Governor of Milan, and lastly King of Naples; he who, the son of an innkeeper, exclaimed, when led to execution as a deposed king, Malheureux Prince ! The opportunities of seeing Bonaparte while he remained in Milan were many, and I used to avail myself eagerly of them, that I might gaze on the man whom I already con- sidered ^‘^L’homme du Siecle.’^ Josephine, his wife, and Caroline, his sister, I used likewise often to see. On the 22nd of September of the same year I witnessed another but more imposing display of the French troops, during a great public festive demonstration to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the French Republic. Bonaparte and his wife were then established in the Palazzo Serbelloni, a magnificent building in the great public gardens of Milan. Many a time I beheld them walking in those gardens while the military band was playing to the air composed by Cheniei* : — ■ La Republiqne nous appelle, Sachons vaincre on sachon§ perir ; Un Fran^ais doit vivre pour elle, Pour elle un Fran§ais doit mourir,’’ Those two republican listeners to that patriotic canticle from the balcony of the Duke Serbelloni, would, in a few more years, encircle their brows with the imperial diadem of Gaul and with the Iron Crown of the Lombards ! The French army had not long been in undisputed pos- session of Lombardy before the republican doctrines which they strove to disseminate penetrated into the retired VOL. I. 0 18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, cloisters of our college at Merate, and got the mastery of my weak and inexperienced judgment. Many of the prin- cipal citizens had adopted republican doctrines, although with the people the sight of a French soldier would frighten them as much as a Croat of the Austrian army had done before. But in a fresh proclamation we were told : The French nation is the friend of all nations. Gather around our flags in confidence : your religion, your property, your customs will be religiously respected,^^ and we believed ! What, however, gave us unbounded satisfaction, was the establishment of an independent republican government for the whole north of Italy, at the head of which were placed the most notable of our fellow-townsmen — Melzi and Sommariva. This gave us confidence, and when we learned at college that a stable government had been formed, with responsible ministers, all Italians, our joy knew no bounds. For my part I became a determined Patriota,^^ a denomi- nation answering to that of the French ^Macobin,” and in that character I set about making proselytes among those who were opposed to the new order of things. So successfully was this carried out that at last we rose in a body, disclaiming all kinds of discipline, and contrived to plant a Tree of Liberty in the centre of the great play- ground of the college. Around this we assembled to swear fealty to the republican government, and I delivered an extempore oration on the occasion, reminding my hearers of the glorious days of Eoman liberty of which we read daily. A manuscript ode, written by myself, who was called il poeta (the poet) by my fellow-collegians, was sung to a patriotic tune of the day well known among the boys, the senior class (i maggiori) joining us almost unani- mously. The affair in the course of a few weeks became so serious that the clerical heads of the college deemed it riji^ht to have recourse to the minister of police. Count Porro, A EEPUBLICAN RINGLEADER 19 then only Citizen Porro.^ He came down with an escort, and addressing ns in very flattering language, promised that our demand to have a regular uniform while at college should be complied with. The introduction also of several alterations in our hours of study and recreation was to be duly considered. My position after this disturbance became anything but pleasant, and as friend after friend left for home, some because their period of college life had expired, others because desirous to avail themselves of the regular autumnal holidays, I saw myself left almost alone to meet the bad humour and scowls of the Eeverend Fathers. But I had an object to gain in continuing at college, which was to qualify myself more thoroughly for my examination for matriculation at the university. Accordingly I availed myself of the skill and learning of Padre Ambrogio, a young member of the confraternity, and a man of very superior attainments, who had taken a great fancy to me. I con- tinued my classical readings with him unremittingly, and obtained at last the privilege of being privately examined once more, and this time carried off* more creditable certi- ficates from the college. My reception by my father, notwithstanding these cre- dentials, was not so warm as I could have wished. My dear mother, who had been in the habit of looking over my Latin exercises when I used to come home in the evenine; from the elementary school, hearing me now read off-hand in Italian some of Cicero's epistles to Tullia, and an ode or two of Horace in the Milanese dialect, could not resist the * This person became not long afterwards, on the return of the Austrians, one of the persecuted patriots whom Silvio Pellico mentions in his interesting work Le mie Prigioni ; ” and, singularly enough, a couple of years later, Porro and I found ourselves shut up together in the House of Detention as Jacobins, the same in which many years afterwards Pellico himself was confined. c 2 20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. pleasure of embracing ber cliild, who now stood before her almost a grown-up man, and she interceded for a kinder reception from my father. He, however, could not so readily get over his antipathy to my leaning to the Ja- cobinical doctrines of the French. Born and bred under Austrian rule, and trusted and honoured by them, he could not in so abrupt a manner turn round and become a Jacobin himself. Father and son were reconciled at last, and now the question arose as to what should be done with the son. There was in the University of Pavia (which had of late years outstripped the famed University of Padua) a scholar- ship left to the family of Bozzi, in the Collegio Borromeo,^ by our ancestor, the physician of the holy Milanese cardinal of that name, and that scholarship, which had already served in the education of my two elder brothers, John and Anthony, was a great temptation. But the question was, for what particular pursuit in life should my university education be undertaken '? When consulted in the matter — and at sixteen in those times (when the military conscription carried off all boys as good for soldiers) a youth was considered capable of joining a family council — I hesitated, and in reality did not know what I should like to be. At one period of my earliest schooldays I had shown a great inclination for the Church, had often attended the services as a young acolyte at mass, or joined the singing choir in the organ- loft. On one terrific occasion, in the first month of my sojourn at the College of Merate, I had been blinded by lightning which struck the bells of our chapel while they were being rung during prayers, to which we had been * Botins, or Bozzi, the physician and friend of St. Charles Borromeo, obtained from him, in 1558, two perpetual scholarships (Borse) on behalf of the Bozzi family when the Archbishop founded the college in Pavia, which has ever SiOice been known under the name of Collegio Borromeo. IL PRETE DELLA FAMIDLIA.’' 21 summoned with, the hope of allaying the storm. One of the boys was killed, while all the rest, bent on their knees before the altar, were prostrated and benumbed by the electric fluid. My feelings were so impressed by this occurrence, that I then almost made a vow to devote my- self to the service of the Church. Indeed, soon after this time I had contrived while at home to convert an empty room adjoining our sleeping apartments into a little chapel with an altar, over which was an image of the Virgin Mary, before whom were lighted wax candles. At this altar I used to go through the full ceremony of the mass, with one of my young brothers as acolyte, the .proper vestments being supplied by my two sisters, the incense by the cook, and I was sorely vexed if the rest of the young family did not attend. In fact, it became a settled point that I was to be il prete della famiglia — the parson of the family. The arrival of the French, however, put to flight all ideas of that kind, and the perusal of Le Systeme de la Nature,^^ incorrectly attributed to one of the leading philosophers of the revolution,^ completely extinguished all my clerical inclinations. I shall have to confess in the course of this narrative how much harm the reading of this book had done me, and how happy I feel at the reflection that the subsequent continuous perusal of Holy Writ under English interpretation, has served to restore that peace of mind and assurance as to my future destiny which my * This work, justly styled “ La Code de PAtheisme,’^ which many years after suggested an analogous hook in this country — Vestiges of Creation ”~was attributed for some time to Diderot, and at one time to Dettolhach, two of the leading encyclopedists who brought about the French Revolution. It was again attributed to Mirabeau, the eloquent orator, of the Etats- Generaux ; but here lies the error, for it was not he, but a relative of his, J ean-Baptiste Mirabeau. He also published other philosophical works of the same character, such as “ Reflexions sur PEvangile ” (London, 1769), and the “ Examen Critique du. Nouveau Testament’^ (London, 1777). 2'Z AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. initiation into the contents of the work just mentioned had completely destroyed. Notwithstanding the state of doubt and suspense I was in as to my probable position in the worlds I was not idly disposed ; on the contrary, I occupied my time in acquiring what might be considered mere accomplishments. Full of indulgence, my father suffered me to wander from one course of learning to another, feeling convinced that this desultory plan would fix me at last to one which could be turned into a profession. At all events, if it did not, the variety of knowledge I should acquire, all referable to the fine arts, would turn to my benefit whatever my ultimate profession might be. Milan is endowed with a vast public establishment called the Brera, due to the Jesuits, who in 1572 erected an immense college of Eoman architecture by Eichini,^^ in which are contained an extensive public library of 250,000 volumes, a gallery of pictures, a cabinet of coins and medals, a school of design, and finally, an observatory rendered classical by the celebrated astronomer Criani, the friend of Maskelyne and Herschel, and whom I had also the honour of knowing. To these several sections of the great estab- lishment I had daily access, passing generally four hours in the library and the rest of the day in attending lectures on the fine arts, confining myself especially to architecture. In the latter pursuit I was much encouraged by my cousin Pietro Pestagalli, the architect of the Duomo or Cathedral, who had erected the Scurolo or Crypt of St. Charles Borromeo, the great altar of S. Fedele, and the large saloon in the office of the Land Census, then the largest room having neither pillars, posts, nor any coved arches whatever to support the flat roof. This room, which afforded table-space for some * Now called Palazzo delle Scienze e delle Arti. It is the permanent seat at the same time of the Institute Reale delle Scienze di Milano. DESULTOKY OCCUPATIONS. hundreds of clerks to draw and plan the territorial posses- sions of all the landed proprietors in the Austrian provinces of Lombardy, is still an object of curiosity for strangers to visit. In architecture I made considerable progress ; so much so, that I almost fancied myself intended for an architect, and some hints passed that I should enter my cousin's office. Music, which was also taught classically in the Brera, in its turn attracted my volatile disposition for three or four months, during which time I attended the lectures on thorough-bass and composition of Zingarelli, a composer of many operas between 1790 and 1806. This ended in enabling me to compose a few waltzes, contre-danses, and canzonettes for the guitar, an instrument then much in vogue among serenading youngsters, and that was the only result of my musical tuition. In this matter I have ever since thought that I made a great mistake in not adhering to my music-master, who had formed some of the best com- posers of his time — Generali and Mercadante, for example, the latter the rival of Paer and Eossini in subsequent years. With these multitudinous ways of running after general knowledge, which occupied the six days in the week, one might imagine that enough was done to enable me to fix on some definite plan of profitable education. My dear mother, however, whose portrait had just been painted by the celebrated Signora Corneo, had noticed how earnestly and attentively I had contemplated that lady in her opera- tions. The fair artist herself appeared fiattered, and taking a liking to the stripling, proposed she should perfect the drawings he had commenced at the Brera, and instruct him in the art of colouring. The offer, eagerly accepted by me, was assented to by my parents, and as no other day in the week was at my disposal, Sunday, after mass, was chosen 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. for one hours lesson. After a few lessons the hour was extended to two, until at last our seances became the subject of sotto voce whisperings among the servants. This coming to the ears of my father, he at once and peremptorily desired me to desist from my visits to the studio of the Signora Corneo. Of course a few Sundays thus passed were not likely to make a Titian of me ; nevertheless, the pupil had been so enthusiastic, and so encouraged in his work, that he actually presumed to sketch and colour his instructresses handsome countenance. With this souvenir I never parted until, with other of my traps, it went to the bottom of the sea off the Berlingas Eocks on the coast of Portugal, when the English man-of-war schooner, the Mill- hrooh, was shipwrecked in the month of April, 1808 , on board of which vessel I was assistant-surgeon. CHAPTEE III. 1799—1801. What is he to be? — Enter the University of Pavia — Ugo Foscolo — Zeal for republicanism — Monti — An amateur actor — Italy’s invaders — Arrested and imprisoned in S. Antonio — Professor Easori and others my com- panions—Transf erred to a convent— -Manzoni — Spallanzani : his dis- coveries — Antonio Scarpa — Professor Easori and the Brunoiiian doctrine — V olta : his discovery of voltaic electricity. This desultory life was not likely to continue long. Tempus fugit ! and I was not in the position to exclaim^ with the coolness of Sixtus V., dum fuo^it calefaciamus nos/^ for while he had clutched the splendid tiara he had coveted, my own lot, or chance of being anything in the world, was undetermined. No advance had yet been made towards a proper selection of a profession that should secure me a comfortable status in the world. My father s landed property consisted of farms near Lodi and Parma, where, besides the usual cultivation of rice, maize, and corn, cheese was made and silkworms were reared, in w^hich last interesting occupation, by-the-by, I took no small share as a boy. But no agricultural specu- lations are more uncertain than silk farming ; the alter- natives of a successful year or the reverse being most discouraging. Savings in money, which my father had been careful to place as portions or dowries for his daughters in the Bank of St. George at Genoa, a species of national bank well known for its stability and honour, had been swept away by the French generals on their overthrow of the old Genoese Eepublic. These treasuries were confis- 26 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. cated, and no one was more rapacious at that kind of work than Massena, whom I often met riding to the Palazzo Doria, a little way ont of Genoa, which he had nsnrped for his own head-qnarters. The official appointment of my father, with the advantage of a residence, were snfficiept to sustain that style of living which the head of a public department was expected to maintain ; but there was no surplus to rely upon for the establishment of a family, seven of whom were living. This consideration made it imperative that the third son should apply himself seriously to some plan for securing a subsistence. Fortunately, a good friend of the family, the celebrated Doctor Easori, who occupied the post of Eector of the University of Pavia, in which he also filled the chair of pathology, stepped in to decide the important question, and it was determined that his young friend should be educated for a physician. Accordingly I was entered at the University of Pavia. Professor Easori had recently returned from the Univer- sity of Edinburgh, whence he had brought the two Latin volumes of the new doctrine of the Brunonian system, which he had translated into the Italian language, and not long afterwards converted into his own peculiar and an- tagonistic system, entitled Del Contrastimolo.^^ By a happy coincidence, Easori having been commis- sioned by the republican government of the day to in- vestigate a terrible epidemic which was ravaging the city of Genoa, he selected me, an undergraduate of one and a half yeaPs standing, to accompany him in the capacity of his medical secretary. During my short stay in that superb marble city, I had the advantage of my uncle^s hospitality. Of him I have spoken before. Here it was that my personal acquaintance commenced with Ugo Foscolo, whose name had become a household word in Italy through his Ultimo lettere di Jacobo Ortis/^ recently UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS. 27 published. He was at the time a subaltern in the Cisalpine army. I met him again at Milan in 1814, when he had been promoted to the rank of major in a foot regiment. He had then published ‘‘1 sepolcri/^ and was one of the most ardent advocates for the regeneration of Italy, for which reason he was compelled to flee from Genoa and betake himself to England, where, at his cottage near Eegent’s Park, we often met before his death. Here he made many friends w^ho, eminent scholars themselves, knew how to appreciate and rightly value the Italian poet and Philhellene. As soon as the professors report was complete we returned to the university. No student could have been more fortunate than I was during the three years (or four medical sessions) extending from 1799 to 1802. I had the benefit of being trained under such men as Joseph Frank, Spallanzani, Moscati, Scarpa, and Volta, at that time the great luminaries of the University of Pavia, destined most of them to become such to the world at large. It is the pride of my old age to be able to look to the scientific as well as to the friendly correspondence which the two last- named philosophers, as well as Professor Easori, conde- scended to carry on with their former pupil down to the time of their death — Volta in 1826, Scarpa in 1832, and Easori, to whom I owe so much, in 1834. At that time 1 was in full practice as a physician in London, a fact on which those good old teachers never failed to congratulate me in their letters. Such autographs are precious memorials which I happily preserve and religiously keep, with many other valuable documents of early life that did not accom- pany me in my seafaring excursions. It was expected by my family that no further difficulty could., possibly intervene during the fixed period I should have to pass at the university. The state of the country 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. seemed to promise peace, at all events for that short time, and the tendency towards French and republican doctrines having become more general, the tranquillity of our seat of learning was deemed secure. But “ Fata obstant.” During a short absence of Bonaparte from Milan, both that me- tropolis and other neighbouring cities, including Pavia, revolted, sounded the tocsin, and looked for the return of Beaulieu and Wurmser, the ejected German generals, who had been hovering almost at the gates of Milan. Quickly the Hero of Lodi sped back with a handful of grenadiers and three hundred cavalry, and soon restored order in the capital, shooting a few of the ringleaders. At the same time young General Lannes, being despatched to repress a popular tumult at Pavia which menaced the city as well as the students, who had all declared for the new order of things, captured and shot seventy or eighty rebels, and pursued the rest of them as far as Binasco, a village half- way to Milan, to which he set fire, destroying both the village and the inhabitants, who had raised the Austrian standard. General Lannes insisted on the university studies being continued. No change was to be made in our condition, and the university buildings were placed under the protection of the military. It is scarcely neces- sary to note that a large majority of the undergraduates were rank Jacobins at heart like myself ; not the medical students only, but most of the undergraduates in all the other faculties. Since the glorious establishment of the Kingdom of Italy under the Bed Cross of Savoy, many are the names I have remarked in the public journals of persons who had been fellow-collegians of mine. Some of these, or their fathers, had while in Milan, during the short vacation, frequented with me what were called “ Cireoli Const! tuzionali,” there to spout ribaldry and republican nonsense, and had joined THE FILODEAMMATICI. 29 me in editing and publishing a daily sheet, entitled Gior- nale senza titolo/^ principally intended to extol the French and depreciate the Austrians, as well as the other govern- ments that were in alliance against France, I perfectly remember that the worst diatribes against Thugut,^ the powerful minister of Francis II. of A'^stria, and the suc- cessor of Minister Kaunitz, and also against Pitt, the premier of England, were indited by myself, who knew as little of the political state of England as I knew of that of Japan. But abuse of the English was the great point, and I, as the Inglesino^^ (a family sobriquet), was selected for that important object. Some of the lampoons were choice poems ! My zeal for the promotion of republicanism stopped short at nothing which did not interfere with my attend- ance on my classes. When at Milan, I joined Villa, Cattaneo, Pallavicini, Ugo Foscolo, and Monti, the cele- brated poet, author of Aristodemo,” to represent the tragedies of Alfieri in a large-sized theatre erected by a society called Filodrammatici, composed of several gentle- men who had purchased a church (!) from the government, in which the theatre was established, called Teatro Filo- drammatico, which still exists by the side of the Teatro della Scala. In this amateur theatre I took my part, acting with Signora Monti, the wife of the poet, as splendid a figure of Juno as any sculptor or painter could desire to represent. The performances, which were gratuitous, and by private admission only, were attended by all the elite of Milan, and likewise by many distinguished families from the provinces. In fact, it had become the height of fashion * The very humble origin of this minister lent a handle to all the squibs thrown at him. His father was a boatman, whose real name was Tunicotto — Germanice, Thunicht ; in French, V aurien. The Empress Maria Theresa, in creating him a baron, changed his name to Thugut (do well). 30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. to be admitted to the Teatro Filodrammatico, the amateur actors of which could vie with the best professional artists, aided as we were by such an accomplished tragedian as Signora Monti herself, to whose histrionic celebrity Madame Eistori alone in modern times has approached. Whether through her influence, or from a youthful ambition to be noticed and made much of, I became at last so attached to my new occupation that I almost neglected my more serious studies, and would absent myself from college on the paltriest excuse. The mild but incessant remonstrances of my dear mother, the representations of a much attached elder sister, and, lastly, the pressing arguments of a fair member of our philodramatic corps— la Signora Gavazzi, a most charming person, who in due time became the mother of the famed “ Father Gavazzi,” well known in London — all this pressure, gently exercised on a sensitive heart and mind for the purpose of dissuading me from the pursuit of a desultory mode of life, had the desired effect, and for a time 1 applied myself, seriously as well as incessantly, to the business of my medical education. Unfortunately the political state of Italy at that epoch was one not at all calculated to favour a continuation of so desirable an improvement in my character and conduct. The reputation of a Jacobin I had originally earned by my conduct at the College of Merate accompanied me in private life to Milan, and also to the university. Had the new order of things established in Lombardy continued, that circumstance might have proved of service to me. But the sudden restoration of the old Austrian rule in Milan, brought about by the repeated losses sustained by the French troops commanded by Moreau, Serrurier, Chanipionet, Scherer, and others, who at last were totally defeated by the Austro- Eussian armies commanded by Suwarow, entirely altered THE RUSSIANS IN ITALY. 31 the aspect of affairs, and rendered that reputation not only unsafe, but a dangerous qualification of my character. On the 29th of April, 1799, Suwarow at the head of his victorious troops had marched into Milan, having before rested some days in Pavia, when the undergraduates had the opportunity of beholding an almost semi-barbarous reception of one of the sons of the Emperor Paul, the young Archduke Constantine, who had been sent by his father to learn the art of war at the head-quarters of so famous a captain. It was my destiny to behold this young prince, a mere stripling then, thirty years later at the head of sixty thousand Polish soldiers, part of whom he was reviewing outside AVarsaw, where he ruled as Viceroy of Poland.'^' Thus had the Austrians retaken the capital of Lombardy, which they had surrendered three years before to General Bonaparte, now far away in Egypt. In this achievement they were mainly and powerfully aided by the great Eussian commander at the head, of several thousand sol- diers, a motley mass, as I perfectly well remember, con- sisting of Eussians, Cossacks, Kalmucks, and every race of barbarian of which the great northern empire of Eussia was then composed. The terror inspired by these hordes of semi-savages on their approach to Milan was such, that a deputation was despatched to the commander-in-chief, humbly soliciting him to direct that the Kalmucks in parti- cular, and the Cossacks if possible, should encamp outside the wall. The lower classes believed that the Kalmucks were anthropophagi, and that they had hooks to their fingers and toes. The reputation of the Cossacks was not so ter- rific, but their pilfering propensity, and their filthy habit of swallowing any offal that came in their way, of which frequent examples had been witnessed in the towns through which these irregular troops had marched on their road to * See my work on Russia, St. Petersburg,’^ vol. ii., p. 529, 2nd edition. AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. the capital of Lombardy, had rendered them objects of disnust, if not of so much terror as their kindred fellow- soldiers from Tartaiy. • Siiwarow complied in part witti the solicitations of the Milanese, although by the rigour of his discipline and the severity of his punishments of all military offenders he rendered himself hateful at the same time. The Italians, however, had noti long to lament the presence of their Eussian invaders ; for disputes having arisen between the two chiefs of the Austro-Eussian armies occupying the north of Italy, and the Court of St. Petersburg having about this time shown symptoms of receding from the general crusade against France, Suwarow with his many thousand fol- lowers withdrew from Lombardy into Switzerland, there to meet a more equal match to himself for skill and bravery than he had encountered in Scherer and Championet, the two French generals whom Suwarow had defeated with so much ease in the plains of Lombardy. Massena fully atoned for the blunders of his two countrymen, and among the Helvetic mountains he taught a severe lesson to the Eussian commander, from the effects of which he never fully recovered. The departure of the Eussians, I remember, diffused universal joy in the bosom of every citizen, and once again the public streets and gardens were thronged with women and children, who had before entirely with- drawn from the public gaze through the terror which the unbridled licentiousness and violence of the northern sol- diery had spread abroad. With the Austrian army there came from Vienna to Milan a Count Coeastelli (a species of Germano-Italian Fouche) as the imperial representative and Commissario del Governo to administer the Lombard provinces. Armed Austro-Eussian troops occupied every part of the extin- guished Cisalpine Eepublic, and the old Austrian rSgime ITALY UNDER THE AUSTRIANS. 33 was once more re-established, punishing severely and in the most arbitrary manner all such persons as would or could not conform with the new order of things. One of the very striking changes which the French inva- sion of Italy in 1796 had brought about in the habits of society, was a relaxation of religious discipline and of the observance of its duties. The suppression of almost all the convents and nunneries, and the shutting up of the churches, together with the prohibition of all Church festivals and processions, of which the Milanese had been remarkably fond in olden times, could not but tend to diminish the zeal for and attachment to religion, and ultimately to almost obliterate both. Not satisfied with closing the temples of Grod, many of these had been converted by the leading Jacobins into debating-rooms, or arenas where any person so inclined might attend, and, under the protection of its title of Circolo Constituzionale, take part in the public discussions which were held every night on subjects princi- pally political and anti-religious. At one of the principal of these clubs, not far from our residence, I used to be a frequent attendant, and young as I was I would often ascend the Tribuna, as it was called, but which was no other than the pulpit of the church, and in extempore speeches (rhapsodies they must have been) I would address the congregated multitude in warm and often violent language against the antiquated archducal system, and in support of the great innovation then going on throughout Italy. My good father, who had always been a staunch adherent to the House of Austria, and who with difficulty could reconcile himself to the republican spirit of the times, viewed my conduct with displeasure, and often in his mild and placid manner strove to dissuade me from the course I was pursuing. But the spirit of liberty and equality had seized my brain, and I was delighted at being VOL. I. D 3i AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. hurried along with so many thousands of my fellow-citizens by the whirling rapids of republicanism. I was a mere youth in 1799, little more than sixteen years of ae:e, when I entered as an underPTaduate in the University of Pavia, a scholar in the Collegio Borromeo. Bather tall, with hair cut d la Brutus, affecting the repub- lican dress and with an independent spirit, the part I had taken in all the patriotic demonstrations at our public schools, and especially at the College of Merate during the establishment of the Cisalpine Eepublic two years before, together with the freedom I used in expressing my senti- ments after the return of the Austrian troops to Milan, rendered me an object of suspicion to the restored govern- ment of Austria. I was therefore narrowly watched by the police both while at Milan and at Pavia ; not that any considerable apprehension of mischief was entertained from such a stripling as I was, but because it was deemed neces- sary to show examples of severity to the students of the schools, who, without exception, had all been converted to republicanism. My juvenile antecedents marked me out for an early display of the Austro-Milanese watchful political interference, and the oj^portunity was not long wanting. One afternoon a few priests in short white surplices, and conveying the Host from one of the churches, drew near me in the Piazza del Duomo. Among them was one in gaudier vestments walking under a canopy held over him, and proceeding, in accordance with the custom of the Komish Church, to administer the viaticum to a moribund person. As this procession passed me, I believe I omitted to take off my hat, at least so I was told, and never bowed or bent my knees. Instantly I was seized by a commissary of police and two of his agents, who took me at once to the nearest police magistrate. After a long examination I was the same evening com- IMPRISONED IN S. ANTONIO. 35 mitted to the State prison, established since the restoration of the Austrian rule within the walls of a sujppressed con- vent called S. Antonio, which the monks had previously abandoned. Well do I recollect the agony of feeling I experienced at being locked up in a moilk’s cell for the night, at the anxiety which I knew my parents would feel, especially my dear mother, whom I loved most tenderly. I asked permission to write home, but the favour was not granted. I offered money to the keeper to send a mes- senger to my father, but nothing could or would be done that night. The cell I was confined in had a division, in which were two or three barrack-looking beds. Here I discovered that J was not alone in my confinement. Professor Easori, who had been my teacher and principal, and Count Porro, ci-devant Citizen Porro, the same who, as Minister of Police under the republican regime, had come down to Merate two years before to set the Eeverendi Padri in good order, were sharing with me this temporary prison, the windows of which, looking into the street, were stoutly barred. There was also a smaller ventilating window over the door, which we were allowed to keep open (it being summer-time), and through which we could observe all that Avas passing in the corridor, into which opened several other cells (now prisons), affording an opportunity of verbal communication with our opposite neighbours and others not far distant where the same facility of a ventilating Avindow existed. In the morning, Avhen through those means of commu- nication the news had spread that a mere boy had just been brought in and incarcerated as a patriota, cries of execra- tion against the tyranny of the Chief Imperial Commissioner Cocastelli came from all the little AvindoAA^s. Then I learned, and felt a sort of pride at the infor- mation, that I Avas sharing my political fate with, many 36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. illustrious individuals wlio liad held conspicuous places in the republican government of the country, such as Moscati, Villa (a fellow-collegian much older than myself), Eeina, who had been one of the Directors, Mazzuchelli, Villatta, and Generals Lecchi and Zucchi. They were destined to be exiled, as indeed they were soon after, to the Bocche di Cattaro, a wild and desolate place on the coast of Dalmatia, where not a few of them perished in a short time. As to my own fate, the intercession of my father as a man in office, joined to that of my mother, who, as I said before, had been LeMrice to the last Archduchess, succeeded in getting me released from incarceration ; but on one con- dition (suggested, I have always suspected, by my father to the authorities), that I should pass two weeks in the Convent of the Capuchin Friars, connected with a very fashionable church on the Corso di Porta Oriental e, imme- diately facing the great public gardens. Thither I was conveyed one evening in a hired carriage, accompanied by two inspectors of police. Being admitted without delay, and the Portinajo having signed the receipt of my person, Avhich my conductors had brought with them, I was at once placed in a monk’s cell with a young novice, whose personal appearance immediately attracted my sympathy. That night I neither undressed nor lay down, and well it Avas I did not, for soon after midnight a bell sounded in the convent, Avhich my companion informed me was a summons for us to appear in the choir of the chapel to early matins. Here I found all the monks assembled, the altar brilliantly illuminated, and the organ playing. Our voices sounded melodiously through the lofty, arched edifice, itself in per- fect darkness. All this was very congenial to me, not as a matter of devotion, but of pleasure, mnsic invariably de- lighting me, and nothiog being more agreeable to my senses than the plain chant of the morning canticles of the A YOUNG NOVICE. 87 Eomish Church. I showed myself a complete adept at all the ceremonies (for had I not gone through them all in person only three or four years before?). Monks of all ages and degrees congratulated the youthful penitent on his docility and aptitude ; the eldest and the most vene- rable white-bearded among them predicting my speedy conversion to true religion. Not so my young cell com- panion, who was kneeling by my side, and who could scarcely restrain his laughter at the serious manner in which. I was going through the whole ceremony. He had learned enough, lie thought, from the few words I had uttered that night in our cell to think that mine was no real devotion, but imposture ; and we had a hearty laugh together afterwards, with which my first night of restraint terminated. Next morning I learned that the young novice (who it was expected Avould soon assume the liabit of a full monk) was destined to be my companion during the whole period of my intended sequestration, in the hopes that I should profit by his example in attending to the admonitions and lessons we were to receive conjointly from the prior of the convent, who had undertaken to reform the unruly and atheistical young Milanese. I Avas therefore placed at once a fare gli esercizii^^ — a disciplinary religious process which. Massimo d' Azegiio was made to go through by his father and instructors a few years later at Turin, under nearly similar circumstances of domestic arrangement, and which process he has so well described in the sixth chapter of his autobiography, entitled ^ I miei Eicordi,^'’ edited by his amiable daughter, Alessandrina. I shall only further refer to the, process in question by stating that, at the end of a week^s retreat from the world and a self-examination. the Esercizii ended in a general confession of sins, absolu- tion of them, and the partaking of the Communion more 38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Romano, This process I went through in my second week of detention, after which my father^s carriage came to fetch me home a regenerated and holy person. I was warmly embraced all round, but by none more so than by my dear mother, who was bathed in tears of joy at again beholding the son she had been told was going to perdition. Sure enough it might have come to that had I continued in the convent many weeks longer as the asso- ciate of a young, dissolute spendthrift, who had been com- pelled to take refuge in a monastic life to avoid the temp- tations to which a handsome person, wealth, and noble descent, with a high but worldly education, rendered him susceptible. The three weeks spent in confinement, partly political, partly religious, produced effects on my mind very different from what was expected. It did not make me love religion more, it did not make me hate Austrian rule less, but it made me at once sensible of the fact that the great men I had met in my captivity at S. Antonio could boast of a reputation for talent and abilities to which I could make no claim. I felt humbled, and from that moment resolved to adhere strictly and perseveringly to my medical and scientific studies, and suffer no more temptations to divert me from the career I had entered upon and meant to pursue. In this resolve I had many motives to encourage me. Ours had at this time become a university of such renown, that strangers flocked to it from every part of the civilized world, attracted by the immense reputation of its professors. I remember the name of one among my fellow- students, nearly of my own age, though not in the medical class, who became ten years later a poet of sacred verse of no mean merit, and afterwards a tragic writer of great repute, which he was destined to eclipse by an historical romance that found a place on the shelves of every national and LAZAEO SPALLANZANI. S9 foreign library in the shortest space of time. I refer to Alessandro Manzoni, and to his I promessi sposi.’^ "" On looking back to those days I am almost bewildered by my scholastic reminiscences : the many new philo^ sophical subjects started; the many scientific facts first divulged and illustrated ; the novel and highly important doctrines bi'oached and firmly established within a period of four short years, from 1798 to 1802, through the labours and discoveries of Spallanzani, Scarpa, Yolta, besides the purely medical and successful teaching of Joseph Frank, Easori, Moscati, and Brera. Throughout the whole period of my university career, all these great intellects, while in- structing their numerous pupils, were laying the founda- tion of new physical laws which (in the case especially of one of the discoverers) were to change completely the doc- trine regarding electricity, and lead to extraordinary results the termination of which no one can anticipate, for the progress has been almost continuous, I may say, perpetual ever since, and their applicability and importance to man- kind inexhaustible. I remember how, after my first yeaFs attendance in class, and when I had just begun to appreciate whatever I was taught, I grieved with the whole university when the death was announced of one of our oldest professors, Spallanzani, whose lectures and experiments, intended to disprove the false doctrine of Needham on the spontaneous reproduction of animal life, were just then listened to with something amounting to enthusiasm. I recollect, and some degree of surprise is added thereto by the light of my subsequent life and instruction, the contention going on between him and his colleague Yolta on the subject of those very expe- * Manzoni a few years after leaving the University of Pavia made his cUbut as a poet with five sacred hymns, entitled La Nativita/f La Passione,” La Kisiirrezione,” La Pentecoste/^ and II Nome di Maria/'’ 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. riments, wliicli Volta maintained did not logically contra- dict those of the English naturalist in his essay on the Generation of Organic Bodies/’ Volta being inclined to adopt the same idea, and doubting the soundness of Spallan- zani’s experiments. Our profound professor of natural history, however, found no difficulty in satisfying all the savants of Europe that he was right, and that the English microscopist, as well as his advocate, was wrong. A work, entitled Opuscoli Scelti,” which gave an account of this interesting controversy, was read by the undergraduates with the same intense interest which the undergraduates of the Cam and the Isis annually take in their rowing contests. Perhaps even this curious investigation of Spallanzani must yield, if not in interest, at least in importance, to another which was being carried on almost simultaneously ; namely, the phenomenon of digestion in men and animals possessed of a stomach. This process he explained by assuming and proving the existence of an acid principle in the stomach, to which he gave the name of gastric juice,” and in virtue of which food was converted into chyle, the primordial element of the blood. Experiments in his own 23erson, repeated often with many of the do- mestic animals, as well as by means of cooked and raw animal substances long immersed in gastric juice properly obtained, all submitted to the attention of the students, carried conviction to our minds, which in my individual case has continued unchanged through life. Our valued teacher was taken from us when scarcely three-score and ten. Pie died at the end of 1799, in the arms of his constant friend and attendant. Professor Scarpa, the most eminent surgeon and anatomist of his day, whose skill, however, could not stay the ravages of a disinte- grating renal disease. Spallanzani had been professor of ANTONIO SCAEPA. 41 natural history at Pavia for a period of thirty-one years^ having been appointed to that chair by Maria Theresa in 1768. He had accepted the political revolution in his country without a murmur. The name of Antonio Scarpa brings back recollections of my educational life neither so remote nor so purely scholastic, for the teacher had been pleased to make his pupil his friend. Twice, at two distinct periods of my post- collegiate life, did I meet him in that character. In 1814, when I proceeded from London to revisit my paternal roof, I also visited my Alma Mater for the satisfaction of greet- ing him. Scarpa had never forgotten the years he had passed in England, attending Hunter’s and Cruikshank’s lectures, and receiving instructions in surgery at the hospital from Pott. He used to speak of them to me as if they were living still. Once more I visited him in 1819, since which time I had the satisfaction of a continuous cor- respondence with him until his death, which took place in 1832. Scarpa was an aristocratic-looking person, with a pleasing countenance, a gentle and compassionate look, which told well with his patients. A contemporary and correspondent of Scarpa— -I allude to the late Sir Astley Cooper — -often reminded me of the Pavese professor. Less robust than his British contemporary, and not so colossally built, yet the Italian lived to a greater age, and was able to carry on some of his labours, certainly not among the least in value, when verging on eighty ! Such were his obser- vations on aneurism, on the ligature of the principal arte- ries, and on the treatment of hydrocele by injection. His greatest and most important works, which established him as facile princeps cJiirurgicorum, are too generally known to require quotation in this place ; yet I cannot resist the pleasure of recalling how he enthralled our attention when 42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. he unmvelled before us, in clear and simple language, with a human heart in his hand, the delicate nervous fibriles that meandered through that mysterious organ as he traced them in their course with his scalpel. No anatomist had before his time pushed so successfully forward such an investigation, the benefits of which have been fortunately secured to the world through an unrivalled work of science and art. Scarpa lived in one of the most showy palaces in Pavia, where he had richly and tastefully furnished apartments, and a gallery of pictures by ancient masters. I may as well mention in this place that the Collegio Borromeo, one of the most conspicuous edifices in the university, was erected after the design of the celebrated architect Pellegrini. Of my purely medical instructors at Pavia (as I observed in another place) I entertain the most lively recollection and grateful remembrance. I have experienced the benefit of their instructions through a long life of hard professional exertion, and it has been with great satisfaction that I have, when necessary, had recourse to the perusal of the writings which have stamped their unfading reputation. Perhaps I ought not to pass over in silence, lest I should be suspected of partiality to one who was my early patron, the bold innovations with which one of those medical pro- fessors, Easori, opened his course in 1799, the very year of Spallanzanfs death. Professor Easori, full of the theories of the Edinburgh lecturer. Dr. John Brown, the opponent of Cullen, had just introduced those theories into Italy, and, following the example of that extraordinary man, had com- menced his career at Pavia by a work entitled Del preteso / genio d^ Hippocrate^^ (1798-9), in which he attempts to refute all the aphorisms of the philosopher of Cos, including at the same time in his condemnation the works of Galen, GIOVANNI RASOKI. 43 Celsus, and Dr. Sydenham. Young minds in those days were evidently elated at anything that sounded like a revolt against old and long-established principles, especially in the case of a system of medicine like the Brunonian, which simplified at once the study of medicine and of materia medica into two classes of disease — the sthenic, or those depending on an excess of excitement ; and the asthenic, those resulting from a deficiency of it. The success of so novel a doctrine was as prompt as it was great, and I plead guilty of having been captivated by it ; especially as I found one of the medical professors, Joseph Frank, a man of unsuspected character and respect- ability, countenance and teach the novel doctrine with zeal. This Brunonian doctrine was the one with which I was imbued when I left the university, and which I set myself to put in practice for the first few years of my independent and wandering life, until dearly-bought experience led to a thorough change and a more rational mode of recognizing and treating disease. Easori, however, atoned for his medical as well as philo- sophical errors in more serious works, which his knowledge of the English, German, and French languages enabled him to understand, and among which I may mention his trans- lation of Darwin’s Zoonomia,” a work I eagerly sought and read in its beautiful original idiom when I had once settled in England and had become conversant with the language in which it is written. Of the few philosophical works 1 then read (it is now sixty-eight years since), I do not remember to have perused one that afforded me more pleasure or information, or after which I felt my mind more elevated. Those of my children, or of my children’s children, by whom I am surrounded, and who, from inclination, reading, study, or any other circumstance, shall chance to devote 44 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. their time to scientific pursuits, and shall have become acquainted with the marvellous progress electricity has made from the time of their parents first education at the university, will enter readily into those feelings of pride which he now experiences at having been not only an ocular witness of the birth of the voltaic pile and its wonderful phenomena, but also a learner to whom those phenomena and the agents employed had been divulged and explained by the immortal discoverer himself in person. I have had the good fortune of hearing Sir Humphry Davy, Gay-Lussac, Biot, Faraday, and Tyndall discourse on electricity ; I have witnessed the decomposition of the alkaline salts and oxides by the same agency, the creation of the terrestrial and maritime telegraphs through the same power, and, in common with thousands upon thousands of hearers or spectators, I have stood amazed at the wondrous and startling facts brought out by a mighty agent which the sagacity of man has enabled him to snatch from the recondite bosom of Nature some thousands of years after the universal creation by the fiat of God ! But how shall I describe the feeling which, in common with my fellow- students in the class of experimental philosophy at Pavia, we experienced on the day when the immortal Volta in our presence called into existence this mighty power ! He first placed (explaining as he proceeded the order and the reason of it) two round pieces of dissimilar metal in contact, and upon them a paper moistened in salt water; then, having repeated this pairing of the two metals, one on the top of the other (secured betweeen slender glass rods), to the number of one hundred couples, he showed us on the instant, and made us feel the electric spark ! It was not then the fashion in Italy, as I have often witnessed since in England, to express admiration by the clapping of hands at the successful result of a scientific BTETH OF VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY. 45 lecturer s experiment, so no such, demonstration took place that I can remember. But had that fashion prevailed at Pavia, as it does at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, we were so lost in wonderment at the moment that no such noisy demonstration was likely to have suggested itself. Ours was fascination. For although the luminous appearance of the electric spark as the result of friction on glass or resin was familiar to us all, who had witnessed Nollet’s and Cavallo’s experiments repeatedly, the produc- tion of the same phenomenon by the contact of two dis- similar metals (a phenomenon not evanescent, but continuous as long as the pile remained intact and the pa, per moist) was a striking fact which almost produced stupefaction. Thus it was that, in the class-room of mechanical philosophy in the University of Pavia, at the commence- ment of 1800, voltaic electricity had its birth. Forthwith, on the first vacation-day, the undergraduates who had more cash than others set about procuring a certain number of soldi ^ which were duly scoured, and an equal number of lire, from home. Next they cut out round pieces of the size of the coins from their linen, which were wetted with salt and water, and so built up voltaic piles, producing and studying the phenomena exhibited, imitating in that respect the example of our professor. Such scenes were too striking not to have left that sort of impression on the memory which enables me at the distance of almost seventy years to remember them like a thing of yesterday. Pupils and professors from Padua, Bologna, Pisa — the three most renowned universities of Italy — flocked actually to Pavia, and some of us were flattered at being able to repeat to the strangers the experiments which our wardrobe and the contents of our purses gave us the means of per- forming. I remember Galvani, coming over from Bologna on the occasion, showing us his frog experiments, and 46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. engaging in an earnest and animated discussion on the then-called animal electricity with our eminent professor. Dr. Walli, a great supporter of Galvani, and an antagonist of Volta, was also of the number. He and I were destined to meet again some yeai's later in a different country and under very different circumstances. Volta became an idol : we venerated our teacher ; nor was he undeserving of our affection and reverence. His simplicity of character, suavity of manners, correctness and lucidity of diction, combined in a person of imposing appearance, distinguished him from the rest of our learned docentes. The last time I saw this wonderful man was at his villa near Como in 1814, where he had just received a visit from Sir Humphry Davy. Whence the English writer of the life of that illustrious chemist could have derived the opinion put into Sir Humphry’s mouth which we read in that life, namely, that “Volta’s person had a mean and rustic appearance,” has been to me a subject of great wonderment, being so wholly at variance with the truth. It may well be supposed that, what with military assaults, and what with the taking and retaking of the town of Pavia, the execution of the rebels within it, and the burning of Binasco. near it, between 1797 and 1799, neither literary, scientific, nor technical education could proceed prosperously. The French clashed with the Austrian rule, and only when the latter prevailed in 1799 were we a little quieter. That was the period when Volta was working at his great scheme. Lectures were often suspended and the great classes closed. The curriculum of studies got into confusion, and when the Austro-Kussian invaders, masters of the country for a short period only, left us, and the order of studies was restored, it became necessary to define afresh our relative positions and rank. Being within a year A VALUED AUTOGEAPII. 47 and a few months of my final examination, I applied to the Rector, Scarpa, for a certificate of my matriculation, which testimonial, filled up and signed with his own name, I am proud to possess with such an autograph attached to it. It formed one of the few records I was able to preserve of my early days through all my subsequent travels and difficulties. As the period for my examination w^as approaching, a great change took place in m.y political views. Detesting the Tedeschi,^^ I do not know whether I did not hate the French and their and our republican principles more. The time strictly required for my scholastic duties was never encroached upon by frivolous occupations, but I found time for acquiring, a smattering of both French and Grerman to please my dear mother, and danced and played and sang with my many fair cousins and my two sisters, and, as often as opportunity offered, accompanied them into society, or frequented with them La Scala,^^ or the comic theatre. Thus the more serious studies, mingled with the lighter accomplishments of social life, were supposed by my good parents to have qualified me for a gentiluomo. CHAPTER IV. 1802. A diploma — Reception at home— Tlie conscription— .Monti and Lattanzi— Produce a poem in terza rima — Study practical surgery in L’ Ospital Maggiore — Determine to escape the conscription — Bid a last farewell to my mother — Reach Genoa — Music an impediment to a professional man — Join a party of comedians as secondo amoroso — Journey to Venice ■ — Visit Ferrara — A declamation from Dante — Arrive at Venice — Dis- appoint the impresario — Singular rencontre — End of a real play. At lengtli, after tlie spring session of 1802, in the nine- teenth year of my age, I presented myself before my emi- nent and kind teachers, with the view of attaining, after the requisite and usual examinations, the summi honores of the Laurea. These trials over, a diploma of doctor of medicine was awarded to me toto senatu conourrente- ; and, bidding adieu to the authorities and to those of my col- leagues who had still some time to remain at the university," I rejoined my family, by whom I was of course received as a youthful prodigy. Unfortunately, a domestic event which had happened a few months previously had cast a gloom over our circle, and had especially afflicted my dear mother. My eldest brother's name had unluckily been drawn in its turn for the conscription. No personal interest or offlcia] intercession availed to save him from that fate, not even the fact that he already held a government ap- pointment obtained during the Austrian administration. My mother, disconsolate at the idea of her eldest hope going to confront the disasters and dangers of a soldier s life, had been greatly shocked, nor did her nerves recover THE CONSCEIPTION. 49 tlieir tone even after my brother s successful evasion by taking refuge in the nearest Austrian camp. Now again a fresh danger of the same kind was pre- senting itself. On the actual completion of the nineteenth year of his age, that is, within a few months, another of her sons, her own Benjamin, would have to go through the same ordeal of a chance ballot for military service. It is true that in my case I could escape the military conscription as a common soldier by electing to be apj)ointed as an officier de sante (the lowest grade in French military surgery), for whom there was great need at the time in the army of the Repubblica Italiana, for such was then the political status of Lombardy ; but for this I individually felt not the smallest inclination. The little I had seen of the life led by the medical officers of the Franco-Italian troops stationed at Milan and at Pavia had not been such as to make me at all desirous to be permanently placed among their number. There was yet time for reflection before adopting any resolution as to my movements and plans, and so I was left undisturbed by my good parents to think and deter- mine for myself. In this lull from lifers turmoils, with my past just closed by an act that flattered my vanity, and my future before me, vast and undeflned ; with rocks and breakers behind me, and an immense horizon before me without a speck to fix my attention, I was often reminded of the part I had taken in the representation of Monties great tragedy of Aristodemo at the Philodramatic Theatre. In that I played the part of Tyrant, and, dressed in a toga, stalked on the stage with all the gravity of a hero, to break out with an interrogative exclamation, Appio, che fai ? much in the way of Hamlet's To be, or not to be ? " the only difference between us, that whereas the Roman asked himself whether he should continue to be a tyrant, the Dane inquired how far it was better to die than to live. I, VOL, I. E 50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. on my part, "had now only to ask myself, Well, what am I to do ? for I was doing nothing. The season for action was come, and the question must be settled. However, my time was not wasted. I had become very studious and fond of reading, and the great public library of the Brera, where I soon became known as an habitue, afforded me every opportunity of becoming acquainted with the best modern literature, as well as of refreshing my knowledge of the ancient classics. I selected Seneca^s Epistles for a day manual, and in Italian poetry, parts of the -'Divina Commedia^^ became my constant themes. Monti, a great admirer and worthy imitator of the Flo- rentine maestro, was just then publishing periodically in Milan, in detached cantos, a poem in terza rima, entitled La Mascheroniana.'^^ It was in commemoration of the illustrious mathematical professor at Pavia, recently de- ceased, who was also an acknowledged poet. In the first canto Monti imprudently scourged a rival popular poet of the day, named Lattanzi — a Eqman like himself — with this single line — Scapato al remo, e al Tiberin capestro ’’ N (escaped from the galleys and the Eoman gibbet|). * This poem, published under the title of In Morte di Lorenzo Mascheroni,^’ cantica di V. Monti (Milan, 1801), had a political intention. The author being a member of the secular clergy, with the title of Abate, though a married man, was a partisan of Pius VI., whom the Franco-Roman patriots had attacked and vilified. These it was the poet^s great aim to vilify in turn, and thus in his first canto he represents the leaders of the Roman revolution — Altri Stolti, altri vili, altri perversi, Tiranni molti, cittadini pochi, E i ppchi 0 muti, o insidiati, o spersi ; ” a stanza worthy of Dante for terseness, force, and truth. f In these our days this line reminds one of the withering sarcasm the great Stanley (the Derby of 1869) cast on Ministers for submitting to the Demagogue of Ireland — The cords, the ladder, and the hangman rather.’’ Nothing could surpass the scorn Lord Stanley threw into his tones, his look, and his whole gesture when pronouncing this damning line of Hotspur. EIVAL POETS. 51 On the day after Months publication, Lattanzi issued a canto of equal length in terza rima also, with the rime obli- gate of Monties own poem, and I care not to add how abusively the latter was treated by his rival. Both poems were republished in their original in this country in an Italian bi-monthly periodical called Italico/^ edited by myself. This poetic duello at Milan continued for several cantos in succession, and threatened to be a duel d mort. Its periodical appearance was looked for with as much impatience as the periodical issue of Childe Harolcb^ in the days of Byron in this country, and its peru- sal formed rallying points in the two most famous social circles of the capital ; the one presided over by La Monti,^^ the other by La Lamberti,^^ a magnificent woman, a true Aspasia, who patronized Lattanzi, and before whom his impromptu replies to the author of Aristodemo were read before publication. I was admitted to both circles as a rising young worshipper of the Muses, and was moreover acquainted with both poets personally, for Lattanzi fre- quently met me at the great public library, where he worked at the same table. My acquaintance with his opponent has already been mentioned. Fascinated alike by the captivating goddesses who pre- sided over the rival circles, a sudden idea came into my brain, namely, to attempt the reconciliation of my two friends by the publication of an independent canto, also in terza rima, which should appear unexpectedly directly after the issue of Monties fourth canto and Lattanzi's reply. No inkling of my intention was suffered to transpire, and the unexpected appearance of my verses probably produced more effect than their intrinsic merits. I assumed a perfect liberty as to rhyme, but strictly adhered to the Dantesque metre and its idiomatic terms. The poem found a ready circulation. In it I evoked the 52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. shade of Mascheroni (as did the Witch of Endor the spirit of Samuel) to chide in stern and cutting words the folly and suicidal acts of the contending poets, censured those acts, and rebuked the writers for disgracing La belh arte che Apollo e Dante honora.’^^ Mascheronhs spirit bids them rather to rouse the now smothered patriotism of their countrymen, as expressed in one of my own lines — Fra le ngne tedesclie, e i Franchi artigly.’^ The Parnassian strife ceased at last, and two of the poem s, like many productions of temporary and local interest, in due time passed away and were forgotten ; hut not so the one from Monti’s pen, which retains still its classical rank in modern Italian literature. “ Quid fit ” of my own parvus lihellus ; nescio. To judge from the reviews of the period, I may assume that it was not wholly without merit. In the midst of all this social and agreeable intercourse, I still found time to improve my acquaintance with practi- cal surgery, already studied under Antonio Scarpa, the first operative surgeon of his day at Pavia. Accordingly I devoted a couple of hours each day to attending at L’Ospi- tal Maggiore, erected in 1456 by Duke Frederico Sforza, where I had the benefit of Paletta’s instructions in operative surgery. As a connection of one of the benefactors of that institution, I had a sort of claim to the instructions I was seeking, one of my maternal aunts, Teresa, having married into the noble family of Fumagalli, whose chief had bequeathed to the hospital one million of Milanese livres (£3500). According to immemorial custom, his full-length portrait, with those of a hundred other benefactors, is exhi- bited during several days in each year, and many are the * Insin a qiii Fim giogo di Parnaso Assai mi fti ; ma hor con ambedue M’ e bu opo intrar nel aringo rimaso.” — Paradiso. PREPARE TO LEAVE HOME. 53 specimens of painting by ancient masters of celebrity to be seen among them.^ I have ever since had frequent and good reasons to rejoice at the step I took in attending the surgical practice of this institution ; and when once I had completed my course I really felt that I had nothing more to learn in this world. With such a conviction I cannot pretend to remem- ber the many and various ideas and projects with which my brain became bewildered at this period of my life. I felt that having received from a careful, indulgent, and wise father the best fortune he could bequeath to a son— a com- plete education, with a sound and healthy constitution — I had no right to continue to be a charge on him when there were other and younger children looking for similar benefits and advantages. I therefore determined to set out at once in search of a career in the wide world, relying on my own resources and qualifications to secure me a livelihood. I knew at the same time, that though I might obtain my father’s assent to my hap-hazard and undefined scheme, I never could hope to succeed in gaining my good mother’s approval of an expatriation which, in her estimation, wmuld be full of peril, and probably end in our never meeting again, a natural and, as it proved to be, a true presenti- ment. My preparations, therefore, for leaving Milan were to be kept a profound secret. The only relative I made * This, the most interesting and unique collection of portraits in Italy — the only country in which pictures can be exposed to view in the open air — is exhibited under the extensive porticoes which surround the principal quad- rangles of this vast edifice, whose style, truly Lombard of the 15th century, is itself an object of attraction. The portraits, painted by the best artists of the day at the expense of the administration, and either full length or half size, according to the amount received from the respective benefactors, are exposed on the 20th of March and two following days, A subscriber of 100,000 lire was entitled to a full-length portrait as large as life ; one of half-size being painted of a subscriber of 50,000 lire, and a kit-cat of a subscriber of half the latter sum. 54 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. cognizant of my plan in part was my uncle at Genoa. To him I applied by letter to procure me a passport as a citi- zen of the Ligurian Eepublic, and as a merchant, that I might pass unsuspected through the Cisalpine frontiers, and reach the capital of Liguria undisturbed by either police or soldiery. I alleged as a reason for the step, that I had some plan to suggest to him connected with my intention to proceed from Genoa to Barcelona on some mercantile business, of which my family for the present was to remain in ignorance. Furnished with the required passport, and supplied with a moderate sum of money given me by an aunt, I gathered together my papers, credentials, and a few books, and these, with a light wardrobe, were placed in a hired calessino, which would be sent back at the end of my journey. Leading my mother to suppose I was only going to Pavia for a few days to see my old professors, I embraced her tenderly and with a heart bursting with emotion and sad presentiments, but still brave and steady in my purpose, from some vague conviction that I was destined to see the world and do great things. I then entered my light vehicle, and with my trunk by my side set off at once, turning my back on what was really a sweet home,'^ never to dwell again in it until twelve years after, and then only as a temporary visitor to my father, bereaved of my beloved mother. A journey from Milan to Genoa by the narrow passage of La Bocchetta, before the days of railways was no trifling undertaking. In a light two-wheeled carriage, with a heavy trunk by my side, a skittish horse that at any moment might, from fatigue or an unlucky slip, tumble down some Apennine cliff, and smash himself and driver together— this, I say, was no trifling undertaking. My horse, however, was equal to the journey as far as Pavia, whither I was then RECEPTION AT GENOA. 00 directing his steps with the intention of passing the night there, and once more give a last look at the scene of my serious studies. Thus far the animal well knew the road for he had often travelled over it ; but when I reached that dreaded and difficult pass, La Bocchetta, which I had never crossed otherwise than in a heavy public conveyance, I confess I doubted not a little my charioteering skill. On approaching the more difficult descent on the "other side, and on the verge of some bottomless abyss, I thought I would leave the carriage and lead my horse ; but on reflec- tion it occurred to me that in such a situation I should not have the same command over the animal as when seated behind him, the reins tight in hand. So I continued slowly and cautiously in my descent, enjoying all the while the magnificent view of the bay and city of Genoa, until all danger was over and I reached Campo Marone for a halt and a night^s rest. At Genoa I was sure of good quarters and a hearty welcome. My uncle, a successful whaler, was a single man, and absorbed in business. His own hardy mariners after eighteen months’ or two years’ absence would return home with prodigious cargoes of oil. His men were looked upon as the most prosperous, as they were also the hardiest, of the northern navigators carrying the Genoese flag. The good gentleman had really believed that I meant what I had written from Milan, and he at once proposed to appoint me supercargo to one of his ships trading along the coasts of France, Spain, and Portugal, to distribute to his corre- spondents their supplies of oil. But I soon explained to him that anything would not suit a man brought up as I had been, and that my pretence to take a part in his con- cern was to mask the real object of my visit, which was to escape the conscription to which I should become amenable in a short time. Now that I was under the protection of 56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the Genoese flag I deemed myself safe. Not quite sure of that^ my good boy/^ said the old gentleman ; the French authorities rule paramount with us as they do at Milan, and it will be difficult to conceal yourself long here without detection, unless you consent to live quietly.’' This I agreed to do, for after all it was by no means my intention to settle in Genoa. But how could a young fellow just emerged ex ephebis, Y\k.Q Pamphilus in the ^^Andria,” playing the guitar, possessing a fine tenor voice, and his head full of the latest canzonettes, resist the temptation thrown in his way on the third night after his arrival, of joining a party to serenade La bella Pallavicini (a Marchesa and a prime toast, as well as my townswoman), who had just arrived at the albergo ^'La Croce di Malta,” and only for a few days 1 We did go, and the tenor being recognized in the little orchestra, was invited to join the conversazione upstairs. There was renewed the pleasant friendly intercourse which had been frequent in Milan, where the lady in question held supreme sway. Her name, which it delighted me so much to pronounce then, became many years after one I almost abhorred, when her grandson, grown to be a general in the Italian army, ordered the discharge that shattered the leg of Garibaldi at Aspromonte. It is my fixed and well-considered opinion, that to a young man engaged in serious pursuits, the prodigious waste of hours of the night, and not unfrequently even of the day, which music is certain to entail, is perhaps its least evil, more particularly to one who has to practise a learned profession. But there are other and even more serious dis- advantages to be deprecated under the circumstances, which will occur to the minds of most men of the world, dangerous alike to both soul and body. In the course of sixty years of inter-social life, I have not known a single individual remarkable for musical talents as an amateur in early life. A FRESH FRiaHT. 57 monopolizinoj all the invitations at evening parties, receiving all the petting and charming accueils of the fair sex, who proved good for anything else afterwards. On my first settling in London as a half-pay naval surgeon in the early part of this century, what most stood in my way was the fact that at the brilliant soirees of Lady Charleville in Piccadilly Terrace, I had often alternated the recitations of one of the authors of ^^The Eejected Addresses’" with my singing lo que soy contrabandista, y a nadie tengo miedo,” accompanied by the guitar. That fashionable reputation stuck to me long enough to make me abjure my talents, for whenever the name of the Doctor” was mentioned or recom- mended, the icy remark invariably followed — Oh, he who used to play and sing on the Spanish guitar, you mean.” Let no prudent father be anxious to make of his son a musical dilettante ! My joyous life at Genoa was not destined to last long^ for my uncle one day came in great distress to inform me that inquiries had been made by the Minister at War of the Ligurian Republic, at the suggestion of the city autho- rities in Milan, as to whether a certain conscript, whose name had been inserted in the urn for an approaching ballot, was not in some part of the Ligurian territory, for in case his name should be drawn he would be expected to make his appearance at head-quarters, or be declared a deserter. I was aware that there was no trifling with the powers then in Milan, for they were entirely under the tyrannical rule of the French Commandant de Place, who was no other than the dashing and handsome Murat, recently married to Caroline Bonaparte, and who cared very little for either President Melzi or the Directors of the Italian Republic. In such an emergency I had no other resource left than to retire speedily from Genoa, and seek refuge somewhere out of the control of republican laws -T 58 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. •who had foolishly advocated theirprinciples, and had invoked their sway in my boyish Jacobinical Saturnalia. It served me right. Austrian territory was now my only Camp of Eefuge.'’^ There I might perchance meet with my eldest brother, who I knew had not only succeeded in joining the Austrian head-quarters when he left Milan a refugee conscript, but had since obtained a civil appoint- ment in one of the eastern cities recently ceded by the French to the Emperor of Austria. The difficulty was, how to cross the frontiers without a passport, and such a docu- ment in my own name was out of the question. A brilliant thought occurred to me, and on the spur of the moment I communicated it to my uncle, who approved of it as the best pis oiler for the occasion. A popular and renowned company of comedians — ^^La Compagnia Fabbrichesi — had been performing with great success for several months at the Teatro Carcario in Milan, a jewel of a theatre for its beautiful structure, the work of the architect Ganonica, the same who erected the great amphitheatre in Milan capable of holding 20,000 spec- tators. This company had afterwards come to Genoa, where they had been performing to crowded houses in the Teatro Carlo Felice, and they were now about to leave for a winter s engagement at one of the seven theatres of which O o Venice boasts during the Carnival. I presented myself to the impresario, and sought to be enrolled as a member of his company. He had just lost the services, from illness, of his secondo amoroso.” This part I offered to undertake if approved on a trial, which was to be strictly private. My experience with the amateur Filodrammatici now stood me in good stead,^ and I was accepted. The engagement, mutually signed, was for three months, exclusive of the time spent in the journey with the company to Venice. As may be supposed, I did not insist A ^^SECONDO AMOROSO.” 59 on the amount of salary. Indeed, I knew that to be a fixed sum according to the rank occupied in the company. Mine was the second, and the title spoke for itself both as to my standing and also as to the sort of business I had to under- take, respecting which it was stipulated that I should in- variably appear before my audience nel pin gentil ad- dobbo,” that is, dressed like a gentleman. I was ready to agree to anything so that I could but get on the list of the company, for which the manager in the ordinary course of things obtained a general passport on his own personal responsibility from the authorities, specifying the number, but not necessarily the individual names. I, however, gave mine, in order to obviate any suspicion either on the part of the manager or among those who were about to become my companions for a time. By converting my Christian name into the diminutive, and calling myself Signor Augustini, secondo amoroso,” I complied with the requi- site formalities of the Genoa police, suppressing only my family name. The thing succeeded completely, and in less than three days the company quitted Genoa in four public carriages for Piacenza, there to embark on the river Po, with the object of proceeding the rest of the journey by water on that wide and uninteresting river. But as it was the intention of Signor Fabbrichesi to stop by the way at three or four of the largest cities we were to pass, it suited my taste and disposition quite well. All 1 had to hope for was, that among the number of my companions during the journey I might find some congenial spirit, witty and agree- able as players are said to be, and were wont to be in the days of Goldoni, the brief abstracts and chronicles of the times.” Above all, I trusted that the ^^seconda amorosa ” was neither ugly nor vulgar, and would not prove too exigeante. How well do I remember, as if it were an occurrence of 60 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the other day, the curious ark into which I entered as it lay opposite the city of Piacenza below the bridge of boats, with a motley aud merry company of ladies and gentlemen, attended by servants of every capacity and status ! Of Papagalli and Bolognese pugs there were several. A cembalo and a harp, with a violin or two and a clarionet, were also shipped ; these few instruments being intended simply to enable the tenor and la cantatrice to practise some of their parts during the lengthy voyage, for although the Fabbrichesian renown had been acquired by tragic and comic representations, there was not unfrequently introduced a farce or burletta of which music was a component part, as in the case of the French vaudevilles. The vessel engaged for us was of the class called Buoin- an immense flat-bottomed boat decked over two- thirds of her length ; but without any division whatever between decks from stern to stern. The floor was covered with matting, and light was admitted through a series of small square windows on each side. The deck, forming the covering of the great saloon, as I may call it, had the form of a waggon top, and served only for the Capitano and four boatmen to walk over in the exercise of their calling, some- times rowing, sometimes pushing the boat with long poles, and at other times spreading out either a lateen or a square sail to catch the breeze and so help us on in our move- ments. Our progress was slow, and the course monotonous to such a degree, that by the third day I had become habitually drowsy, and unfit to play the amoroso either in the second or in any lesser degree. For one instant only was my energy awakened on beholding one morning all my com- panions rushing to the upper deck with telescopes and opera glasses in hand, which they directed to a ruined looking castle that loomed at no great distance as we arrived oppo- JOURNEY IN A BUCINTORO. 61 Bite the confluence of the Adda river. I was reminded by the Signor Poeta of the company, that what I beheld was the Castle of Pizzighettone, in which had been immured the ill-fated royal captive of Pavia until it pleased his im_- perial captor to transfer him to safer keeping in Spain. To one who for three successive summers had been in the habit of perambulating the Parco which surrounds Pavia and a part of his own college, the very field on which, in 1525, the fatal conflict had taken place that cost Francis I. his whole ^^hormis Vhonneur” the view of the dungeon assigned to him after capture was sufficient to rouse me from the cramped state of mind from which I was suffering through an idle and monotonous existence. Our first halt was at Cremona. The arrangement was, that such members of the company as wished, and could afford, to lodge on shore, should do so during the halt. Each person had a fixed sum doled out for the night's expenses, which included the principal repast ; for in our bulky ark, unlike that which carried our early ancestors to the top of Ararat or the Finger Mountain, there were no means for decent cooking on board, and still fewer con- trivances for decently sleeping at night, except for the ladies. The vessel would therefore at the end of each day touch at some important town. Anxious to keep up my assumed character, I used always to be among the foremost applicants for the daily dole to be spent on shore. It was late when we reached Cremona, and I did not care to waste hours in revisiting a city I knew already. I preferred rest at the Albergo delle due Torri. Some of our very early risers next morning ascended the Torrazzo, or great tower, the loftiest in Italy, rising to about 400 feet, for the purpose of enjoying an extensive south view of the Valley of the Po, the many tributary streams entering the great river through its north and south banks, with names 62 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. some romantic through poetical legends^ some historical, others rendered classic as dields of battle, or as the birth- place of an illustrious minstrel or a valorous chieftain, all now more or less known as involved in the political conflicts of the last half-century. The next station was Casal Maggiore ; and then came Guastalla. This is the southernmost bend of the Eiver Po, which thence assumes a sudden direct northward course as far as Borgoforte, in the immediate vicinity of. Mantua. Eeaders of public journals will recollect, at the bare mention of these names, the scenes of those sanguinai’y struggles between the Italo-Gallic troops and the Austrian army, which in our own days were to settle definitively the fate of Italy and of the gallant House of Savoy. It happened that Guastalla was the native city of our prima donna, and a delay was promised to enable her to visit her family. From some strong feeling of apathy, probably the effect of the dull life I was leading, I had not taken much notice of the lady, whose whole behaviour entitled her to our respect. She was a splendid woman, and acted her parts admirably, for I had seen her on the stage both at Milan and in Genoa. Strange to say, when solicited to read to us during some of the hours of our tedious voyage, she admitted her inability to do so. This probably arose from the fact, that of all the members of the company constituting what was called the first class or set, the only one who could read out, or do so in a perfect manner — such as I have never witnessed at any subsequent period of my life, except in the case of Mrs. Siddons, or her niece, Fanny Kemble — was the buffo or comic actor, who is called '' Caratterista,'"’ of the company. He was a gentleman by birth, and had adopted the stage from a pure and' earnest passion for an histrionic life. A prima donna would never consent to place herself in competition with a THE HOME OP ARIOSTO. 63 buffo, however gravely and tragically he might declaim. So she declined absolutely to give us the opportunity of judging of her ability in that art which is the groundwork of a real actress. But there was a grain or two of ill- humour in the case, I suspect, for as some French writer, whose name I forget, has observed — “ II est rare qu’une femme parfaitement belle soit aimable : elle croit commune- ment que la nature a tout fait pour elle ; qu’il suffit de se montrer pour enchanter et sdduire, et que ce moyen les vaut tons.” On arriving at Borgoforte some wished to land and proceed to visit the neighbouring fortress of Mantua, which was destined fifty years later to become one of the angles of the formidable quadrilateral, that made but a sorry figure after all. But Signor Fabbrichesi and the majority of us protested against any more delay on our way, and we proceeded at once to Lago Scuro. Here the immediate vicinity of Ferrara offered us the best chance of hospitality, as well as the opportunity, dear to Italians, to behold the house in which Ariosto had lived, and at the same time the Lunatic Hospital of St. Anne, in which Duke Alphonso II. confined Tasso during those intermittent attacks of mental delusion to which he was subject. The house in which the writer of “ tante coglionerie,” Lodovico Ariosto, had lived is distinguished by a Latin inscription which I could not well decipher. But young as I was, and a half-fledged poet myself, I deemed it a piece of good fortune to have seen the house in which “ un tanto poeta” — the Italian Homer (as Professor Cardelli styles him) — had lived and had conaposed his forty-six cantos of the “Orlando Furioso.” Eeturned on board from this, which was to be the last land excursion, and resuming the concluding portion of our water journey, we all seemed of a sudden to have got into 64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. good-humour with one another^ or into that mood in which a mixed assemblage of gentlemen and their fair companions find themselves after a long and silent repast, if they have had the luck of concurrent libations of Ehenish and Sillery Mousseux. We chatted on what we had seen, and were about to see presently at Venice, some members opening their lips who had never found words before. The prospect of being so near the goal of our desires had much to do with raising our spirits. The prima donna even, descend- ing from her stilts, condescended to ask me to give them a specimen of my talent in declamation. Her request being backed by that of others, including my seconda amorosa, I was induced to comply with it, and proceeded to recite from memory (suiting the action to the words) that most affecting episode in the fifth canto of the Inferno,'' which is susceptible of as much play as a whole part would be in a duodramatic performance of the most heartrending character. A sussuco, or low whisper of approbation, accompanied my delivery of — Qnesti clie mai da me non fia diviso La bocca ini baccio tutto tremantey the seconda amorosa curling her lips in disdain at the words. My triumph, however, was at the very next verse, when, with all the poet’s intended indignation, I broke forth with — ‘‘ Galeotto fii il libro e chi lo scrisse.’^ Bravo, bravo ! " universally ; Benissimo !" from the statuesque prima donna, who congratulated thfe company on having secured such a representative of the tender passion among their number. Here was evidently an opening to a more cordial acquaintance between us, so little did she suspect that I had been all along playing a part which it had been my preconceived determination to cast off as soon as it had served my special purpose. ARRIVAL AT VENICE. 65 Venice we readied in small boats obtained at Mestre, and on the evening of the tenth day after leaving Piacenza, the Fabbrichesi company saw themselves installed in the quarters provided for them in the vicinity of the Teatro S. Benedetto — myself excepted, who requested permission to occupy an independent apartment at the Albergo d^ Europa. Strange as the society was with whom I spent those ten days, considering the suddenness of the introduction, the absence of all motives of reciprocal sympathies, and that mine was but a false position within their circle, I adopted the great Frederick's principle, as expressed in one of his epistles to Voltaire — After all, what is most desirable in the world, is to live in peace. Let us then live foolishly with fools, that we may live quietly." Our good impresario would not suffer me to indulge long in so tranquil a mood, for in less than four-and-twenty hours I was summoned one morning to theAlieatre to read a part in a comedy in full company on the boards, pre- paratory to its being studied afterwards for an immediate representation. There were at that time two very popular play- writers — Camillo Federici and il Marchese Albergati, who disputed between them the palm of pre-eminence in dramatic writing. Their productions were always sure to attract, for old Goldoni was set on one side. I was not therefore surprised when Signor Fabbrichesi selected for my dehut a play by the former author, which had always been a great favourite with the public at S. Benedetto. The play was entitled I pregiudizi dei Paesi piccoli," an original production, not a translation of Les prejuges des petits pays." The play, I remembered, had '' hitto furore " at Florence, at Milan, and also at Genoa, and was always sure to attract folia" at any of the Venetian theatres. The part assigned to me was that of il Barone Odoardo, who had surreptitiously married a young lady unknown to, VOL. T F 66 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. and in disobedience of, his father. Now supposing me to have been serious in assuming the career I had, for a very different object, thus far followed, a character of any sort on the boards, still less one representing a clandestine Benedict, would not have suited me. But I had a para- mount objection to the part, stronger than any I could allege ; namely, that I neither wished nor did I in good earnest mean to appear before the public, and so I distinctly declared to the worthy impresario, who had anticipated a star” ill his recruit. The result of this unexpected laconic declaration and determination to refuse to work in accord- ance with our agreement was a citation before the imperial Austrian Commissioner of Police, a species of dignified (fivil magistrate appointed to decide in all disputed cases of written engagements, no matter of what kind. I received visits from more than one of my ci-devant travelling companions ; but I Avas deaf to all entreaties, and the question was left for judicial decision. Little did I suspect under what circumstances the decision would be given, for on the following mnrning, Avhen before the Imperial Com- missioner the plaintiff and defendant appeared, the latter found himself in the presence of his eldest brother ! His surprise and astonishment at so unexpected a recognition, not less than my OAvn, may readily be imagined. The whole secret was now diAailged : prh^ate explanations were given, apologies offered and accepted, sums received as salary or for board Avere refunded, and thanks to a gentle pressure on the part of the man in authority, the escapade was not only excused, but declared by the impresario as a most successful denoument of a troublesome plot Avorthy of the stage. CHAPTER V. 1802-3. Venice — Farewell to Italy — The Quarnero — Le Bocche di Cattaro — Meleda^ the place of St. Paul’s shipwreck — Arrive at Cephalonia — The Ionian Islands in 1803 and 1870 — Sir Charles Napier’s opinions — Beach Corfu —Society there — Meeting with Mr. Hamilton — Become physician to the English Embassy — First step towards England. My brother had at once removed me from the Albergo d’ Enropa to his own official residence. I did not find him quite so complaisant a relative as my uncle at Genoa. He did not approve of the scheme I had so successfully carried out in escaping (as he had himself done before) the military grip of Bonaparte^, though he rejoiced at my success. But he peremptorily insisted upon my breaking off at once^ and for good^ all connection with the merry Fabbrichesians, which I readily promised to do, with only one reservation, that I should be permitted once to witness the performance of our prima donna in the first representation she might give in any of her principal parts in tragedy. Enchanted was I when the performance did take place, as must have been all those who witnessed and showered applause on her as the Antigone of Alfieri. I felt at the moment that I was in the presence of no mean representative of the wretched Boeotian princess. Here was an Italian Melpomene. Truly I exhibited a great proof of submissive acquiescence to my brother s desire when I could, as I did, resist the temptation of going to express in person to the great actress my feelings of admiration. The consideration of what should be my next course was 68 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. adjourned for a few days, my brother wishing to introduce me to some of the leading physicians and literary characters in Venice, and also that I should see the most notable edifices and institutions, in order that I might not go about the world without being able to give some account of what I had seen of the ancient Queen of the Adriatic. Accord- ingly, accompanied by one of his clerks, I was lionized over the city, acquiring at the same time a greater insight than I could boast of before into old Venetian politics and intrigues, and, what I cared for most, picking up a bqtter knowledge of the history of Venetian painting, which the many churches, the many palaces, and the ducal residence afforded ample opportunities for admiring. Of all these impressions I retain but a confused recollection, except the conviction that I had gained some tact and judgment, and unquestionably more knowledge than I before possessed of the perfection in the art of painting that had been achieved in my native country. Above all, the boldness, the multitudinous variety of designs, and the rich colouring of Tintoretto left an immense impression on me^ which to this day renders me almost incapable of impar- tially estimating other pencils and other colourists. At the date of my first acquaintance with the City of the Isles, the commonwealth of St. Mark had been extinguished five years,; but the genuine Venetian type of the first settlers on the Rialto, eleven centuries before, was still sur- viving. Austrian, Hungarian, and Croat uniforms marshal- imp; on the Piazza di S. Marco and the Eiva dei Schiavoni alone disturbed the idea, formed after a ramble of three or four days by quays, bridges, and gondolas, that I was in the Venice of the Gontarini and of Marino Faliero. At every moment the “ Council of Forty,” the yet more oligarchic “ Ten,” and the “ Libro d’ Oro,” surged in my mind, to bring back the memory of the might and glory of OCCUPATION IN VENICE. 69 a republic wliicli had been once reckoned among the great powers of Europe ; w^hile the appearance and manners of the people, seen out of doors not less than within their lofty palaces, brought before me the types of Venetian life which Consuelo,'' under the magic pen of George Sand, has since so strikingly de23icted. As a man far advanced in the nineteenth century, I rejoice that the privilege of having lived in the eighteenth has enabled me to have a glimpse, though but a faint one, of that almost perpetual tone of dramatic life in Venice, the universal spread of which served to pull down the republic, just as a similar tone of corrupt and licentious life sapped the foundation of even more puissant republics and realms — those of Greece and of Eome, of Nineveh and of Carthage. Of introductions, I recollect that to the Ateneo, a scien- tific and literary association flourishing to this day, at one of the meetings of which I exhibited Volta's experiments as performed before our class at Pavia, and which were scarcely yet known at Venice. Before I left the city I had the honour of being elected one of its corresponding mem- bers. Professors Aglietti, Borda, and Brera I successively visited, the first as being the leading physician of the day in Venice, while the other two were old acquaintances, having been formerly professors at Pavia. To the latter I am indebted for my medical knowledge of the effects of laurel water — due to the presence of that powerful remedial agent, prussic acid — which it was my good fortune some years later to introduce into the medical practice of this country in an extended treatise,^ that led to the remedy being accepted by the profession, and admitted into the London Pharmacopoeia. * “ An Historical and Practical Treatise on the Internal Use of the Hydro- cyanic (Prussic) Acid in Pulmonary Consumption.” 1820. 70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. Of social introductions one sufficed. La Contessa Albrizzi gave welcome to all literary and distinguished characters^ national or foreign. Her salons were the rendezvous of the elite of talent, literature, art, fashion, and good manners. Her G-reek face I remember quite well; not pretty, but pleasing. Her father, Count Teotochi, was a native of Corfu, and her husband, Joseph Albrizzi, was a patrician of Venice and a State inquisitor. She was a great friend of Canova, of Alfieri, and of Cesarotti, the translator of Homer ; and herself an authoress, having written some observations on sculpture and a series of delineations of eminent men, entitled I rittrati.^' Altogether, few salons in modern times could be compared with hers. I only remember anything approaching them in the at homes of Madame de Stael in London twelve years later, which used to bring back to my memory the Albrizzi’s conver- sazioni at Venice ; but only as regards the society assem- bled, for when compared with the splendid apartments and luxurious appliances of the Venetian Palazzo, the square, confined town drawing-rooms in Argyle Street (lighted by a few candles and argand lamps) were dwarfed into insig- nificance. I heard with much regret of the death of the Countess Albrizzi in 1836, the very year which another death nearer to me had rendered the darkest in my life. To a lover of music few Italian cities could offer a more varied or a greater treat than could V enice at that moment. Marches!, the great soprano of the day, vied with Mombelli, the first tenor at the Teatro S. Benedetto ; while Elizabeth Billington and Giuseppa Grassini each in turn enchanted the enraptured audience. As brother of the Commissario Imperial e, I had of course the entree to all public places, and the temptations for a prodigal waste of time in trifling and useless engagements were strong and many. But I needed not the watchful eye nor the strong hand of PREPARE TO LEAVE ITALY. 71 my good brother to keep me within the bounds of the strictest propriety, for I felt so thoroughly disgusted with idling and simply killing time, that I longed for some serious occupation. One gets tired at last in Venice of running from the Pisani to the Barbarigo Palace, or from that of Manfrini (whose famous Giorgione was afterwards immortalized by Byron) to the Ca d’ Oro, with its Saracenic and Arabic styles of architecture. Nay, even the Venetian palatial structure the most impressive for its historical associations and its romantic destiny, palls at length on the heavily- taxed imagination. The Academy of Fine Arts offered me resources for more serious and congenial employment, giving me facilities for consulting works calculated to enlighten and instruct me in my meditated journey to the East, for to that plan at last my brother and I had come in our mutual deliberations. Finding me quite determined to throw myself on the wide world at once, and of taking my chance without fixing on any distinct engagement except that of travelling and seeing the world,^'’ my brother abandoned all ideas of procuring for me a consular appointment in one of the Greek islands, where I might combine the exercise of my profession — a combination neither inconsistent nor unfre- quent in the Levant. No ; I would accept nothing but my perfect independence, with such a modest allowance as he could afford me for my outfit. For the rest I would trust in Providence. AVith such a determination, suitable prepa- rations were soon made, and my equipment did not entail much trouble. Convenient apparel, a small collection of useful books, and every contrivance that would facilitate my taking notes of whatever I might observe in my travels worth recording, together with one or two letters of intro- duction to persons who could be of service to me in the 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Ionian Islands — wliither it was my fixed intention first to direct my course — were all that was required. My inti- mate acquaintance with many of the distinguished persons I met nightly at the Countess Albrizzi’s soirees procured me their testimonials; which served me afterwards for plea- sant and agreeable as well as useful introductions ; but it was to my brother I was indebted for a business-like letter to a gentleman — Signor Pietro Cazzaittg a resident and wealthy proprietor in Cephalonia— who proved to me not only a useful but a lasting friend. I was fortunate in finding a Eagusan master of a polacca, who was returning to his native place with a cargo of mixed merchandize; which he had shipped partly at Trieste partly at Venice, and was about to discharge at different places on the eastern coast of the Adriatic in the course of his journey to Eagusa. Some of his officers were Greeks, a circumstance which proved of use to me, inasmuch as I set myself at once to study modern Greek. I had at last become so impatient of putting my wild and indefinite scheme into practice, that when the moment arrived for bidding adieu to Venice, its pleasing society, and my brother, I did so without a pang, fully trusting to meet him again under as good, if not better auspices, as indeed it pleased God to grant me. On the 2nd of January, 1803, the Eagusan polacca, Bos- coAvitch, left the Lido on her Avay doAvn the Adriatic. It was fortunate for one who had never been to sea to find himself unaffected by the ship's movements, as I soon ascertained to my great delight. To me, Avho Avas afterAvards to live for years on the sea, this constitutional immunity from sea- sickness proved a great boon. I did not care much, there- fore, for the zigzag course of the polacca as she entered the Quarnero, that intricate and lengthened cluster of islands and islets, the navigation of which required perpetual THE QUARNERO, 73 humouring of the wind and a constant look out for smooth water. This Quarnero commences at Pola, and extends to Zara. At Pola our master had business to transact, which detained us a day. The Eomans must have been capti- vated by the beauty of the port, which looks like a placid lake surrounded by gentle hills, as well as by the security it offers to the largest fleet, sheltered from almost every wind, and lying in deep water to the very edge of the shore, otherwise they would not have raised on the pro- jecting promontory the famous arena of which the encir- cling walls, like those at Verona, are still visible; nor would they have erected the triumphal arch which marks the city entrance. Arrived at Zara, tiny craft came off to barter cases of delicious Eosolio and Maraschino for the silks and the ceramic and glass articles we had brought from Venice ; but the weather, which hitherto had favoured our progress with that inconstancy that marks the navigation down the Adriatic, became suddenly threatening, and our captain was unwilling to lose any more time by lying under the lee of the Isola Grossa, as is the wont of Dalmatian craft in general in very rough weather. Anticipating an approach- ing storm, he added sail, and tacked out of this dangerous Quarnero, making for more sea-room in the direction of Lissa, that ill-fated island which was destined more than sixty years later to give its name to the disastrous and humbling sea-fight with which the new-born realm of Italy initiated its naval chronicles, less fortunate than Augustus at Actium, not many hundred miles farther south. The Eagusans have always enjoyed a high repute as mariners, and I found good reason for endorsing the truth of that renown in the skilful manner in which our captain conducted us safely into the port of Eagusa from Zara (a distance of about sixty leagues) in three days in the very 74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR, GRANVILLE. teeth of a tornado blowing from the African shores, by which the great waves of the Ionian Sea were driven in masses up the Adriatic. Eagusa, an insignificant place, was three years later fated to receive the victorious soldiers of France, who drove many thousand Eussian troops from the town and the district, while their general, Marmont, found here his baton de marechal as well as the title of Due de Eaguse. Our captain’s voyage terminated here, but he soon found in port a trabaccolo from Cephalonia, which was about returning thither almost immediately, and with whose skipper a proper bargain was made to convey me to the port of Luxury in that island, which we reached at the end of three days with favouring breezes from the north. The only recollections I have of anything particular during this journey, is that of the chilling horror I experienced on having pointed out to me, as we passed the place at a short distance, the huge fortresses of Santa Eosa and Punto d’ Ottro, forming the entrance to the Maledette Bocche di Cattaro, over which frowned the utterly barren and lofty mountains of Monte Cassone and Eisano, for within the dens of those fortresses (which I had narrowly escaped a twelvemonth before) perished many of the leaders of reviving Italy — Porro, Villa, Easori, Cattaneo, Confalonieri, Pallavicini, and many others. At the time of recording a painful personal recollection, the political world is looking towards that identical region as the scene of a bloody insurrection among the mountaineers of those rugged fastnesses, who fiercely challenge the power which had converted their home into political prisons. A trabaccolo is a sort of decked sailing barque, neither a cutter nor a lateen boat, and one very common on the coasts of Dalmatia. On occasions of calm, when the sails are idly flapping, it may be worked at a tortoise pace by REACH CEPHALONIA. 75 throwing out long heavy oars on both sides, to keep the vessel steady to her course, that she may make all the way possible. A sea voyage in such a ship, with such appli*- ances and such food (olives and oil, with hard biscuit), during three long days and nights, and only a chance laconic colloquy in Greek or lingua franca with one of the crew, was a trial almost too severe for a landsman just escaped from being pampered, spoiled, and petted amidst the luxuries of his native city and other places not less attrac- tive. But when I again remember that such a voyage in this Illyrian boat lasted three long days and as many nights, horresco referens ! Possibly Paul of Tarsus did not fare better in his journeys through the Cyclades in some such vessel, or on his visit with Titus to Illyricum. If so, the Apostle was justified in adding to his eloquent description of his trials and hardships — In perils of waters. I made Cephalonia my first halting-place for two reasons : first, because I had received a pressing invitation to spend a couple of months with Signor Cazzaitti, to whom I had been strongly recommended by a rich Greek merchant at Venice, a friend of my good brother; and next, because as my principal object was to make myself master of the vernacular, or Romaic language, my chance of success in that respect was greater in an island which had not entirely surrendered its own language in exchange for that of its old political masters, than it would have been at Corfu, whither I might have first directed my course in my voyage from Ragusa. But to Corfu I had at that time another objection, for it had been represented to On the Dalmatian coast an island called Meleda (Latin, Melita) is stated to have been Melita (wrongly assumed to have been Malta), where St. Paul was shipwrecked. The statement is made in a quarto volume with illustrations, published in Venice in 1730, by Ignatius Georgius — sic : D. Paulus Apostolus in Mari, quod nunc Venetus sinus dicitur, naufragus, et Melitse Dalmatensis insulse, post naufragium hospes. 76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. me as an outrageously gay place, a licentious capital, where I was likely to fall into habits of dissipation and idleness. When I read, as I have done since I commenced to trace the outlines of my present performance (July, 1869), all that has been written and published in this country on the Ionian Islands, more especially the off-hand opinions of Sir Charles Napier, as we find them scattered among the many letters he addressed to his mother from Cephalonia, to which island he had been appointed as Eesident, I feel almost inclined to suspect that what I recollect of that place and its sister islands cannot be other than the remembrance of dreams rather than real reminiscences of facts. If, indeed, Cephalonia nineteen years after my visit had become such as Sir Charles represents it in his day, then I unhesitatingly declare that the British rule im- posed on those islands by the treaties of Paris and Vienna had proved to be a rule of iron, productive of all those dire abominations so forcibly insisted upon by one who did not deal in fiction. The time of my residence in Cephalonia was not spent in idleness. Indifferently qualified by my acquaintance with ancient Greek, which I neglected at the university for the Latin, much more cultivated in Italian schools, where we practised Terentian colloquies in preference, I had not much help in my endeavours to master modern Greek. Still, practice with the natives both in Luxury and at Zante, which island I next visited, and from which I was actually driven by the frequent recurrence of earth- quakes, that invariably impelled people to run out of their wooden houses to rush to the sea-shore for safety, enabled me to acquire sufficient knowledge of the vernacular idiom to render my intercourse with the people of the country easy and pleasant. My acquaintance also wdth two or 77 doctors’ pay in GREECE. three of the resident medical men, natives who had been educated at Pisa or Padua (Doctor Cimera being one of them), gave me facilities for becoming conversant with the sanitary condition of the country and the regulations adopted by the Venetian authorities. My own individual services were also tendered and accepted in private cases where consultations were needed, and I had no reason to complain of professional jealousy. From all I learned, Cephalonia, or any of the other islands, would not have tempted me to settle professionally in any of them. Neither have the political changes brought about twenty years later by the English protectorate, made me regret not having taken up my permanent abode in Cepha- lonia, where I find the very gentleman I have just named cited in a return by Sir Charles Napier as one of three Public Doctors ” in Argostoli, whose monthly salary from the government amounted to £2 126*. ! As I am recording reminiscences of facts observed and refiections suggested by them more than half a century old, it cannot be expected that all or any of the important social and political questions since arisen during that long interval connected with these islands should find place here ; but such statements from memory or memoranda sixty years old need not preclude me from making oppor- tune remarks on what has taken place within the half- century since my visit to the localities. The Ionian Islands have undergone more than one political change in that period, the last of which has consisted in their total abandonment by the protecting powers, followed by their annexation to the pigmy kingdom of Greece. The cession of these ill-fated dependencies was a humane act on the part of Great Britain. It was at the same time an impolitic act, and a great mistake. Malta can never again be deemed the only key to the Adriatic and the Archi- 78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. pelago ; and yet tlie time may come when such another key, or both keys, may be required. Indeed, that time is near at hand. Cephalonia would have been that other key. By the end of January, 1803, I found myself, a tolerably apt Eomaic scholar, within the lazaretto of Corfu. For three days the quarantine lasted. A ship coming from Zante, from which island I had arrived, and where I searched in vain for the tomb in which is said repose the ashes of Cicero's gentle love, Tertia Antonia, could not at that time deliver a clean bill of health. When released I presented myself at once to General Eomieux, the French representative minister to the Ionian Government, and claimed his countenance and protection as a citizen of the Eepubblica Italian a, sister of the French Eepublic, thinking that his patronage would be likely to be of more service to me than a mere Austrian passport. Corfu was then the capital of a princely commonwealth, with a senate and ministers, but under the triple political control of France, England, and Eussia ; the latter, however, being the pre™ dominant power. Count Mocenigo, the representative of the Emperor of Eussia, ruled in fact the local government, having at his back, in case of need, a Eussian squadron under the command of Admiral Siniavine, whom I used to meet at dinner at the house of Count Mocenigo. Strange freak of Fortune ! That very squadron, that very admiral, five years later were to become a prize to Great Britain at Lisbon, by the Convention of Cintra, and I, in my capacity of naval surgeon in an English line-of-battle ship, was destined to be placed with a prize crew on board the Venus, a frigate forming part of the very Eussian squadron I had visited in friendly intercourse with its commander at Corfu. Count Mocenigo had adopted probably the surest as well SOCIETY IN CORFU. 79 as the promptest mode of making himself popular at Corfu, by giving frequent dinner parties remarkable for their excellence. Here again that lucky guitar to accompany Italian ditties, to which I was now able to add Eomaic iambics, stood me in better stead than the French generahs personal introduction in making me an almost necessary appendage to the post-prandial select coteries, and served to give me importance, such as it was. Brilliant conversa- zioni were held at more than one of the highest families every night, among which those of the Countess Dousmany, of the Countess Bulgari, wife of the Neapolitan minister, and of Spiridion Foresti, the English consul, were con- spicuous and the most in fashion. In one or two of these noble houses high play was carried on in the dearth of more rational and intellectual occupation. The attractions to the green cloth I must admit were many and not easily to be resisted. Talleyrand, who had worn a mitre, was not ashamed (so states Sir Henry Bulwer) to confess, at the mature age of forty, that he had won thirty thousand francs at play in private society and at a chess club. But neither pleasure nor dissipation was likely to arrest or impede an innate disposition to higher aspirations, or quench the desire to escape out of the slough of luxury and self-indulgence to attain the double object with which I had set off on my indefinite travels, namely, to improve and increase the knowledge I had brought away from home, and to make its results professionally the source of my future income. The habit of nightly frequenting the rmnions just described, offered the opportunity of securing both those important objects, by bringing about my personal acquaint- ance with a gentleman frequenting Count Forestfis house, as well as Major Eicefs, and who had been filling the post of private secretary in Lord Elgin's embassy at Constanti- 80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. iiople. I allude to the late William Eichard Hamilton, afterwards Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under the Marquis of Wellesley and Lord Castlereagh, and finally British Minister at the Court of Naples. With this gentleman I had had frequent opportunities for conversa- tion in the French and Italian languages, with both of which he was perfectly conversant. He had heard me speak Eomaic, and had learned from Count Mocenigo under what circumstances I had come to Corfu and had been recommended to him. The Count added that he believed my intention to be to proceed through Greece to Con- stantinople, there to settle, if possible, as a medicaF practi- tioner. In my replies to Mr. Hamilton’s inquiries, he was not slow in discovering that he had to deal with a young enthusiast who had profited well from early classical teaching. The fact of my wishing to proceed to and settle at Constantinople I confirmed, for I saw at once that on my part I had to treat with a steady, matter-of-fact gentle- man, very different from the rest of the signori, cavalieri, conti, generali e ministri who fluttered around Mesdames Bulgari and Dousmany every evening. I therefore listened to him with more than ordinary attention, for a sort of inward presentiment, which I perfectly Avell remember, seemed to suggest to me the notion that this very indi- vidual, some years older than myself, was likely to sway my destiny in life. I had evidently made no unfavour- able impression on him, and as I knew of his intention of leaving Corfu in a few days, I expected shortly to receive from him a letter of recommendation I had requested him to give me for Stamboul. I did hear from him, but on a very different subject, which at once altered my intentions for the present. This is the translation of his Italian higlietto : — '' Dear Doctor, In three days I propose to leave Corfu and return through Greece to my post at Constant!- A BTEP TOWAEDS ENGLAND. 81 nople. If you woulcl like to accompany me in . your medical capacity, you can during our journey take tlie title of physician to the English Embassy at Constanti- nople, Avhich, as private secretary to the minister, I am in a position to offer you. As to honorarium, we will speak of that another time.’' Of course I jumped at the offer, for my own views carried me further than the proposer contemplated. I immediately beheld the prospect of finding my way to that country Avhence in the female line I traced my descent, and for which 1 had always felt that sympathy which had induced them at home to call me V Inodesino." Now I O was about to be associated with a gentleman, a native of, and occupying a conspicuous place in, that very country. I shall have many occasions, I thought, of conversing with him on this subject, which the unexpected opportunity of the moment renders important to me, and who knoAvs Avhether this very casual acquaintance and connection Avith the secretary of the English ambassador at the court of Sultan Selim, may not at some distant day lead me to settle in England myself, and possibly to a neAv dynasty ! It did so. My departure from Corfu Avas my first step toAvards England. In parting Avith the subject of the Ionian Islands, sixty- six years after my personal acquaintance with them, as here recorded, I cannot forbear expressing an individual opinion on the general entanglement of a country for Avhich I had formed a real attachment. It is only by the light of all that has been AAuitten on this after all insignificant portion of the great European political system, that I can judge of its present condition as compared Avith what it had been under the Venetian rule, and such as I found it during my visit, and I say that fortunate would it have been for the people of the Ionian Islands had they been suffered to pass VOL. I. Cl 82 AUTOBIOaHAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the last sixty-six years in the same free and easy style of living they had been permitted to enjoy until afflicted by successive, but not successful, aristocracy, pseudo-liberty, protectorate, martial law, King Tom^ and, lastly, King George ! CHAPTER VI. 1803. Preparations to leave Corfu — Temporary loss of tlie Elgin Marbles — Departure for tire Greek continent — Arrive at Parga — The Acheron — Peach Prevesa — Arta — Enter Janina — The floating islands — Old Charon-- Interviews with Ali Pasha — Professional attendances— A lucrative appointment declined — Origin and career of Ali — His character. Me. Hamilton had not long arrived from the Greek continent, and was now about to return through it by a different route this time, bent on purely antiquarian re- search. ' His former visit had been more than half political, having had for his mission to aid the English expedition to Alexandria, to procure supplies and facilities of transport for the troops of Abercromby, and to keep up the national spirit of the Turks to their engagement with England of driving the French power out of Egypt. He was there- fore iu vested with considerable authority by an Imperial Firman from the. Porte. It was the same document in virtue of which he had previously superintended the removal from the Parthenon of those precious relics of Grecian statuary and architecture which, under the title of The Elgin Marbles,'' have since ennobled the halls of the British Museum, portions of which were recovered after shipwreck off Cerigo.* It is singular that Colonel Leake, who was in the same ship with Mr. Hamilton at the time of the shipwreck, to which he has referred in his Ee- searches,” should not have said a word of the temporary loss of the precious Athenian remains. These unique specimens of sculptural art sank in the Mentor, and but for Mr. Hamilton’s energy and perseverance would have been lost never to be recovered. He at once engaged several thousand peasants, who were employed in separate gangs in raising the Mentor, in which operation they succeeded, October 20, 1802. 84 AU^I 0BI0(4HAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE Besides military escort, the Imperial Firmn-n gave the diplomatic tiaiyeJler authority to order any number of horses for riding and the conveyance of baggage. Thus a difficult journey would be rendered tolerably easy, and much safer at a time when disbanded soldiers, wandering camp-followers, and vagabonds of every kind were scattered over the Ottoman territory. Our whole journey was to be accomplished on horseback, our own beds being taken with us, as we preferred to sleep out of doors in our rough Greek capotes rather than enter crazy or disabled khans or cara- vanserais infested with vermin. Our supplies of food would mostly be carried with us, while on my part, as being my special province, I added to the baggage a small supply of useful drugs. Should we obtain the luxury of a pillau, with a slice or two of mutton or lamb broiled before a blazing branch of a tree felled for the purpose, we were to consider ourselves very lucky, more especially if sweetened by a glass of the delightful rosoglio distilled from drugs at Corfu and from flowers at Cephalonia. Such , advantages for a novice in Grecian travel like myself could never have been expected. I enjoyed also the further advantage of finding myself associated in this, my first Hellenic peregrination, with a travelling (nnipanion who was not only an eminent scholar well versed in tlie antiquities of Greece and its most renowned writers, but an antiquary himselfi full of numismatic learning, whom the Edinburgh Keview has called The Patriarch of classical art.'’^ To all these individual merits, which never altered the modesty of his demeanour, my companion added the reputation of a learned Egyptian traveller, a reputation he well sustained by his work entitled Egyptiaca.'' Mr. Hamilton, in fact, was one of a class of men who are certain to achieve success in public life, not less than in private, through intellectual abilities enhanced by great courtesy of ARRIVE AT PARGA. 85 mavmer aipi gepialHy ojL.tempa’’'" cliaracter, and not to noblo*^ oonnections or high political appointments, must his success in life be ascribed. After an intimate, even, and never interrupted friendship of more than half a century, during which I received many proofs of the sincerity of his attachment, he has passed away in peace, leaving me, his junior by only a few years, to linger a while and grieve sincerely for his loss.^ An attack of ague in my new-found friend occasioned a delay of two or three days, but at length the 7th of April, 1803, was fixed for oun departure for Janina. In taking this course Mr. Hamilton gave an early indication of his courteous and friendly disposition towards his fellow- traveller, for he adopted the proposed route solely on my account, as he had himself already visited the capital of Ali Pasha, to whom, indeed, he had been deputed on some political matters. He was now desirous that I also should see for myself the great Albanian chief, whose name just then was in everybody's mouth. A suitable vessel was engaged, and at noon of the day already mentioned we took leave of our Corfiote friends, and with our servants embarked, steering towards Parga, on the Albanian coast, which we did not reach much before rmdnidih ofitbe^ 8 th. O “ “ - - - Passing along the streets of Parga next morning, we were not much attracted by the beauty of the women, which some modern travellers pretend to be conspicuous in the fair Pargaiotes, but we were struck by the fashion of making young boys, even in those hot days, wear the heavy outer capote, to accustom them early to bear that cumbersome national garment. * Mr. Hamilton left behind . him some rough MS. notes, written before as well as during our joint journey through Greece, replete with useful informa- tion on ancient art and learning, together with a number of interesting ancient inscriptions. 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. We left Parofa l ^ R-M. o n th e- 9tli of .AuriL ud^fter. raiimiig tile risk ot being dashed against the rocks unde; the castle, got clear out to find a fresh nor -wester, which carried us in half an hour to Fanari, or Phanaris, where we determined to bivouac on board our small vessel till day- light. We were then lying at the mouth of the Acheron, and in the neighbourhood of the stinking Cocytus. The marshes hereabouts are very extensive, and the reeds, which are plentiful, bear a flower of more than one colour- — yellow, blue, white, the stalk or cane of which is called achera."^^ Is it not probable that the name given to the river arose from that circumstance ? The Grecian etymo- logists offer another and more plausible explanation of the two names, calling one the Eiver of Pain,^^ the other the Eiver of Tears,^^ and regarding them as leading to the infernal regions. It is to be remarked that the water of the Acheron, which descends from the mountain of Suli, is perfectly sweet until near the port it enters a lake — the Acherontia Palus, mentioned by Sta*abo. The simultaneous vicinity of two such rivers and the Acherusian Marsh was a circumstance which at my present time of life I should consider fatal, but neither of us then thought anything of the exposure. At all events, it was better, to. be at the. mouth^of stream than ut its other end. Nothing, however, could_ exceed the desolation presented all round at that moment. It made the contrast still more striking with the aspect of Glyky, towards which place we proceeded on the following morning, conducted by an Albanian on foot. I had mounted a small horse hired for the occasion, and with only my Greek capote throw n across its back to protect me from its rather too prominent dorsal vertebrae, we started at 7 A.M., and on our arrival at Glyky found about one hundred Albanian soldiers in possession of the church and the water which JSEACH -PEEYESA. 87 surrounds it. Having examined the placej and cast onr eyes on the inaccessible fortress of Caco-Suli^ we retraced our steps, on the way back encountering a straggling party of Albanian soldiers, who pursued us across marshes and through rushes until we reached our boat. My capote saddle in my ignominious gallop having slipped from under me, a capitulation followed for its redemption, in which the Turkish captain of the port interfered, sending at the same time for wine, raki, tea, and sugar, to entertain us at our own expense, of course desiring us if we ever re- turned to bring him a light English musket. The Albanians appeared a rude, rough-mannered people. Our salutations were ill received by them, and they seemed very anxious about the object of our expedition, as they could not conceive it to be one of mere curiosity. An hour before daybreak on the 11th of April we quitted the mouth of the Acheron, but had some difficulty in passing the bar or bank of sand, where the river empties itself into the port. A chequered journey of calm and storm brought us at sunset to a small port surrounded by natural rocks under a" village of about twenty G-reek houses, called Glia, where we slept the night and remained the next On the 13th of A.prih the wind_ffieing adverse, we took Horses lor Prevesa, leaving the servants to follow with the baggage. The town of Prevesa, much scattered, was the spot on which my countrymen had set their foot one hundred and twenty years before, when Morosini, at the head of a powerful fleet, hauled down the Crescent and hoisted the glorious banner of St. Mark. I had letters for the physician of the place, and soon got into conversation with him. He was a Venetian long settled at Prevesa, and we went to visit the old castle at the entrance of the gulf, where Ali Pasha wanted to rebuild the ancient structure, but was 88 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR, aEANVILLE, stopmd^ uy ord^^ of tKe Porte. It is opposite the promon- tory of Actium, the passage between which, according to Strabo, is but four stadia broad. It however appeared to us wider. Ali Pasha had a tower on the other side, which answered to the position of Marc Antonyms army while he occupied the entrance with his fleet. Continuing our journey we reached Arta on the 18th, and were lodged in the house of the archbishop, then absent at Janina. Here we made the acquaintance of the only two highly educated persons in the place ; one Nicolo Zambelli, consul of the Septinsular Eepublic, who showed us some specimens of rocks which he considered to be auri- ferous, but which were in fact nothing but sulphuret of copper; the other, a Signor Nicolai Mauromati, the arch- bishop’s physician, who had graduated in Italy, spoke several languages, and had a good knowledge of ancient Greek authors as well as of the modern writers of France and Italy. On the 20th, about mid-day, we set out from Arta to halt for the night at a khan half way to Janina. This khan belonged to Ali Pasha, and was guarded by a few Albanian soldiers, who paid him for permission to sell things and give accommodation to travellers. We declined to share their beds, which they pressed us to uo, preferring to lie in the stable around a Are, and encircled by our baggage, where we slept with- loaded pistols under our pillows. Quitting our khan next morning, a ride of several hours brought us to Janina, at the eastern extremity of a long wide plain. The town is bounded on the east and north by a range of high, barren, and almost perpendicular moun- tains. At the foot of these is the Lake, one of those to which ancient writers gave the name of Acherontia Palus ; not an inappropriate appellation in modern times for the ENTER JANINA. 89 residence of tlie most liellisli of the Turkish chiefs of the day. %J On entering the capital of the Albanian chief, whose name at that time was even greater than that of Selim, his sovereign, we rode at once to the residence of the arch- bishop, to whom we had letters of introduction. Finding the house already pretty full, owing to the Archbishop of Arta being there on a visit with his suite, we gladly accepted a cordial invitation from Kyr Stavro Zuannj, a Greek merchant of Janina, who was in great favour with Ali Pasha. Our host had a son and daughter, and a nephew who had travelled over a great part of Europe. I soon became intimate with both the son and the nephew, but principally with the former — a youth of about eighteen, of most agreeable and winning manners, enhanced by a pleasing physiognomy, which, to a pupil of Lavater, as I profess to be, at once bespoke the sympathy which was likely to exist between us. His fair sister was in every respect a duplicate of himself, bound, not in morocco, but in silks, setting off to advantage the lilies and roses of a Greek complexion. The day after our arrival we remained at home, in expec- tation of a summons for our first visit to the Vezir, such being the rank to which Ali had been recently raised on his appointment as Beylerbey of Eoumelia. One object I had in view while on my travels was to take a panoramic survey of the principal cities I dwelt in tem- porarily, that I might be reminded ever after of the locality. This system, adopted in my journey in Italy and in the Ionian Islands, was now to be followed in Greece, as it has been successfully in all my subsequent travels, of which I have published records. In the present instance I pro- fited by the leisure day at home to mount to the summit of our host’s residence, and take a general survey of all that 90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. was visible of Janina from sncb an elevation. My young friend, now my cicerone, drew my attention to some large edifices we bad noticed on our right on entering Janina, which he informed me were the residences of the Yezirs two sons, Mukhtar Pasha, and Vely Pasha. Among other things he pointed out the VeziPs palace and its harem, which occupied the entire southern shore of the peninsula, near to a mosque with a covered way down to a kiosk level with the lake. Opposite were the Metzikili moun- tains, near which are several islands of considerable extent formed of the roots of reeds. These floating islands, although not more than a cubit thick, will support men and cattle, and with only a single person on one, the whole surface undulates like very thin sheets of ice. Some have large trees upon them, and when there is much wind the islands are put in motion, a time when the fishermen delight to get on them with their families, to eat, drink, and be merry. I had the curiosity during my stay to get upon one of the principal of these islands, called Tumba, which was so timed in its periodical approaches to the land on the town side, as almost to serve as a ferry for crossing the lake. The passengers stand -all the while, and the feeling produced by the undulations is strange, and not to be compared to any ordinary sensation. Some of the tumbas yield great revenues to their proprietors, on account of the quantity of fish caught under them with nets. By a singular coincidence I learned at the time that the proprietor of the island on which I crossed over was a member of a family who had borne the name of Charon from time immemorial.^ * A curious fact like this we might suppose could not have escaped the notice of such English travellers as have visited Janina with an intention of afterwards giving the public an account of their observations ; but I have looked in vain in the volumes of Grecian travels, published by English authors since our visit to that important city of Epirus, for a description, or even the name, of the float RECEPTION BY ALI PASHA. 91 On the evening of April 22, 1803^ we waited on the Vezir at a ^‘strictly private and unceremonions interview, as expressed in the summons or invitation. As a matter of course we pulled off our shoes on entering, and were well received, though we had no offerings to present. The V ezir was seated on the farthest angle of the divan, which ran all round the room. He did not rise, but made a simple salaam by raising his right hand slightly to his forehead, and next carrying it to his breast, while we made our inclinations more expressively. Neither coffee nor pipes were offered. The Vezir talked much of his war with Suli, of his attachment to Lord Elgin, and wished to know how he could send him a complete Albanian dress. He seemed to dislike the French not a little, but had a great opinion of Bonaparte, to whom he was inclined to compare himself and his fortunes. He did not relish a hint of mine that Bonaparte was said to be in daily fear of death by poison. He could not believe it, for Bonaparte was too great a man, and too brave, to have any such fears. He was pleased to hear that people talked much about himself, and he alluded with a satirical laugh to the statement in the Momteur of Paris, that three French officers had defended his life. He expressed his displeasure at the English Consul Foresti’s letter to Omar Vrioni, on whom he laid much of the blame of his being compelled to act hostilely against the French for burning or taking a ship at Arta. The following day the Vezir sent his physician to inquire after us, and to return our visit. On the same day according to etiquette, we called upon Mukhtar Pasha, the heir-apparent, whom we found free in his manners, though complaining of being oppressed with business, which he much disliked. On him fell all the details of the troops, of ing islands.” Neither Leake, Hobhoiise, Hughes, Holland, nor even Murray’s accurate Hand-book makes a single allusion to the fact. 92 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. which there were about five thousand in the city, all lodged in the palace and in the private houses of the poor Greeks. The soldiers had refused to live in the large barracks which the Vezir had had built for their use, as he paid them very irregularly and kept them chiefiy by promises of sending them on plundering expeditions. Sunday, the 24th of April, we went in a boat on the lake to the ruins of Meletius and Stephanius, which it is pre- tended are those of Cassiope, the birthplace of Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great. We dined at a convent up the hillside on figs, yaourt, and Easter lamb. On the 27th we paid a second visit to the Vezir at his summer house on the lake, a magnificent building, in which was a handsome saloon with a fountain in the centre, divans richly furnished on three sides, and a buffet with a show of plate occupying the other. Several other rooms were visible, fitted up in superb style. In one we saw a great variety of arms of all nations, French, English, Albanian, and Persian and Damascus swords. The young Turk who showed them said they were very good, but they wanted the hand of a Suliote to wield them. The object of our visit was to obtain permission to go to Dodona, and an escort to accompany us. We were well received. The Vezir talked with pleasure of his native place, Tepelene, being near the residence of the famous Pyrrhus. A private summons, delivered May-day, 1803, by the VeziPs own physician, brought me into the presence of his highness at his palace on the lake. There was I tete-a-tete with this dreaded chieftain, of whom public report had, in the few days we had been in his capital,' told us strange and almost incredible stories, but of whose personal appearance I had taken but slight notice at our first reception. As a matter of course I had dropped my slippers at the outer door, and on entering had made a profound salaam with my SUMMONED TO ATTEND ALI PASHA. 9 right hand and an inclination of the head ; when inside the splendid saloon, in which it seemed the interview was to take place, a tschaousch, or groom of the chambers, escorted me, muttering with bated breath what in plain English was “Good morning.” The Vezir smiled, and said something like “ You know Turkish, Doctor,” and pointed to an embroidered stool which was placed in front of him, evidently for the occasion, but which I found very incon- venient, inasmuch as I was situated below the level of the great divan on which he sat Turkish fashion ; besides, I had the broad light of day on my face, by which I was prevented discerning the movements of his countenance — a known trick of great people who desire to scan the features of persons they converse with while screening their own from observation. However, this was the affair of a moment, for he at once proceeded to ask if I spoke Greek, and, receiving an affirmative answer, he stated that he had sent for me to consult me about his own health, and that of a little girl, a very favourite child of his own, whom the doctors of J anina were unable to cure. Upon my observing that I must come near him, to feel his pulse and look at his tongue, he changed his place to another part of the divan at a right angle, bidding me seat myself in the place he had left. I then put a series of questions to him, which seemed to surprise him, but which he answered so rapidly that I could scarcely catch the sense of his replies, expressed as they were in a sort of Arnaout Eomaic tongue difficult to comprehend. My opinion of his complaint I gave in Italian, as I found him tolerably acquainted with the most ordinary expressions of that language, as many of the Epirotes and Moreaotes are, and it was easier for me to explain professional matters in a language readily understood by both of us. I ended by promising to prepare a medicine which would afford him prompt relief from some of the most urgent 94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DE. GRANVILLE. symptoms. The complaint I informed him was one which, hy a Greek word, we specified as chronic, the treatment of which required much time. In reply the Vezir said, “ Then I shall see you to-morrow, and you will then find the little one for whom I wish you to prescribe.” I assented with a deep inclination of the head, but added that the ceremony of the tchibouk and the kahveh must he dispensed with at the next visit, as I required the free use of my hands and my tongue for properly investigating the cases. The Vezir smiled, saying “ Evet.” No one was in the saloon, but a clap of his hands brought the same official, who escorted me on my return as he had done on my arrival. What directions the Vezir gave him in Arnaout language I knew not, but the tschaousch accompanied me home, and in Greek told me that he was desired to take back something to the Vezir. My intention was to send him one of those potent solvents under the simplest possible form, viz., a couple of pills which a travelling physician should never be without, and which I frilly knew would thoroughly relieve my princely patient. And so it turned out, for on my repeating my visit according to promise the following morning, the instant I was ushered into the reception room the Vezir actually rose, walked towards me, and taking me by the hand quite a I’Europeenne, conducted me to an inner and smaller room. Then sitting down on an ordinary sofa, and bidding me do the same next to him, he began to expatiate on the good my medicine had done him, adding, that he felt quite like another man, and this with all those exaggerated expres- sions of thanks which we medical men are accustomed to receive as a matter of course, knowing all the while that should our next prescription miss fire, all the patient’s extravagant and grateful admiration would suddenly fall to zero. ALI pasha’s daughter. 95 The tschaousch was dismissed, and I proceeded to examine the state of his right leg, which presented almost the appearance of elephantiasis. I explained briefly how, with certain measures I proposed, the leg would get better in proportion to the improvement of his general health. I offered to hold a consultation with his physician, explain to him my views of the case, and write clown such directions for the treatment as I deemed necessary to promote his recovery. “ Ayilek, Ayilek ! amanet!” As soon as he had replaced his leg in its proper garment, a clap of the hands brought in a gediklii, well muffled up, leading a pretty little girl about six years old, dressed in the style of those angels into which children are trans- formed in Eoman Catholic processions, minus the wings. Her very delicate complexion at once showed me that I had to deal with a scrofulous child. Ali explained that Key- dry (I believe that was the name he mentioned) -was a child of love, of whom he was very fond, and he would give anything to have her restored to health. “At present,” said Ali, “ she is sinking from day to day.” I tried to comfort him with some commonplace expressions which mean little and promise nothing, and which neither commit the speaker nor his character as a professional attendant. I simply added that the case would require long and careful treatment. The. child was dismissed with her attendant, and the Vezir, who had all along kept his eyes fixed on me in a peculiar manner, which I attributed to the interest he took in the little creature, putting his left hand suddenly forward said, “ Hekim-bashi ! you have not felt my pulse this morning.” Repeating his astonishment at the good I had already done him in so short a time, and adding how diffi- cult it was to procure good advice in his city (no flattering compliment to his renegado Roman physician), he proposed 96 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. to me an immediate . appointment as his Hekim-bashi, with 10,000 piastres a year and apartments in his palace. I at once rose, and explained that my engagement with the secretary of Lord Elgin for an indefinite period precluded all possibility of my accepting any other appointment. Having said this I most respectfully took my leave, accom- panying the tschaousch w’ho had been summoned, and followed by the Vezir’s words, pretty loudly expressed, though how far sincere I knew not, “ Allah razi ola ” (may God be pleased with you). On my return I reported to my travelling companion the conversation with the Vezir, dwelling on the peculiar cir- cumstance of the proposed appointment, which I had not the most distant intention of accepting, begging him to support me with all the authority that belonged to him in a diplomatic sense, and to protect me from any violent or tricky measures the Vezir might employ to detain me. Mr. Hamilton at once approved of my determination ; “ and, indeed,” added he, “ in order to terminate the matter we Avill at once leave Janina, and continue our journey to Athens.” Unluckily, that same evening the Vezir requested Mr. Hamilton to attend at a conference on the following morn- ing. This occasioned a delay of two days in our departure, in consequence of Mr. Hamilton having to write home to the Secretary of State for Foreign Afiairs, to communicate to him the purport of his interview with Ali. It would seem that the astute Vezir, looking to the then embroiled state of Western Europe, and to the no less troubled condi- tion of his own sovereign’s dominions, aspired silently to effect what another chief of the like rank was able to accomplish some years after in Egypt, namely, to become an almost independent sovereign ; and truly, with his great power and resources, backed by immense wealth, no Ottoman CHARACTER OF ALI PASHA. 97 pro-=-coiisul ever liad a fairer chance of being lifted on the bucklers of his legions to the object of his ambition — ^the rank of a Caesar ! Ali, who cared as little for Mahomet as he did for the Divine Master of the Sultanas subjects — -of both of whose religions he was grossly ignorant and unconcerned-— was born at Tepelene, where his ancestors, who were pashas of two tails, had always been at war with their neighbours. On the death of his father, after many unsuccessful attempts, he at last became master of Janina, the Greeks having refused to assist the Turks against him. He ever after professed great attachment to the Greeks, which did not, however, prevent him from seizing upon the property of any Greek in his dominions who died without a direct heir. All judicial decisions passed through his hands. This enabled him occasionally to turn them to his own account hj striking a great blow against some man of importance, whether Turk or Greek, and obtaining possession of his treasures. His creed was his own personal advancement, for which he did not hesitate to give up all ideas of honour, principle, justice, and truth. His trusted counsellors and servants were men of the same stamp as himself, of all nationalities, who had fled from their country and taken refuge in his dominions. Mehemet Effendi, his interpreter, had once been a Eomish priest at Aleppo ; another was a Corfiote Jacobin, banished from Corfu ; whilst his physician, the same who had re- turned our visit, was a Eoman of infamous character, who pretended to be a Frenchman. At the very outset of his career, Ali murdered his brother, and throughout his reign committed many acts of the grossest cruelty. His wealth was fabulous, though he is said to have begun life with only twenty-four piastres and two hundred armed soldiers against Kourt Pasha of Janina, n YOL. T. 98 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANYILLE. and with them he shared the plunder of that contest. For many years was this monster suffered to disgrace and outrage humanity, until the cup of his iniquities was brim full. Cited by Sultan Mahmoud to appear within six weeks before the Golden Gate of Felicity at Constantinople, there to give an account of his mis-rule and justify his conduct, he replied by raising the standard of revolt among the Turks, the Albanians, and the Greeks, well armed and bribed with money. Defying the famous Omar Brione, who advanced with a large force from Constantinople against him, the struggle was long and severe. At length, driven into a single kiosk of his fortified palace across the lake, this extraordinary man, surnamed the Lion (arslam), fell, pierced with many bullets, on the 5th of February, 1822 ; dying at last as would a furious tiger driven by eager hunters to its lair. Never did Nature stamp with a more striking or truthful hand on the face of man the character of a ferocious volup- tuary than she did on that of Ali Pasha, nor give to the rest of his person features more conformable with that character. Under a forehead of brass, inscribed with harshness and obstinacy, were piercing eyes flashing fire at times, and anon darting scorn with the accompanying curl of the lip. Presently those same eyes would assume the insidious look of meekness calculated to deceive people not on their guard against, but rather fascinated by, the prestige of a chief who, while in the plenitude of an almost kingly authority, condescended to converse, argue, and treat with a person not his equal. Under the spell of those looks some English travellers succumbed who visited Ali a few years after us, when his name had become still more famous throughout Greece, and his satraps compared him to Philip and Pyrrhus, his predecessors as rulers of the same country. He should have been compared rather with more than one CHARACTEE OF ALI PASHA. 99 of those tyrannical governors whom the Lacedaemonians, when supreme in G-reece, sent to oppress the people, and who met at length their fate by treachery and death. I recorded in my diary the impression Ali Pasha’s appearance and conversation made on me, and I was ready to believe in the truth of many traits in his life which seemed almost fabulous, or at all events incredible. But no ! There they were, those damning features always before my eyes, which forced the mind to accept as true every accusation, even the very grossest, against his cha- racter. A romance might be woven out of this chieftain’s history, much of which would suit any other marauder. But on collecting all that one hears about him, not in his own capital only, but also in other parts of south-western Greece, and carefully weighing the real and the fabulous, and making deductions from what are exaggerated realities, we obtain a pretty striking representation of a monster, for as such he will surely pass in the annals of succeeding generations. CHAPTER VII. 1803. Doclona — Leave Janina — Metzovo — The Pincliis — Meteora — Singular incident — Ascent to the Monastery of the Meteora — Trikkala — jEsculapius forgotten at his birthplace — Pharsalus — Larissa — A tumble — Ambelakia — The Turkey-red dye — Mount Ossa— Heights of Olympus — Lagora — Jason and the Golden Fleece — Volo — Arrival at Athens. Eveey foreign traveller in Epirus considers it a duty to go in search of the Oracle of Dodona, though without the least expectation of being more fortunate than his precursors in the like attempt, or of meeting with any visible trace of the sacred oak forest in which the oracles were delivered. No traveller who had anticipated us had left behind more information than Herodotus has supplied. Nor were we in the present case more fortunate than the rest. Oak-trees we saw in abundance. A fountain of sweet water we found, whose streamlet ran over a pebbly bed with the musical Mormorio delb onde,^^ as we are apt to notice in many other equally interesting localities and even superior land- scapes. This is all one sees. What is wanting to complete the scene, and carry it back to the first Olympiad is Faith. My companion had brought that needful element with him. For my part, I lacked it, and came away incredulous. He wrote a minute description of our expedition thither, under the escort granted us by Ali Pasha ; but as his conclusions are entirely negative, aiid seem to imply that we had lost much time and undergone much trouble (besides having run the chance of catching the plague, which was at that time LEAVE JANINA. 101 raging at Calamos and Butrinto, not far off) merely to come to that conclusion, I pass over that journey without another / syllable. One important place we visited on our way .to Dodona (besides Kastritza, which Colonel Leake is tempted to assume as the spot) may perhaps deserve a passing remark. It is a Turkish town called Iffiliates, with about a thousand houses and some fine mosques, with one Iman, Avho serves as priest. Ibrahim Aga was the chief proprietor, and when called upon by the Vezir was bound to appear in the field with 2000 armed soldiers. The Turks of Ifiiliates allow no Greek to reside among them but as servants. We were lodged in the seraglio of the Aga ; but his people and the Turks we saw behaved with scant civility, asking questions as to our reasons for travelling, and who gave us permission to wander about and write down what we saw. This was the place in which Eose, the French general, was entrapped from Corfu to a conference by Ali Pasha, where he was made prisoner, sent to Janina, and thence to Con- stantinople, there to be put to death by poison. We now finally quitted the capital of modern Epirus, and on our way to Athens crossed the Pindus, visiting Olympus and the valley of Tempe in our irregular wanderings. A sort of jatros of Metzovo, with whom I communed in Italian, or rather lingua franca, mentioned as instances of the mira- culous effects of the air and water of the place, that a person sound asleep out of doors would be aw^akened by the touch of a fly ; while in the case of a man who had eaten five okes of bread, on drinking the mountain water he digested the whole of it without the least inconvenience. Even in this desolate wilderness we found a good grammar school, supported by legacies and voluntary contributions. On leaving Metzovo we, on the 10th of May, ascended the Pindus, the atmosphere being quite transparent, and 10:2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the air of the morning most exhilarating. We were able fully to take in all the points of classical interest before making our descent on the south side, which is less craggy, shorter, and much more easy. Before us we had a splendid view of Thessaly, the course of the Peneius, the vertical rocks of Meteora, and the other heights of Pindus. Four and a half leagues brought us to those strange con- vents which form part of the classical period of modern Grecian history. Eight of these monkish retreats, perched on as many perpendicular rocks, offshoots of the Pindus, may be seen almost in a line. Their first appearance is startling, for although evidently connected with the geo- logical system of that great chain of hills which poets sung and consecrated to Apollo and the Nine, these almost vertical pinnacles seem to burst upright from the flat plain that leads to Trikkala, and would seem to be some colossal “ nine-pins^'’ set up by the giants after their fall. Being in the vicinity of Pindus a traveller may well be- come suddenly inspired with mythological rhapsodies such as these ; but real historical records tell a different tale. They say that instead of eight, as there were at the time of our visit, these monasteries were once twenty-four in number, and that their sagacious founder was Joseph, King of Trikkala, who, being defeated and driven from his dominions by the Turks, turned monk with all his court, brought his family, wealth, and relics with him to this place, settled his sister on. an insulated rock in a convent, while he himself and courtiers occupied other equally im- pregnable domiciles. When we visited the place there were about two hundred monks in all the convents — five hundred persons, including attendants and menials. In the Meteora, which is the principal one, we found thirty monks, or about one hundred and twenty people in all. The Turks had taken almost all their large possessions away THE METEORA. 103 from them, leaving to the Meteora only ten acres of arable land and two hundred vineyards. Our visit to these strange places occupied us more than one day ; but a singular incident occurred just before we commenced it, being nothing less than the arrival of a special mounted messenger from Ali Pasha, demanding my return to him forthwith, on the plea that I had agreed to accept the office of Hekim-bashi at his court, and that he could not permit me to quit his dominions. The answer to such a demand was a flat refusal by Mr. Hamilton, without even consulting me, who had gone for a little stroll by myself. The messenger (a tschaousch) seeming to hesitate, my friend displayed his grand firman from the Sultan, granting solemn protection to the English Embassy in general, with which explanation the messenger was fain to depart. It was not till long after he had disappeared that my friend explained to me the whole affair, and we had a good laugh over my escape from becoming a physician to such a pasha. The question now was, how to ascend to the principal convents. They are all equally accessible to a certain extent by a fixed narrow ladder to the height of about thirty feet from the ground, when you may squeeze your- self in through a narrow entrance cut in the rock, the composition of which is a conglomerate of pebbles and broken stones, held together by a kind of cement ; in fact, a rock geologists term pudding-stone. By this fixed ladder the intercourse of the monks or servants with the outer world is usually carried on. But there is another mode of ascent to the pinnacle of these rocks, which consists in being drawn up in a net by means of a stout rope and a windlass. The net, made of cords strong and ample, is hooked through all its border rings, and when drawn up with the traveller inside his whole person is entirely enveloped. 104 . AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. So he ascends^ first twirling and whirling round several times in opposite directions, and when steady commencing a new or pendulum movement, until the level of the highest platform is reached, on which he is safely deposited. To this manner of ascent, which we had seen put in practice beforehand with some of our followers by way of encourage- ment, we submitted, and were drawn up to the principal monastery at an elevation of two hundred and forty feet. I experienced a most distressing feeling of giddiness caused by the rajDid twirls of the rope, and kept my eyes closed all the time we were ascending, thinking it anything but a pleasant way of quitting old mother earth. It was quite evident that I was not made for an aeronaut, and therefore I vowed at once not again to accompany my companion in any other of the several aerial excursions he proposed to repeat on the following day. When I reached the top I was not myself for some minutes, and could scarcely return the compliments of my new friends till I became a little more collected. To describe thus, at the distance of nearly seventy years, this little fuss in a punch-bowl is, I am aware, likely to be considered as Much ado about nothing,"^ when readers of the present day have been surfeited with the report of daily ascents in imprisoned and other balloons crowded with observers, or gratified with the narrative of more consequential a&ostatic excursions by a Glaisher, but to us at the time the sensation was as singular as the position was novel. Colonel Leake has properly suggested that with a rope or painter held by a person below, both the twirling and the pendulum motion could be prevented. An easier mode to prevent the twirling would be to keep the sus- pending rope always in water ready for use. At this monastery, which is of considerable size, with a rich church and a large collection of relics enshrined in THE MONKS OF THE METEORA. 105 silver, we passed the night. There was a tolerable garden and a pleasant walk at the top of the mountain, the highest in the neighbourhood, with one single tree ! No female whatever is admitted, except of the genus cat. In regard to feeding, the monks are not quite as rigid as the Agiono- riotes, who refuse themselves the use of meat. Our monks ate it at any season, and only kept Lent on the prescribed days. Ignorant as they were of the world, and of everything else, these poor monks possessed nevertheless a library with some rare editions of printed books ; but they made no use of them whatever, none being able to comprehend ancient Greek, resembling in that respect other self-made ceno- bites in southern Italy, who read their daily breviary in a language they do not truly comprehend, though they understand the meaning of each part by rote. These Greek brothers travel on foot through all the country, soliciting alms or contributions for the maintenance and support of their convents and brethren. On the second day I excused myself from ascending the next peak, and preferred to sleep ^'al ciel sereno,^^ bivouack- ing at the foot of the Barlaam, surrounded by our horses, our escort, and our guide, whom I treated to some choice raki from my own valise. There I passed a pleasant time, listening to the many stories from the last-named individual, who repeated the little romance of Papa Eutimio, who belonged once to the convent — how from a monk he became a chief of robbers, and when once in the power of Ali Pasha was despatched, quartered, and each part suspended in Janina. The following day we trotted off to Trikkala, where we could find not a vestige of antiquity either in the town or its castle. I inquired naturally of the archimandrite, the only learned person in the place, whether there were any vestiges subsisting of the temple dedicated to the god of my 106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. profession, to which Hellenes from all parts of Greece used in former times to flock in search of health. But the good priest did not even know the name of the divinity I was inquiring after ! I thought I might find a solution of the old tradition in the discovery of some salutary mineral spring. No such source has ever existed/^ was the reply. And it is a curious fact to be recorded, that throughout those parts of Greece I visited, whether in plains or in mountains, nowhere did I hear of the existence of any known mineral water. The priest suggested that I should inquire of the jatros of the town (lucky people to have but one such among thousands of inhabitants !). ‘‘It is his business to know,^^ said he ; “ ask him.” Now, considering that H^sculapius was actually born on the banks of their river, as Strabo assures us, to ignore even the name of so illustrious a fellow-townsman bespeaks ignorance indeed. On the morning of the 16th we visited the castle of Pharsalus, or, as some say, Phthia, situated on an elevated and craggy steep hill above the present town. The only remarkable thing we saw within it was what the inhabitants call a well ; but Mr. Hamilton was rather inclined to think that, from its wide mouth and conical form, constructed with large hewn stones, like the treasury of Agamemnon at Mycenae, this supposed well might have served the same purpose to Achilles, who, like his contemporary magnate, may have had buildings of the same construction and form and for a like purpose. No door is visible, but it is pro- bably covered by the earth and stones fallen from above. We set out afterwards for Larissa, which we reached over a handsome bridge crossing the Peneius. On entering the tov/n, we counted twenty-eight minarets. There was only one church, which was large, and attached to the palace of the Metropolitan. There were many Jews, some very rich and possessing most magnificent houses. The government MUSTAFA PASHA. 107 of the city was then in the hands of several wealthy beys, one of whom, Mustafa Pasha, was a Christian born, stolen from his parents by a body of banditti, and taught to rob and plunder with them. Becoming very powerful, he attached himself to Ali Pasha, and when he took Janina was made by him devent-bey of those parts. Once, being called to Janina, he was requested by Ali to present him with his sword, which was of great beauty and value. This Mustafa refused to do. Conscious of the danger in which this act must place him if he remained longer in Janina, he decamped in the night with all his followers, infested for some time the mountains of Groura and the plains between Larissa and Pharsalia, till at last he summoned the first of these places to admit him as governor, threatening to burn it and its inhabitants, upon which they submitted, till Ali drove him out afterwards, when he returned to the Morea. ✓ In reading over my diaries after a lapse of nearly seventy years, in which the preceding and many similar examples of arbitrariness, violence, and brute force are recorded, I have often hesitated in transferring them to these pages, destined to be read only when such a state of demoralized society in the once famed classic land of our youthful and school days will have passed away. They will then be con- sidered as lacking the only excuse for their publication — • novelty. But may not a different view be taken of the question ? Looking at the struggles (they have not been many or very heroic) of the native Hellenes to shake off the Mussulman yoke, the historian who can supply faithful records (from his knowledge and experience) of the despotic and violent acts of the governing race that for so many centuries, and even down to our own days, have oppressed the conquered race, can never be justly taxed with anachronism if he insists on giving publicity to the facts that have already been inserted in these pages, or which may yet 108 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. require to be recorded. The whole will tend to show how many and just grounds existed for wishing success to the endeavours made to regenerate Greece and free its people from such wide-spread lawlessness, and how grievous at the same time is the conviction that those efforts have not met with success. On quitting Larissa, on our way to Ambelakia, I stupidly chose to show off my equestrian skill against our Tatar, who, besides being better mounted, was of the Astley Theatre sort of riders, the consequence of which was a tumble of both horse and cavalier, which proved sufficiently serious to compel us to return to our lodging and remain the whole of the following day — a day,^^ writes my companion in his notes, I spent chiefly in reading Pindar and listening to a controversy between the three physicians on the Brunonian system, in which A. B., though apparently abattu, came out very strong.’^ On quitting the vicinity of Larissa the road continues through a lovely country amid some of the lower heights of Mount Ossa, as it overhangs the valley of Tempe. A watch-tower placed on an eminence pointed out to us the position of Ambelakia, which was chiefly inhabited by wealthy Greek merchants who traded in Hungary and Germany. Here were the manufactories of the famous Turkey-red dye, one of which we visited, and were initiated into the whole complex process by which that beautiful and brilliant material is obtained which forms the wealth of • Ambelakia. It is an interesting fact worth recording, that these brilliant coloured stuffs, steeped in the water of the classical Peneius, dried in the air that environs the three poetic mountains of Thessaly, take their departure from this humble village to find their way into Hungary and Saxony, thence to Holland, France, and Spain, and finally to the Spanish colonies in South America, there to array MOUNT OSSA. 109 the sylph-like figure of some handsome, dark-eyed Maja dancing the graceful bolero in her brilliant, short, red petticoat that has been dyed for her twelve months before at the foot of Olympus ! We left Ambelakia on the 22nd of May, and descended a long and very steep paved road into the valley of Tempo. A beautiful grove of large plane-trees on the bank of the Peneius was the first object we had to admire on arriving at this celebrated spot. Continuing our journey along the right bank of the river, we soon entered the narrow passes. The rocks of Olympus are almost perpendicular, and bare of any vegetation. Ossa has more frequent undulations and ravines, and these being clothed with woods, it presents a prospect less sublime and terrific. After twenty minutes’ ride our guide showed us a small aperture in the rock at the foot of Ossa, from which issues continually a strong current of air, whence the spot is called Anemopetra. I take shame to myself that I did not endea- vour to ascertain the nature of this aerial stream, not even to test whether it was acid. Odourless we knew it was, and equally certain that it was not inflammable, for those points our noses and the Tatar’s tchibouk had proved. The structure of the rocks being argillaceous schist in part, some hydro-sulphuric gas might have been detected, not- withstanding the negative evidence of the smell. A little further on the Ossa changes its aspect, and pre- sents a rude and craggy range of mountains divided by steep aiguilles (Charedrse), on the top of one of which there is said to be a monument of an ancient king. On the sides of Olympus appear certain natural caverns and other artificial grottoes, which, as they were sacred to the dif- ferent gods of the heathen, so did they become in the subsequent ages of Christianity the dwellings of ascetic hermits. One of these, the largest, and close to the water’s 110 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. edge, is dedicated, to Ayia Tria, or Saint Trinity. It is supposed (and with probability) that this is the spot where was the Temple of Apollo, to which the Messenians annually repaired to collect branches of laurel, growing in abundance, to carry away with them for their mysterious ceremonies at Delos. Close by is also a very fine spring of fresh mineral water, slightly chalybeate, and almost effervescent. Other springs also issue from the two mountains, many of which, though they have only a few fathoms to run, would of themselves be considerable as rivers, rushing over the rocks with great impetuosity and noise. On the 23rd of May we engaged horses at Ehapsin to visit the summits of Olympus, and immediately began the ascent, continuing for an hour along the exterior of the mountain, having a fine view of the plains of Thessaly and of the mountains beyond. Soon, as we entered among the hills, the snowy peaks of Olympus burst upon our sight. Higher up we reached and halted at the Monastery of St. Trinity, in the midst of a forest of fir trees. This monastery is something like a khan, with a large church in the centre of the enclosed court. Below are the kitchens and stables, while above are the chambers or cells of the monks, with a wide gallery along the four sides of the whole range. We found no Greek work or manuscripts of any value in their small library, the monastery having- been frequently pillaged by the Turks. This, the highest habitable spot in Olympus, has remarkably fine air and good water. Next morning, at sunrise, we started from the monastery on foot. Once out of the -wood, there is no longer any appearance of road ; the way is very steep and broken, though in no part presenting any difficulties. Six hours’ march through snow brought us to the top. And what a noble and extensive view repaid us for our trouble ! A THE HEIGHTS OF OLYMPUS. Ill magnificent panorama indeed for a young, newly-emanci- pated collegian, full of classical recollections, to contem- plate ! From the coast of Salonik, with the mountains of Macedonia be5mnd, and the three peninsulas, with Mount Athos culminating above all ! The neighbouring islands in the Archipelago, Ossa and Pelion, the Gulf of Volo and Thermopylae, Mounts Akrys, iEta, Helicon, and Parnassus, the Gulf of Corinth, the mountains of the Morea, and the snow-topped range of Pindus ! An early morning, clear and crisp, and an azure sky, the chilliness from the snowy surface mellowed by a brilliant sun ! glorious ! oh, truly glorious ! The whole history of Heroic Greece came sud- denly into my brain, and the figures of Xerxes, Alexander, Leonidas, Themistocles, Pericles, and Epaminondas passed before me in succession, as my companion, better versed in ancient topography, pointed out on our map the cor- responding sites in the horizon where the fierce battles had been fought by those great champions in defence of their country, or against attempts made by foreign enemies to enslave parts of the Hellenic territory. No Grecian remains were found on the summit, but there were fragments of large Eoman bricks, many of which had served to form small huts to shelter the shepherds. In the midst of the dehris, and very dissimilar to the tiny structures around, I could not but fancy one might be the remains of an Ara to Jupiter Olympus. While Mr. Hamilton, seated on his camp-stool, was inditing a short epistle to London, dated From the heights of Olympus, 24 th of May, 1803 ,^’ I was occupied in making an incline of the largest bricks, on which I exposed enough snow to the ardent sun-rays of noonday to supply us with water to quench our thirst, and in deeply scratching, on the surface of two of the smoothest Eoman bricks I could find, our respective names and the date of our advent Latinized in 112 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the regular style of mural inscriptions, fixing and securing the same on the top of the sacred Ara just mentioned. Our descent occupied only three hours, and we reached the convent, desjDcrately knocked up, after ten hours^ absence. There we remained all night, and after a day's rest continued our travels, noting all the numerous places of interest on our way. Zagora, the next place visited, is surrounded by gardens and cultivated grounds, having extensive forests of chestnut and walnut trees, with orange and lemon groves watered by abundant streams, forming here and there charming cascades of great beauty. The mountain bears many medicinal plants and herbs, the em- ployment of which in the cure of disease is a family secret descending from father to son, or, speaking more accurately, from an old grandmother to an old granddaughter, for this branch of the sanative art is exclusively the department of old women, whether in Thessaly, Middlesex, or Virginia. With regard to the modern Greeks, this is not the only superstition they have inherited from their ancestors, for they also look upon all their fellow-citizens inhabiting Zagora or its neighbourhood (whose height exceeds six feet, or one fathom) as the descendants of the giant who for- merly inhabited Pelion, and whom they call Elinois. The Zagoraens have the reputation of being successful breeders of silk- worms. Every one of the seven hundred families make, one with another, three and a half okes of silk, in the year. All make the same, but never will they show the worms to strangers, for fear of the '' Cattivo Occhio.’' With all the interest I enjoyed of Doctor Bellonio's name, and great as was the desire of the son of a father possessing a silk farm in Lombardy to see how the Zagoraens reared their silk-worms, nothing would induce any of the pro- prietors to grant me a moment's inspection of their silk farms. These selfish descendants of Jason, who from the STORY OF JASON. 113 spot now occupied by the douaniers of Volo set sail one hundred years before the Trojan War (1084 b.c., according to Eusebius), at the head of a chosen band of heroes, to snatch the Golden Fleece from the fangs of a terrible guar- dian, exercise by their jealousy a more uncompromising defiance against such as wish to know the nature of, and share the dear-bought prize brought back by Jason, and by him presented to his uncle, the King of Thessaly. Their very descendants seem to have inherited from him the exclusiveness by which the lover of Medea preserved his prize. The story of Jason is not wholly a fiction. That some years before the Trojan War an embarkation for a distant expedition took place from a part of the coast we were exploring, and concerning which we know distinctly the name of the ship and its chief captain, as well as that of most of his heroic companions, is a tradition treasured up to this day by the inhabitants, and corroborated by the testimony of many writers, both Greek and Latin. The object of the expedition, so variously interpreted, is the only part of the whole story that gives to it a fabulous character. Substitute a natural object for the expedition, viz., the desire to acquire a knowledge of some important national secret connected with the production of wealth, which had hitherto been guarded with strict jealousy, but which the dwellers around the Pagasean Gulf eagerly desired to possess, tempted as they had been by the occa- sional sight of important auro-coloured Median robes, lus- trous and brilliant, the produce of the great secret, and the motive of the naval expedition is at once apparent. Silk was the material they desired to possess. Having learned whence those vestments had come, thither the Argonauts proceeded, and there, aided by the intrigues of an amorous princess, they overcame the jealousy of the cultivators of VOL. I. I Hi AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. the Bombyx in Colchis (which we had failed to over- come in the Zagoraens), and brought back in trium_ph to their own country, not a useless sheep's skin tinselled over with gold, but the golden, glossy, silky covering of a different creature, the rearing of which, with the cultivation of its silky produce, continued in the hands of the Greeks for some centuries ere it found its way to Western Europe. Such is my interpretation of the story of Jason. A very lively and clever writer has given his interpretation of Jasons undertaking, which he supposes to be akin to one he was engaged in while travelling amongst the monas- teries of the Levant, namely, to look for and secure precious manuscripts, k What Jason 'Sought was a famous volume written in golden letters upon the skins of sheep, wherein was described the whole science of alchemy, and that the man who should possess himself of that inestimable volume should conquer the green dragon ; and being able, by the help of the grand magisterium, to transmute all metals, and draAV from the alembic the precious drops of the elixir vitse, men, and nations, and languages would bow down before him as the prince of the pleasures of this world." ^ I leave it to others to determine which of the interpretations is the more probable. Ee this as it may, silk is now largely produced in Zagora, about twenty thousand okes being manufactured and exported. The coast of the Gulf of Zagora is bounded by high cliffs, which terminate at the landing-place — La Scala. Between the last cliff and the sea is a plain covered with a dense forest of chestnut-trees. During the clear hot summer months the heights of Lemnos are plainly visible. To that island the Argonauts naturally shaped their first course. The Zagora doctor, Don Gaetano, might have boasted nearly seventy years ago of having anticipated the people * Visits to Monasteries in the Leyant.^^ By the Hon. Robert Curzon, jun. A LADY°DOCTOR, 115 of the United States in the intellectual education of woman ; he having instructed the sister of his deceased wife to act as a physician and apothecaiy, an offi.ce she had successfully filled for some years, though unable to read or write. My conversation with her in her own language Avas a brief one, but I found her conversant with all the premonitory symptoms, as well as with the concurrent phases, of all the principal maladies to AvJiich her OAvn towns-people are liable, with a competent knowledge of simple medicines, the produce of the country. My confrere himself was very communicative respecting his adventures. Before he fled from Naples, he had, in his own defence, and in the king's presence, killed the captain of the guards in the royal palace. Being arrested, he was condemned to death. Confined in the Castel dell' Ovo, he contrived to escape by means of a silk ladder and a file, sent to him by his brother; while a pretty-eyed German girl, who sold flowers in the Gastello, undertook to supply the sentinels with enough drugged rosogiio on the occasion. On the 5th of June we reached Volo, lodging in the house of Sali Aga, who pressed on myself in particular such a prodigal succession of small cups of strong coffee, accompanied by a corresponding number of long tchibouks, that I felt almost intoxicated on retiring for the night. The muddled state of my head on waking in the morning convinced me that the many charges of Latakia in my pipe over-night must have held opium, the bad effects of which I continued to experience through the remainder of the day. Outside the town of Volo we came to a vast plain extending from the loAver strata of Pelion to the sea, in the midst of Avhich plain Avas a fountain, with an abundance of limpid and surging water, the taste of AA^hich indicated the presence of salts, as if the sea- water penetrated it, and was 116 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the cause of its tumultuous rising and falling. Beyond the sight of the ancient city are three small hillocks, which the people of the country, by tradition from father to son, pretend contain — one a mine of gold, another of silver, and a third a thriving nest of serpents. This last supposition, and the uncertainty as to which of the three is the one so terribly infested, and therefore to be eschewed, is assigned as the reason that no one has hitherto been found bold enough to venture in search of the secreted treasures. A very old and intelligent inhabitant assured us that such a tradition has existed for many centuries, for he had repeatedly heard it from his father and grandfather as information they in their turn had derived from their ancestors. Proceeding on our way, we day by day trod on truly classic ground. How many scholastic reminiscences, in one whose classical lore was not yet rusted, rushed into my mind as we surveyed or heard of the names of places in that part of our travels which might truly be called heroic Greece ! Aulis with Agamemnon and Achilles ; Platrna and Aristides ; Mantinea and Epaminondas ; Marathon and Miltiades ; Mount Pentelicus and the Ilissus ; and, lastly, proud Athens itself ! We had slept at Oropus,^' where Mr. Hamilton copied an inscription in a ruined church, which he had forgotten to do the year before. Impatient to reach the capital, we rose early next day, and set out to accomplish the ten hours' journey which separated us from it. At first we mounted a range of well- wooded hills, which led us to the village of Bona, and over a long narrow plain producing much corn, and well provided with oaks. We then began * The district between this point and Athens is the scene of the awful massacre of English travellers by Greek brigands, which so horrified all England in May, 1870. ENTER ATHENB. 117 tlie ascent of Mount Fames, and after four hours we halted near a modem church. These heights of Fames are the lowest portion of that range of mountains, which rises four thousand six hundred feet. Mr. Hamilton conjec- tured that Mardonius chose the road we came by, when, at the head of his Fersian troops, he went to meet the Greeks near Flata3a, where Argesilaus, brother of Themis- tocles, slew him in mistake for Xerxes. We passed a wood near the village of Totoy, a defile with a magnificent view of Athens to the west, and of Euboea to the east. Near us was the course of the Cephissus, which rises between the mountains of Fames and Fentelicus, at a place now called Monomati. Descend- ing the Fames by a very gentle slope to meet the Ilissus at about four leagues from Athens, we crossed the river, with a fine view in passing along the mountains between Eleusis and Corinth, and entered Athens a little after mid-day on the 18th of July, 1803. CHAPTER VIII 1803. A Lombard in Athens — Signor Lnsieri — The Acropolis — State of the sculptures — Yandals and spoliators — Theban fever — Departure of Mr. Hamilton- — Temple of Jupiter Olympus — Temple of Theseus — Early morning on the Acropolis— The Parthenon — The Erechthenm — A missing Canyatid — Sanitary condition of Athens — Domestic life of ancient Greece. A FT EE a long, desultory, fatiguing, albeit interesting, ramble through Hellas, I found myself, a descendant of the Longobardi of Mediolanum (a city Aureolus converted into a Eoman dependency sixteen centuries ago), in the great capital of Attica, which at nearly the same remote date was beinp; ravaged bv the Goths, a kindred race of barbarians to the Longobardi, to be surrendered, like the ca|)ital of Lombardy, to the Eomans to form a part of their eastern empire. Such, and no other, historical associations entered my head as we passed into Athens through the Hadrian Gate, after crossing the Ilissus coming from Oropos and Marathon. Under the impressions of such reminiscences, the sight of Athens failed to rouse in my breast those feelings of enthusiasm with which the first view of the scene — that reminds one of all that is elevated in intel- lectual philosophy, history, and poetry, all that is exalted in genius and taste in the fine arts, and all that the most heroic deeds of valour and patriotism can accomplish- — is invariably hailed by every well-educated traveller on ap- proaching the city. I was destined not long after to find my thoughts and meditations taking a very different direc- tion, so that from an indifferent spectator I became a most THE ELGIN MARBLES 1 1 9 enthusiastic admirer. An early visit to the Acropolis effected this miracle. The first move the two newly-arrived travellers made after being dejsosited at the residence of Signor Logotheti, the English consul, was to call on Lusieri, the intelligent Neapolitan artist, with whom we straightway proceeded to visit the Parthenon. Lusieri was one of a small, well- chosen band of artists whom Mr. Hamilton had engaged the year before in Italy to be in the service of Lord Elgin during the meditated operations in Athens. He proved a most active and successful artist, as is testified by the collection of his numerous and beautiful drawings pre- served, I believe, in the British Museum. When Mr. Hamilton in 1802 quitted Athens, Lusieri was left in charge of the execution of the works, and he had now to give an account of his proceedings during the past year. Naturally, an immediate companionship sprang up between the Parthenopean and the Insubrian compatriots, and we became inseparable. I could not be more fortunate in the choice of a cicerone for the successive and successful exami- nations of the splendid remains of Grecian art by which I was surrounded, and to which, with the consent of my travelling companion, Lusieri kindly devoted a couple of hours each day for my benefit, the rest of the day being reserved for the business of the art mission Mr. Hamilton had temporarily established in Athens. On reaching the Acropolis, June 19th, 1803, accompanied by Lusieri, Mr. Hamilton found it more stripped of its beauties than the year before. He was however convinced, he remarks, of the general utility which ought to result from the measures taken by Lord Elgin for the removal of the precious monuments from Athens to England. Besides the satisfaction an Englishman must feel to see his country possessed of such inimitable chefs-d’oeuvre, he should under- 120 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. stand the state in wliicli these marbles were left in Athens. At an early period of Christianity, the Iconoclasts began to lay their destructive hands on these monuments of Pagan idolatry, taking them as symbols of image worship. After these came the Goths and Vandals and other barbarians, A\diose amusement was to destroy whatever they found good in itself but useless to them ; and the Turks faith- fully followed their steps. But the ruin of the Parthenon dates from late in the seventeenth century (1687), Avhen a powder magazine of the Venetians blew up within its walls during the siege by the Turks, since which time the frequent occurrence of earthquakes, to which the position is liable, has added success wely more serious effects and damage to the buildings. Many of the most precious objects have been converted into mortar by the Turks on receiving orders to repair any portion of the fort, or have been buried in the mass of ruins.'’' Much has been written, and much has been said in the House of Commons and elseAA^here, against the Vandals and spoliators of Athens — Lord Elgin and his associates — but that has been met manfully in a Avork which will ever reflect credit and honour on its author when recorded in future impartial historical pages, and not in the diatribes of the day. All the harm I can wish those detractors (if any survive) is to have the satisfaction of perusing, should they not ha.ve done so already, the masterly refutation of their mistaken charges, written at the time by Mr. Hamilton himself, concerning AA^hich it is not easy to determine whether the cogency of the arguments and the trust- worthiness of his allegations, or the terseness and elegance of the language in which they are expressed, deserve the higher commendation. I was myself destined to A^erify one of the statements contained in that masterly vindication — namely, the wilful THE PARTHENON. 121 and wanton destruction of such parts of the yet subsisting metopes on the great Athenian temple, which projected more than the rest of the relievos. This was effected by the djiarrid being thrown at them in sport by mounted Turks, the effect of which was (after perhaps three or four failures) to bring down fragments of a leg or an arm of one of the Centaurs, to the clamorous joy of the lookers-on, who would exclaim '' Pah, pah, pah '' (wonderful), or Alhamady Lillah ” (thanks to God !), as if they had been witnessing a pious act. This and every other species of destructive contrivance was going on unchecked, till at last the measures taken under authority from the Sultan have secured for posterity a large part of what still remained. But for those measures complete destruction must have ensued. As for myself, who now beheld the Parthenon for the first time, its ruinous state did not shock my feelings much, for I only expected to behold a ruined temple, as I found it. I saw the places empty in the pediment which an erect Minerva and a recumbent Ilissus should have occupied. I noticed the entire absence of many of the alto-relievo metopes, and the glaring destruction in the others of heads and limbs of the principal figures, while the frieze for many feet of its length was absent. But I bore in mind the twenty-three centuries since Pericles gave the word to erect, and Callicrates and Ictinus, Phidias, and his assistants set about to obey the mandate of the fierce opponent of Cimon, and I concluded that this wonderful creation had been more respected by the hands of Time than by those of man ! By the former the Acropolis of Athens had not been less respected than the monuments on the Palatine and Capitoline Hills or in the Forum at Borne have been, or those of Egypt and Persepolis, while all the glorious vestiges of human art in these last- 122 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. mentioned countries liad found more grace at the hands of man than had the more admirable Grecian remains. As regards Athens more particularly, it was to he my lot, after a few years, to discover that my conclusions had been too hasty, and that what I had considered as the result of the devastating hand of Time, or the evil nature of man, was in fact the work of a protecting hand, which withdrew from inevitable and complete destruction monu- ments the Greeks knew not how to protect, and by removing them to another land, and to the care of a very different people, had secured to them an almost perpetual existence for the admiration and instruction of many gene- rations to come, and for the perpetuation of good taste in the fine arts. I speak in this manner with more than ordinary feeling, from having been personally engaged in securing a part of the marbles above referred to which had found their way to France, and which I was made the agent for procuring at the sale of the Due de Choiseubs marbles in Paris in 1815, under the authority of the English Chancellor of the Exchequer. It had been the intention of my companion to remain at Athens a sufiicient time to enable me to inspect all the principal buildings at leisure, and then to proceed to Constantinople, where we were to part. This arrangement was not destined to be carried out, for my friend, the second day after our arrival, was seized with all the symptoms of Boeotian fever, which lasted more than a week, not without two or three critical days of great danger and anxiety that called for my incessant attendance. It is a complaint readily contracted in the marshy districts of Thebes. I confess that, with my subsequent experience of the nature of fevers, and of the number of victims among travellers in Attica who preferred, like ourselves, to sleep suh divo to being tormented by indoor vermin, I positively AN ATTACK OF PEYEE. slmdder, even at this distance of time, at the recollection of the risk to which my friend and myself had been exposed. No doubt a sufl&cient dose of quinine might have diminished the risk, but that precious discovery had not yet been made ; and as for the use of ordinary cinchona, whether in powder or in decoction, the irritable state of the stomach forbade its use. Two essays I made of it in my patient's case were followed by such results as to compel me to have recourse to the methodus medendi of the Brunonian system I had been taught at my alma mater at Pavia, under which, with opium and brandy, the recovery took place. The doctor had scarcely declared his friend safe and convalescent, when it became his turn to be the patient under a similar attack of fever, during which (as it will ever be remembered by me with gratitude) my recent patient became my nurse and assiduous attendant for the space of nine days, adopting in my case the plan of treat- ment I had followed in his own. In the mean time letters arrived from London which summoned Mr. Hamilton home on public and private matters, both of an equally agreeable nature, namely, to be married, and to be appointed precis writer and private secretary to the Earl of H^rrowby. Of course I was then completely ignorant of the nature and importance of the second portion of the good news, which in fact turned out to be the first step of that dis- tinguished diplomatic career which Mr. Hamilton, during a period of sixty years, w^ent through, as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from October 16th, 1809, to January 22nd, 1822 ; as Secretary to the Lord Justices of England during the King's visit to Hanover, 1821 ; and lastlj^, as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the court of Naples from February, 1822, till December, 1824. I could, and did, understand the first portion of the 124 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. / summons, and congratulated him sincerely, regretting only that our companionship should in consequence so soon terminate. Previously to the receipt of this agreeable news, Mr. Hamilton had meditated a second short visit to Asia Minor, taking Troy on his way to Constantinople on his return homewards. I was too weakened by the fever to ven- ture to accompany him, and it was therefore agreed that he should precede me at once to Smytna, having nothing to. detain him in Athens, and that in case I recovered sufficiently in a few days, I should join him at Smyrna, where he would prepare Mr. Werry, the British consul, to receive me. The period for our meeting again under such an arrangement was of course limited to a fixed number of days, at the end of which he would be free to proceed on his journey homewards. We parted, and never did we meet again till after the lapse of several years. I still remember the feelings of desolation that overcame me as I saw him set sail from the Piraeus. Accompanied by Signor Logotheti, I retraced my steps to his hospitable residence, where I remained the whole day shut up in my own room, feeling truly miserable. Good-natured Signor Lusieri came to me the following day, and by way of cheering me, proposed at once a round of visits within the limits of my poor enfeebled means of locomotion. He did not attempt to make me climb up to the Parthenon again for the present, but left that great scene for a grand climax to our peregrinations. As the nearest object to us, he took me to the choragic monument of Lysicrates, a graceful Corinthian colonnade on a quad- rangular basement, the tripod of which is wanting at the top. Why this monument should also be called the Lantern of Demosthenes, no plausible conjecture, as far as I am aware, has ever been made. The state of preserva- TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPUS. J25 tion of so delicate an object, after twenty-one centuries, is not one of its least merits. To sixteen gigantic columns of tlie Corinthian order, and of white marble, erected near the bank of the Ilissus, Lusieri called my particular attention, as all that remains of the most magnificent temple of the ancient world, dedicated to Jupiter Olympus. One can fancy what must have been the splendour of an edifice which was decorated with one hundred and twenty such columns as the sixteen we had before us, said to be the largest now standing in Europe of the same material, and measuring in height sixty feet, with a circumference of twenty-one feet. Commenced during his usurped power by Pisistratus, five hundred years before the Christian era, interrupted during his exile, continued by his sons until after their expulsion from Athens, then suspended ■for four centuries, then taken in hand by a Eoman emperor, with the aid and gold of a number of allied or friendly princes, to be at length completed by Hadrian ! The idea of so magnificent a temple as the Olympiesium reduced to such scanty vestiges of its existence made both my com- panion and myself regret that there had not been an Elgin a century or thereabouts sooner to save such a monument of exquisite art from the devastations of the Turks, such as even the Persians in their invasion of Greece had never thought of committing. Thinking I had done enough for one morning, Lusieri proposed to adjourn for refreshment and rest to his own sanctum, a curious snug domicilium, where he afforded me the opportunity of witnessing the casting in plaster of the most intact metopes, with portions of the frieze from the Temple of Theseus, which casts are now in the British Museum. The work was conducted under Lusierbs own direction. The next day we visited M. Fauvel, the French consul, 126 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, whose name having been obliterated by a blot of ink in my journal, my friend Mr. Donaldson, the eminent and scientific architect, has obligingly supplied me with. Mr. Donaldson had visited Athens a few years after us, and had known both Lusieri and the French consul, whom he de- scribes as an artist learned in archaeological lore, graceful and obliging, communicative of what he knew, and placing at your disposition whatever he possessed. He was a great friend of Lusieri, and I well remember his house and court- yard with the terrace, and the beautiful collection of antiquities he had gathered around him.” After an examination of the principal ancient remains, Lusieri took me to the Theseium, or Temple of Theseus, thence to the Hill of the Areopagus, and then to the monu- ment of Andronicus Cyrrhestenes, commonly called the Temple of the Winds. Never shall I forget the 28th of July, 1803, I rose with the sun, and after an early breakfast of coffee, milk, and honey from Mount Hymettus, I wended my solitary way slowly (for I was still weak from the fever) to the west, so as to reach the top of the Acropolis more con- veniently. I know not whether it was from the fact of my having heard so much from my travelling companion in commendation of the proverbially magnificent examples of Grecian art to be seen on this elevated spot, or w^hether from the circumstance of my having recently read the various elaborate and enthusiastic descriptions of them in ancient as well as modern authors, which had raised high my expectations, but the impression received on finding myself in front of the eastern fagade of the Parthenon was not of such an exalted character as I had anticipated and had prepared myself for. However, after I had walked along the side porticos, of probably two hundred feet in length, and contemj)lated the beautiful frieze on the external wall VIEW FROM THE ACROPOLIS. 127 of the Cella^ at the height of about thirty feet, representing the Panathensean procession of Minerva (most of it at present in the British Museum), and emerged from the inner into the outer south-western angle of the front colonnade, an astounding panorama broke before and around me. Then I almost wished I had been born an Athenian of the fourth pre-Christian, instead of the eighteenth post- Christian century. In imagination I saAV the crowd of Athenians, of all ranks, just emerged from the Celia and porticos of the Parthenon after their pagan rites, casting their eyes on the splendid spectacle around them, and I envied their enjoyment while enjoying it to a degree my- self. Immediately below them, the Temple of Bacchus and the Odeium ; the Museum, with the monument of Philo- pappus a little way to the right, and the Prytaneum, with the Arch of Hadrian on the left ; straight before them the Piraeus, with the triremes of the Pepublic ; further on, MgiiiSi, Nauplia, Hydra, and the mountains of Corinth. On turning back, the Areopagus, the Temple of Theseus, the Stoa of Hadrian, the Tower of Andronicus, and at the extreme south-east the most splendid of all the ancient temples, that dedicated to Jupiter Olympus. Oh ! glorious sight, not to be paralleled on earth, teeming with monu- ments of such exquisite designs and workmanship as no subsequent human effort has surpassed or indeed equalled. Such were my reffections, placed as I was on this unique spot. Nor can I at this moment wake up in my mind any analogous impression in the course of the ever-changing scenes of my subsequent long life. Of the beautiful works left for our admiration on this unrivalled Athenian hill, I consider the group of the three pretty edifices forming two temples, designated under the single name of Erechtheum, to be the most pleasing as well as the most interesting, equal in the power of creating a 128 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. lasting impression on the memory of the beholder to that of their gigantic neighbour, the Parthenon. No visitor, after satiating his sight with the grandeur of the latter edifice, can turn away from the Acropolis without being attracted by this architectural group, so exquisite, so charming, so varying in the lines of combination, elevation, and ornamen- tation, formed by the Temple of Minerva Pallas, with its graceful caryatides, backed by its western division dedicated to Pandrosos, the only faithful of the three daughters of Cecrops, who was deserving of a shrine to herself, harmoniz- ing with the hexastyle portico placed on a higher level at the eastern end. There is a poetry and a fervour of imagi- nation in this group of three shrines clustered within two temples, as it were, sufiBcient to stamp the reputation and render imperishable the name of the architect who designed it, if indeed it be the work of only one artist, of which fact there are some doubts. If there was a moment during my sojourn in Athens when I felt inclined to side with the angry cynics who had condemned the removal of Grecian monuments to England as an act of vandalism, it was while I stood contemplating the delicious portico of Minerva Pallas, and being horror-struck at the absence of one of the pretty caryatides, a piece of timber to support the angle of the architrave being placed in the vacant space of the one carried off ! That violent abduction of the young goddess led her into safer quarters in Great Russell Street, there to teach the fair ladies who have not yet adopted her coiffure the way to construct an Athenian chignon tempore Aspasia. Although the principal Elgin acquisitions had long before been despatched to England, at the period of my residence in Athens operations were going on under Lusieri’s super- intendence, and I must avow that I rejoice in it. I may ask what have the Greeks done in the last sixty-seven years to preserve what was left ? CONDITION OF ATHENS. ] X fV t/ Antiquities and the numerous examples (many of wliich have not been named in my cursory description) which the Athenians have left behind them, exhibiting their innate taste and sense of beauty in the fine arts, were not the only objects that engaged my attention while residing in their ancient capital. It was natural as a medical man that I should make inquiries into the sanitary condition of its inhabitants ; and this, whether from the natural disposition of things, or from the effect of municipal measures, I did not find such as a civilized community would desire to enjoy. A scanty supply of water, which was the normal condition of the place, may be assumed as one source of unhealthiness. A then very recent earth- quake which had taken place, destroying many lives, had unexpectedly converted scanty rivulets into abundant streams of limpid water, and the city supply had become fortunately sufficient. This led to an increase of domestic comfort. In their persons the Athenians, like their Turkish masters, were inclined to cleanliness, but not so in the arrangements of their houses, in which the two races resemble one another. The population suffered greatly from inflammatory attacks of the chest, ^ and pleurisy accordingly (due to the keenness and dryness of the air) is a prevalent disorder, treated invariably by bleeding from the arm. Young Greeks of the higher classes seemed much subject to glandular swellings, which run quickly into sup- puration if treated by a species of compound plaster. The basis of this plaster is a preparation of litharge : it is black in appearance, and commonly to be found in all families. I entered the process of making it in my note- book before coming away, and in default of any native denomination I called it Emplastrum Grsecum. I have frequently employed it in England, as well as recommended it to many of my professional brethren. VOL. T. K 130 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DK. GRANVILLE. In the messageia, or plain snrronnding Athens, a sort of malaria prevails at certain periods of the year. I am in- clined to ascribe it to a sirocco wind that blows over from the African coast, and I am led to adopt this view from the circumstance that many of the islands lying between that coast and the Gulf of ^gina, such as Zea, Milo, and Santorin, sufier similarly from the ill effect of that wind, which passes over them on its way to the shores of Attica. But that is not the only disastrous present Athens receives from the Libyan shores. There is also the curse of locusts, which infest the country at periods more or less frequent, producing devastation of a serious nature. Just before our arrival this scourge had committed great ravages throughout the whole of Attica, notwithstanding the exer- tions made during the previous spring to destroy them. Twenty paras, and even half a piastre, per oke were paid for their dead carcasses ; and sixty thousand okes were brought in, for which thirty thousand piastres were paid. These insects had ruined the crops and vineyards. The tyrant Hadji Ali, when commanding in Athens, took a much more effective and less expensive mode of getting rid of these destructive insects. He made the whole city and all the villagers near turn out for three days, then making the tour of Athens, he burnt all the wild shrubs and thyme he met in his way, and drove the locusts into the fire, after which operation they did not make their appearance again for seven or eight years. A considerable part of Athenian commerce is with the root of the Eubia Tinctorum, or Madder, which is sent to Larissa for the dyeing manufactories in that neighbourhood. The profit it yields is considerable. On the point of turning my back on Athens, probably for ever, the following were the reflections that suggested themselves to me. Here is a city, now insignificant, but DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE GREEKS. 131 the name of which is alone sufficient to awaken in the mind of uneducated person impressions which the sight of its precious monuments confirms, and adds weight to impres- sions of national valour, intellectual acuteness, fervid imagi- nation, and philosophical sagacity. But along with all this, where is the true picture of the people who raised these monuments, composed the governing laws of the common- wealth, exalted and awarded the heroes by whom Greek fame was spread through the world, and left indelible marks of their wonderful existence ? I carry away in my mind the long list of the works of Greek architects and sculptors ; I read the accounts of the varying circumstances under which each monument or statue has been brought into existence and dedicated ; how do all these facts enable us even to conjecture, much less to form a correct notion of, the manner in which these ancient people by whom all these mighty things were enacted succeeded in their accomplishment ? Of what kind was their social intercourse in ordinary affairs ? What was their domestic religion ? Had they any special prayers with which to address their favourite god or goddess on special emergencies ? I left Athens with the solemn impression on my mind made by its splendid public monuments, but dissatisfied at not learning aught that enables me to know the ordi- nary routine life of the people, their worldly associations, the fashions that prevailed among them, their tastes and education. In these respects, how different is it as regards Eome, Pompeii, and even mighty Egypt ! In their case we have become acquainted even with the minutest particulars of the domestic or private life of the people, who had surrounded themselves with magnificent and splendid edifices and monuments. We have ascer- tained every circumstantial phase of their private life. Not 13-2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. SO with Greece : were the Greeks of the times of Solon and Pericles happy ? Did they know the word comfort in their houses when the former Avise legislator proclaimed the general release of all poor citizens from indebtedness, or while they beheld the latter archon raising temples and statues to many gods ? Which writer has opened for our inspection the interior of the ordinary dwellings of the ancient Athenians ? What idea has any visitor to Athens formed of the manner in which lived the ancient dwellers in the city of Minerva, and for whom Avere erected those wonderful edifices, the mere remains of which extort ex- pressions of surprise, wonder, and admiration from all classes of visitors ? We knoAV how the humblest and most needy as Avell as the Avealthiest citizen lived in Pompeii, The collection at Portici tells us that. It is no secret to us what the Egyptians’ daily occupations were, their dress, their ornaments, their repasts, their amusements and recrea- tions, their civic condition and duties, and their forms of Avorship, and we can follow them through their in and out movements with as much ease and certainty as we can become acquainted with the mode of living of the most modern or contemporary nation. But of the ancient Greeks, whose account is there that supplies us with such information ? ^ * How different axe tlie records we have extant of all such matters and of such interesting points in reference to ancient Egypt, and how copious is the information we possess, may he seen in a part of that very able work of my friend Mr. Hamilton before alluded to, entitled “ Egyptiaca,’’ where, at page 286 , he gives a full description of the innumerable (many of them coloured) pictures on the walls, and the columns of the sepulchral excavations at a place Beni Hassan supposed to have been Speos Artemidos. “ It is impossible,’^ he states, to give an adequate idea of the endless variety of domestic and rural occupations here portrayed upon the walls ; the culture of corn, hemp, and flax, the manufactory of arms, the common modes of fishing, the hunting, dancing, wrestling matches, there being in one of the grottoes no less than one hundred and eighty representations of single combats, each perfectly different from any other, and all executed with great spirit. The representation of vintage A WANT STILL FELT. 133 As regards the building of the ordinary dwellings of the people, those writers who have treated the history of archi- tecture may possibly aid us. But which writer has told us how Aspasia, and the most exalted as well as the less ap- preciated of her admirers, lived in their own private houses ? In what consisted the display of luxe in dress, in equipage, in the number and appearance of attendants, in the ornamentation of the interior of houses, in the form of reception of the guests at banquets Did Athenian women, like modern Venetian ladies, turn night into day, that they might prolong the round of amusements Were there any heaux esprits besides the satirists, the comic actors, and the dramatic writers ? I know that I shall be referred to Pausanias, Herodotus, the grammarian Athe- nmus, in his Deipnosphistse, and to many more modern writers on Greece, such as Meletius, the Greek geographer, Stuart, Chandler, Choiseul, Gouffier, Doctor Clarke, Dodwell, Gell, and my good old friend. Colonel Leake; also to Pouqueville, Muller, and, lastly, to Dr. Wordsworth or to Keightley^s Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy. I have been referred to that great and extensive work of Grote. Be it so ! But without pretending to have con- sulted the half or third part of these numerous authorities, I still maintain that we are yet in want of a special work giving us a general and full account of the inner life, manners, habits, religions, passions, domestic intercourse in health and disease, in fact les usages du temps, besides in all its brandies, the representation of feasts with music and dancing/^ &c. Mr. Hamilton terminates his enumeration thus : — ^^The reader will conceive how manypoints in the history of the arts and amusements of the ancient Egyptians, of their domestic and social economy, &c., all these points, when farther examined, will be studied and considered, as monuments scarcely less interesting than the Pyramids or the Temples, with avidity by the antiquary and the artist, opening the eyes to a variety of details relating to the private life of the Egyptians which none of the writers of antiquity have touched uj)on.’’ ]34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. early and home education of the Greeks, especially of the Athenians, during the 63rd Olympiad, when Pisistratus lived and died, and the poet iEschylus was born, down to the 88 th Olympiad, in the first year of which the death of Pericles is recorded CHAPTER IX. 1803 — 5 . Departure from Athens — First view of Staiiiboul — Arrival at the English embassy — Seized with the Plague — The question of contagion — Eusebio Valli and inoculation — Constantinople Past and Present — Domestic physician to a Greek family — The Hospodars — Children of my host. A BOAT to Smyrna brought to my host, Logotheti, a letter from Mr. Werry, the English consul, enclosing a note from Mr. Hamilton for myself, announcing his immediate departure for Constantinople, and his inability to Avait for my arrival, as his presence was required in England. He recommended me to make my way direct to Constanti- nople, Avhere he Avould take care to secure me a friendly reception at the English Legation, should he have left before I arrived, as was likely to be the case. The land post on the same day brought me a letter from my late kind host at Cephalonia, in which was an enclosure from my eldest brother at Venice, which besides giving me satisfactory news from home contained a remittance. This, however, I had not asked him for, my late travelling companion having liberally acknowledged my professional services. With the assistance of my host an arrangement was soon made with the same reis, an Hydriote, who had con- veyed Mr. Hamilton in his sakalava, a boat of about three hundred kilos and a crcAV of eighteen men, for which he had paid one hundred and fifty piastres. My OAvn contract Avas necessarily for a larger sum, as I meant to proceed direct to Constantinople, a greater distance than my friencVs journey 136 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. to Smyrna. My voyage proved a long and tedious one, our reis taking care at night to get into some of the numerous islands we passed. At length we "entered the Dardanelles, casting an indifferent look at the big guns of the Castle of Sestos and that of Abydos on the Asian shore, I thinking rather of Sestos ’s daughter, the desolate and anxious maiden when her turret torch was blazing high to guide her lover through the stormy waters. We dropped anchor at Gallipoli for the night ; and I was amply repaid on the morning of the third day for all my discomforts and weariness by the magnificent view that broke upon us as the Seraglio’s point came in sight, and we scudded under our lateen sails round it to take our station at the skelessy or wharf of Tophanek, at the opening of the Golden Horn. This magnificent harbour, with deep blue water, flanked by hills covered with buildings interspersed with gardens and mosques, and sheltering the imperial fleet, offered a coup d'ceil I can never forget. When the moment for landing approached I was so weak that it was with difficulty I left the boat. There was fortunately no intervention by either police or custom-house officers, for my luggage, which was not considerable, had been placed in the hands of the captain, who had been charged by consul Logotheti to take great care of me, and see me safely deposited at the English Legation. The captain helped me to land, and committed me to the care of a couple of hamals, who attend at the landing pier, and who, placing their hands under my arms, one on each side, like two human crutches, aided me to climb a steep lane or hill till we reached a level space almost contiguous to the English ambassador’s residence. I gave my name in French to the gate porter, who replied in Italian, and informed me that an apartment had been ready for me some days. Striking a gong, an STRICKEN WITH PLAGUE. 137 attendant appeared, who conducted me to my rooms. In a short time I was waited on by an upper servant in the ministerial establishment, refreshments were supplied, and I was left to myself for the rest of the evening. On my table I found a few lines^ from my late travelling com- panion, who had left for England, three days before, assur- ing me that I might make myself comfortable in my new .quarters until I was able to make fresh arrangements. My residence in the palatial house of the Legation was not, however, of long duration, for in the course of that very first night I awoke in a fit of tremor or cold shivering, with an intense headache, which I took at first to be a return of my old Boeotian fever. It turned out to be something much worse ; for on the morning of the third day symptoms of the plague came in the form of swelled glands under the arms, leaving no doubt in my mind that by contact with the people who had accompanied me from the landing-place I had contracted the disease, which I was informed by the housekeeper who nursed me was at that moment very rife in Constantinople. With this con- viction on my mind I hesitated not an instant in requesting that I might be conveyed immediately to the Galata Hospital, where 1 had the good fortune to fall into the hands of Dr. Gobbes, a Venetian, the principal and a long- established physician in Constantinople. He was extremely popular, not only among the Franks in Pera, but especially among the best Greek families in the Fanar, a part of the city in which they exclusively resided. After four days passed in one of the private quarters of the hospital, my poor head began to get steady and clear, and I could take a complete survey of my own position. The doctors treatment I suppose was founded on an habitual and stereotyped method, and as that did not appear to me the best mode of proceeding to effect a par- 138 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. ticular result, I ventured to suggest a measure which, being adopted and carried out, was followed by immediate relief, not unattended, however, by something like prostration. To meet this my Brunonian plan of treatment was next had recourse to, and in about a fortnight I was declared convalescent. Dr. Gobbes informed me that my case had from the first been considered a very serious one, and that until the delirious state had passed away, on the seventh day, he did not think I should recover. We had frequent conversations on the subject, and I set myself seriously to consider the complaint and its alleged contagious nature. As soon as my friendly physician saw me on my legs and walking in the convalescents^ garden, considering me safe from any future infection, he took me round the rooms in which cases of plague were brought in from time to time, and allowed me to inspect the note-book in which were kept the particular histories of each case, especially in reference to the mode in which the disease was deemed to have been contracted. Dr. Gobbes was convinced that I had caught the plague by contact with the hamals who had escorted me after my landing, one of whom it was ascertained had died of the epidemic afterwards. Every one,^^ he added, ^Gn Constantinople is convinced that immediate contact between a healthy person and one con- taminated with the plague will cause the transference of the complaint to the healthy person in the great majority of cases ; but we do not admit that this disease, like any other common epidemic, must or may affect every person living in . a place where the plague rages, except where positive contact with the sufferer or some article touched by him has taken place. Our every day experience in this hospital tends to confirm us in this belief By a strange coincidence, some few months after this conversation a curious episode occurred in reference to the DR. VALLI AND INOCULATION. 139 history of contagion in plague, which is worthy to be recorded. An Italian physician, named Eusebio Valli, who had been one of the visitors at Pavia to witness the great discovery of Volta, and of whom I had a slight recollection, arrived at Constantinople with the determination to inocu- late himself with matter from a plague bubo. Some of this he first mixed, with vaccine matter, asserting that the virulence of the disease would be effectually extinguished, or at all events so very much modified that the patient would pass through the ordeal with impunity, and thereby become protected from any other seizure, on the assumption that the plague would affect man once only in his lifetime. The experiments were carried on in the hospital of which I had been an inmate, and I was admitted to witness them with five other physicians, the venerable Dr. Gobbes inclusive. Dr. Valli made an incision in his left thigh, and inserted some of the mixture, rubbing some also on the ball of one of his thumbs. A slight indisposition followed, accompanied by sores. As the witnesses of the experiments had expressed their scepticism as regards the genuineness of the plague matter employed. Dr. Valli was induced to repeat the experiment in the plague hospital of the Seven Towers. Here he employed the real and undiluted pestilential virus, fully convinced was he that by his previous experiment he had rendered himself invulnerable. Soon, however, was he shown the futility of all theories when opposed to facts, for he had scarcely been in the hospital three days before he contracted the disease, though he fortunately recovered. After the performance of quarantine, he again returned to the society of Pera, living with another Italian physician. Doctor Pigioni, who enjoyed the patronage of Prince Morousi. Such was Dr. Valli's conviction that by his first experi- 140 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. ment he had discovered a mode of rendering the plague much milder in its efiect, that he solicited permission — and the means were readily granted by Sultan Selim — to pro- ceed to Asia for the purpose of collecting fresh vaccine matter, as it was known that in some of the plains near the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus the peculiar disease of cows from which the matter for vaccination was obtained was very prevalent. On his return an apothecary put in circulation a pomatum composed of a mixture of bubo virus and cow matter, which was stated to produce a mild attack of plague, and to preserve the patient for ever from the disease. The sale of the remedy continued for some months, until the innumerable cases of mischief that fol- lowed came to the knowledge of the police, who promptly put an end to the trade in the nostrum.^ The conviction on our minds that the plague was a contagious fever of a most acute phlegmonoid type remained unaltered, and in my own individual experience, while in the exercise of my profession in Constantinople, I met very soon after with cases to confirm me in that conviction. At this day we read in many interesting volumes of travels, that this great capital of the East can boast of being provided with all the appliances for comfort and amusement which western European cities can offer to foreign travellers, and I have been informed that there are now not fewer than nine or ten first-rate hotels, restaurants and cafes without number, reading-rooms, a chamber of com- merce, and a literary and scientific institute for English visi- tors especially. Also, that not only are foreign newspapers in all languages to be had, but that local newspapers, in Turkish, Greek, Italian, and Armenian are published. Further, we are assured that everything suited to English convenience, taste, and requirements is to be found in * On the Plague and Contagion. By A. B. Granville, M.D., London, 1819, LIFE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 141 Stamboul in abundance, including religious worship, doctors, both in law and physic, solicitors, bankers, booksellers, and even German tailors! Added to all this, in June, 1870, news comes through the Levant Herald that the Turkish government is collecting all the books and manuscripts in the neglected libraries attached to the principal mosques, with the intention of placing them in a handsome building to be erected for the purpose near the Hippodrome, which will be converted into a national library open to Christians I Nothing of all this existed at the time of my visit. There was one great hotel, a famous Venetian restaurant or cookshop, where could be obtained the best dressed dish of Eiso alia Veneziana ; but no public institute ap- proaching a club or literary assembly. The gossips, espe- cially the medical, had their rendezvous at some apotekei — invariably kept by an Italian — which, like most of such gossiping establishments in Italian cities, was spacious, kept in the cleanest and neatest order, and above all redolent with the fragrant odour of myrrh, incense, and cassia. In such inviting shops the leaders of learned professions and the literati would congregate, or merely call for half an hour in the day to give or receive news and propagate all sorts of canan^ds. They were the resort of the gentlemen idlers settled in the capital, dwellers in Pera, or in the Fanar — ^^the quarfcier noble of the Greeks — and I have reason to remember how fortunate I considered myself in having such a resource in the dearth of occupation or any serious engagement which marked the first weeks of my residence in Pera after my complete recovery. On quitting the Pest Hospital, I did not consider myself entitled to return to the English ambassador’s residence, which had been so kindly offered me as a pied d terre on my arrival, in consideration of my connection with one of its principal members. I felt that I had no claim to prolong 142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. the enjoyment of such a privilege, and had therefore secured two rooms in the house of an old couple, Armenians, accus- tomed to lodge strangers. In this house four or five languages were commonly spoken by the attendants as well as by the master and mistress, who took a liking to the youthful Milanese medico, and treated him with almost parental kindness. On looking back to the earliest years of my wandering life, I am bound to acknowledge that few persons placed in circumstances similar to my own could expect to meet with so much fortuitous kindness and friendly treatment. The little episode of Dr. Valli was the occasion of my next step in the world ; thus we find in life that our active existence is a concatenation of events that seem to call one another into being or action, when each is but the neces- sary lemma of the preceding one, and the forerunner of the one that is to follow. So it was in my own case at this time of my life, and accordingly it happened that Dr. Gobbes, judging me from the doctrinal principles I had evinced in the little investigation of the theory of contagion, was induced to recommend to the parents of one of his female patients then under treatment for a chest complaint that I should be consulted. The young lady’s improvement under a change of treatment I had ventured to suggest led the satisfied father to propose to me to reside in his family as the domestic physician during the spring and summer months, which were always passed by the family at their villa in Terapia, probably the prettiest village on the European shore of the Bosphorus. The situation had been found inconvenient for their esteemed Fanariote ordinary medical attendant on account of the distance. The pro- posed arrangement happened to be both convenient and agreeable, for I was beginning to get desperately tired of the idle life I was leading in Pera, which consisted in THE HOSPODARS. 143 walking up and down a two-mile street, meeting always the same faces, and being snarled at by the same swarm of filthy curs, until they discovered that I was only one more giaour in their indisputable realm. The family removed from the Fanar to Terapia a fort- night after the Christmas of 1803, and I soon followed. I was now about to see what real domestic Greek life was. I had had in the Ionian Islands, at Janina, and lastly at Athens, many partial glimpses of it, but now, through a more intimate intercourse, I was about to become better acquainted with the Greeks in general, and, what was more, with the inner life of Greeks of the patrician order, some of whom indeed had some pretension to imperial descent. My host, Spiridion Stataki, was allied to some of the tlospodars of Wallachia, subordinate princ^es owning allegiance to the Sultan, but yet much happier than their present more modern and independent successors, princes of the Eouma- nian empire. How curious was the origin and rise of these old-fashioned hospodars, holding their court at Bucharest and Yassy ! Almost all of them had been the medical attendants of some grand Turk. They then commenced their public career by becoming Terjumans ; the height of their ambition being to be named dragoman to the fleet — the highest post a Christian can aspire to. The dragoman’s duty was to accompany the Capudan Pasha, or admiral in chief, in his excursions through the islands to collect the Sultan s taxes. His favour at head-quarters, and the in- fluence he possessed, depended on the zeal and activity displayed in obtaining not only the taxes due, but also presents from the wretched islanders for the benefit of the commander-in-chief. The word Fanariote ” was considered by the Turks to be synonymous with the basest servility, corruption, and rapacity. Yet they reached their aim, and during the period they governed, they contrived to secure 144 autobiography of dr. GRANVILLE. considerable wealth, with which they would pome and settle in the Fanar as one of the patrician dwellers with the title of prince, unless indeed a bow-string had been sent to them while on their way home, with the Sultan’s injunc- tion to the giaour prince to apply it to himself in its proper My residence in Turkey, and my occupations there, brought me acquainted with a few of these noble families, the children and grandchildren of some of whom I after- wards met in other parts of Europe, at the spas of Germany in particular. I remember Constantine Ipsilanti Skarlatos Kallimachi, in whose company, in 1804, 1 afterwards sailed in the same Turkish fleet ; Alexander Mourouzi, whom I met some years later as ambassador to France ; and lastly Alexander Soutzo, who was hospodar at two different epochs, and who might have been an ancestor of the man of the same name who filled the place of minister of war at Athens at the time of the recent tragical event at Oropos. The above individuals assumed the title of prince from the circumstance of their having filled the office of Voivode. The house we removed to at Terapia was, I was informed, kept always ready to receive its inmates, without the fuss and trouble of moving furniture or any other domestic appliance. There was wealth sufficient with which to play the Grand Seigneur ; indeed, the youngest of the two sons, about three-and-twenty years of age, who was in every respect, except religion, like a Turkish mollah in appear- ance — gravity, hauteur, and erudition — would not have suffered in the house any other than the most scrupulous adherence to the style and manner of the most magnificent Mussulman. Seen seated. Eastern fashion, on a divan in his own private apartment, wearing a splendid pelisse, and a snow-white turban crowning a large handsome face and beard, wdth a long amber-mouthed tchibouk held to his FAMILY OF SPIRIDION STATAKI. 115 lips by his ' left hand, while a chaplet of aloe-beads was perpetually sliding through the fingers of his right, you might have taken Michael Stataki for a pasha of three tails. His sway in the house was paramount. His aspira- tions tended to his becoming a Terjuman to the Porte, for which object he was making a particular study not only of the Turkish, but also of the Arabic and Persian languages, and he used to receive visits from some of the most learned among the Ulemah. Towards foreigners he was not very favourably disposed. Far different was the eldest brother, and with him I was not long in fraternizing. Quiet, unassuming, delicate of complexion and in health, he represented the true type of the Fanariote Greek in style and manners, and in dress, oriental like his brother's. Like his brother also he had not travelled beyond the confines of Turkey in Europe, but being fond of the fine arts, and having had a careful education, the perusal of the Greek classics had induced him to visit the most interesting parts of his native land, at one time taking up his station at Athens, where he had learnt the French language from a native schoolmaster who had been educated in Paris. With the Italian language he had been familiar from infancy, like the rest of the Greeks of his class, who have Venetian nurses. Fortunately Spiridion Stataki pre- ferred conversing with me in his own language, as he was desirous that I should keep up the practice of it for con- venience of intercourse with his parents, who were un- acquainted with any foreign language. Spiridion ts weak state of health, and liability to an occasional slight attack of epilepsy, made it necessary that I should not be far distant from him, so he had arranged for me to have two rooms contiguous to his own, and one of his attendants was selected to specially wait upon me. In introducing the dramatis persomo of the new phase of VOL. I. L 1 16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. my life just opening before me, I am conscious of having contravened the usage of Place aux dames ; but the dames in this case vvere last in arriving at their villa, and when there the first days were passed in that separate division of the house which is almost a distinct building o kept specially for the ladies, as the harem is in a Turkish family. A general assembly of all parties took place in due time, and was kept up according to the fashion of Greek high life, which I must say is surrounded by a more charming prestige than I had found previously or have since observed in aristocratic circles in the more western regions of Europe, due to a number of pleasing customs and delicate proceedings that made the absence of the more bustling ostentation and unmeaning display of modern fashionable life elsewhere not in the least to be regretted. Zoitza, the eldest daughter, about twenty years of age, represented in its most enchanting form the genuine type of Grecian beauty. Her hair, of a bluish black, from under the smallest possible cap of gold-embroidered blue velvet, coquettishly placed on the top of the head, flowed in profusion over her shoulders and graceful bust, except where gathered up in long massive tresses entwined here and there with the flowers of the bright pomegranate. Her open silken robe crossed modestly over a richly embroidered muslin chemisette fitting closely to the bosom. The dress was of the same colour as the flowers in the hair, toned down by a tunic of light gauze or white gossamer. The robe descended only a few inches below the knees, over the wide and plaited trousers of soft lustring, gathered in at the ankle, and terminating with a well-fitted slipper of the softest morocco leather, that set off the perfectly modelled and tiny foot. Zoitza’s complexion was rather Moorish, with elliptic eyebrows that almost met over the well- chiselled nose, while long eyelashes shaded her lustrous ]47 DAUGHTERS OF THE HOUSE. grey eyes, whose expression harmonized with the varying movements of her ruby lips, which disclosed another of her treasures. Her manners and address were most graceful. Nothing but superior accomplishments, such as she had not acquired in her father^s home, were wanting to make Zoitza perfect. She was the affianced bride of Prince Alexander Soutzo, whom she married some time after, accompanying him, if I remember rightly, when he went as hospodar to Yassy. Sophitza, the younger sister, presented a perfect contrast to the elder. Nature had clad a gentle mind and a tender affectionate heart in an equally delicate material form. She Avas pretty without being beautiful, and there was an expression in her looks which seemed to ask for sympathy and affection. Such a physiognomy I have often noticed in young Avomen Avho have had but indifferent health in the early part of their lives, as was the case with Sophitza, she having been the invalid through whose joint treatment Avith Dr. Gobbes at the Fanar I had obtained my present appointment. CHAPTER X. 1804. Terapia-— Dr. Toselli— Study tlie Turkish language— Alarming illness of one of the family— Omens— Fasts of the Greek Church— Appointed second physician to the Turkish fleet — A Milanese in Oriental attire. My engagement with Spiridion Stataki was not to last longer than I liked or found convenient as I explained to him that my ultimate object was to effect a settlement in Pera as a medical man. The duty was simple and well defined, namely, to watch over the health of the gentle Sophitza, who had recently suffered from severe illness, and to inquire every morning after the rest of the family, who treated me in every respect as one of their number. I did not expect, with my youthful appearance, to inspire much awe in my character of hekim, nor did I pretend to assume a conse- quential air in order to maintain that character ; yet I studied by my behaviour to inspire that confidence in my professional knowledge which ensures consideration. I found the family one and all, but especially the mother and the youngest son Michael, much disposed to chat about physic and remedies in general, and questions relating to health of body and the preservation of life formed the staple of our conversation in the evening. With all Eastern races this seems to be an irrepressible gusto. There would be no great harm in such a practice, nor would it be found a bore in the end were the people you converse with pos- sessed of the smallest spark of scientific knowledge. In A VILLA IN TERAPIA. 149 the absence of that, all arguments and observations referred to superstitious fancies and equally superstitious practices, respecting which I soon found that I had much to learn and nothing to teach. Such subjects of conversation served as a pastime, and did well for the want of other amuse- ments. It is not easy to describe the sensations experienced on throwing open the casement of your sleeping apartment at sunrise, after passing a first night in one of the palatial dwellings situated on the European shore of the Bosphorus, and beholding straight before you the shore of another part of the geographic world — Asia ! Our house had a quay in front accessible to caiques as well as to larger craft, for easy landing or embarcation. A rapid sea flowed before it, coming from the Euxine at a merry rate down into the Horn and the Sea of Marmora, to go out and mingle its waters with those of the Hellespont. At the back of the house was a forest of mixed trees of some extent, orchards, and nearest of all were parterres of garden flowers refreshed by the sprays of a fountain, and enlivened sparingly by mythological statues and groups. Such were the surround- ings of our delightful villa. I say sparingly in regard to the statuary, for modern Greeks have not inherited from their ancestors a taste for the flne arts : the furnishing of our interior testifled to that. Turkish, French, Venetian, but not ancient. Greek in any of the articles or appliances. Everything grand^ announcing the possession of wealth and the desire to enjoy life without stint, yet not with unthriftiness. Such was our interior : and what of our menage^ Every one did as he or she pleased. I breakfasted in my own apartment. The first repast of the day at which we all assembled was at one o^clock. With a view of humouring the Turcomania of the youngest son, the dinner was sometimes served in the 150 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Osmanlie style on ordinary days. Not so on Sundays or other festive occasions, when the table was decked in the French style. The frequent recurrence of fasts in the Greek Church (besides the two week-day fasts in which no animal food whatever is permitted) left little room for any display of culinary skill. Born and brought up in the Eoman-Catholic creed as I was, I could nevertheless only marvel at the tenacity with which these rigid regulations were adhered to by both the Greek and Latin Church on the part of their respective worshippers. Our repasts occu- pied but a small portion of the twenty-four hours of the day. There were hours of small talk, when coffee or iced sherbet, and the never-failing tchibouk, made their appear- ance ; besides which, members of the family met in groups of two or three to read foreign papers, or such books as chance brought to Stamboul from the west. On these occasions visitors were received from the Fanar and the foreign Legations. It was at one of these receptions I had the good fortune of making the acquaintance of a medical gentleman, a native of Bologna, long resident in Turkey, and occupying a high post in the naval service of the Porte. His name was Dr. Toselli, hekim-bashi, a portly and imposing figure, wearing habitually the Turkish dress with the distinguish- ing kalpac of his rank. He had had an adventurous life, part of which he described to me ; but no part of it pleased me so much as his progress in the Ottoman naval service — his account of which both interested and surprised me. He expected in the course of two months to be summoned to attend the Capudan Pasha on his annual rounds of visits to the Greek islands and adjacent Turkish coasts. As to my own occupations, I found enough to fill my idle hours in the friendly offer of Michael Effendi (as we used to call the youngest son) to instruct me in the gram- STUDY TURKISH WRITING. 151 matical difficulties of the Turkish language. He also undertook to teach me the art of writing the language, in which, however, I found greater difficulty ; such, indeed, as to deter me from pursuing the study, aivare that I was making very small progress in it. I certainly did succeed in tracing some lines from right to left with my pointed kalam, made of wood, which seemed to me more like drawing than writing; and I was so much pleased with my production that I was induced to persevere until I fancied that I observed my instructor’s zeal began to flag a little, when I at once abandoned the task. It is not given to every one to accomplish what he undertakes, and I very well remember the pains and per- severance I employed many years after when in England to master stenography, a species of Turkish writing, in which, however, I entirely failed after trying more than one system and more than one teacher. There is evidently no aptitude in me for writing hieroglyphics, except perhaps my own natural griffonnage, Michael Stataki made ample amends for his declining zeal in teaching, by escorting me to some of the principal objects of interest in Constantinople proper, and also in Scutari and other places on the Asiatic coast opposite our own residence. For these excursions the well-trimmed and w^ell- manned caiques of the family were used, reminding me of the lagune excursionists in gondolas at Venice, except for the difference in rowung. My guide’s knowledge of Turkish history, and especially of the strange and stirring events that marked the existence of this Queen of the East, under Christian emperors and Mussulmen rulers, gave additional interest to the information I acquired day by day. Under his wing I was able to view and closely to examine the most splendid of the mosques in Constantinople, that of Sultan Achmet, rising by the side of the Hippodrome, with 152 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. its six graceful minarets, Avhich render it so conspicuous in the panorama of the city, being the only mosque so privi- leged and so adorned. In these occupations many days were passed. But I remember likewise that the close vicinity of the palace of the French embassy in Terapia afforded me opportunities of an agreeable intercourse with some of its members, whose o acquaintance I considered myself entitled to claim as a citizen of an allied Italian republic. General Brune was the French ambassador at the time, a post he occupied for a period of three years, till the elevation to the imperial crown of the commander-in-chief under whom he had shared in the glory of Arcole and Eivoli, when he was created Marechal and Due, to die at last assassinated at Avignon by the notorious chief Trestallion, who himself dealt the fatal blow. Was it ominous of his fate that the palace of the embassy was one that had belonged to Prince Ypsilanti, who was strangled, and the palace presented to the First Consul on the return of peace with France ? During our residence in Terapia the French embassy commemorated many national fbtes and victories, especially the recent one of Marengo, by the exhibition of splendid fireworks on the water, which used to attract a great influx of Stamboul people. My office of domestic physician proved a mere sinecure until the first week in May, 1804. We had just returned from a pleasant excursion on the Asiatic shores, where a few days were spent in short runs through the many picturesque villages, khans, and cemeteries scattered among the low rounded hillocks that extend a short distance inland. The expedition, I may truly say, had been under- taken almost with the sole intention of initiating me into some of the neighbouring local beauties of the part of Asia immediately opposite our own residence. Every one ap- A NIGHT ALAEM. 158 peared to have enjoyed the short tour, though we returned much fatigued with the arabas and slow progress of the oxen ; in fact, we were all glad to find ourselves at home again. In the course of the night the man-servant who usually attended on me entered my chamber in a state of alarm, to inform me that his young mistress, Sophitza, had been taken suddenly ill. It appeared that while in the act of undressing, after having, as was customary, sat chatting in her mother^s room, where they read their prayers together, she had been seized with a violent fit of coughing. Hastening to her apartment I found that she had brought up small quantities of blood, so dreading hemorrhage from the lungs, I made her inhale the acid vapour of vinegar thrown on a red-hot iron, and at once gave her one grain of solid opium, a drug always to be found in Greek and Turkish families. At the same time I endeavoured by a few consolatory words to allay the anxiety and fears of the patient and. her parents. My wish that the other members of the family (who had all rushed to the sick-chamber) should retire except the mother, was not complied with. They agreed not to talk, and I promised to stay with them provided they would remain in the adjoining apartment, out of sight of the patient, in order that she might be left to the full soothing effect of the narcotic she had taken. This arrangement had hardly been carried out, and the whole household buried in profound silence, when a most dismal and lugu- brious howl rose from the quay in front of the house, breaking the dead silence of the night. It was repeated three times. That very moment the aged mother, who had kept her eyes steadily on her daughter, calmly asleep by this time, fancied she did not breathe, so tranquil was she under the influence of the opium. She at once rushed into our room in the greatest trepidation, crying out that her child 154 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. was dying, and that the noise in the street was the howl of the death-dog, the immediate forerunner of human dissolu- tion. In the midst of the confusion and alarm in which we hastened juto the sick-room, our eyes directed towards the bed, the horror of the whole party may be readily imagined when they beheld outside a large glazed casement by the side of the bed, a huge owl perched on a branch of one of the forest trees at the back of the house, its staring yellow eyes fixed, pecking at the pane of glass, and screeching Hoopoe ! This it did three times in a most dismal tone, and then flew off into the forest, its well-known habitation, where it had been seen many times. Now all hope was over ; death was inevitable, and the fate of poor Sophitza sealed ! No words of mine could allay the alarm. I was not listened to, and for the moment I felt the disadvantage of my youth, which took away my authority and inspired no confidence. My mind was made up at once, and a messenger was despatched instantly to the Fanar to fetch Dr. Gobbes. In the mean time the fair patient continued quiet and placidly asleep, and I convinced both father and mother of that satisfactory circumstance, which at last enabled me to succeed in inducing every one except the mother to return to their respective apartments, leaving me to watch with her the unconscious patient, still under the influence of the blessed drug. Those were not days of telegrams and railroads, and before the great physician could come, after some hours Sophitza awoke refreshed, and the great man from the Fanar had only to tell her that he had been called to the neighbourhood, and took that opportunity of paying his first friendly visit since they had left Stamboul. Dr. Gobbes commended what I had done, did not smile as I FABTS OF THE GPvEEK CHURCH, 155 expected at the story of the death-dog and the owl, for/^ said he, if you continue long among us you will have more opportunities of learning to what extent domestic super- stition exists among the best educated Greeks, to all of which, in the exercise of my profession, I never laugh/^ However, in the present case it was agreed that the patient should not be told of what had transpired in the night. We also agreed on a plan of treatment to be followed, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the invalid resume her place in the family circle in the course of two or three weeks. So time went on, and the sort of idle life to which I had condemned myself on entering the family, with whom I was now living in all the indulgences • that the most favoured or fastidious guest could desire or expect, was beginning to be irksome to me. Once the momentary turmoil caused by the sudden indisposition of a favourite daughter had sub- sided, things settled down into a monotonous sameness not at all in harmony with my restless disposition. There were also some drawbacks to a wholesome life in the strict manner in which the injunctions of the Greek Church, in respect to diet and fasting, was kept up by all the family. The French Eevolution had taught me at Milan to give up and forget all the fasts of the Latin Church. To resume them now, under a severer form, was rather distasteful to me, probably because m the present instance they were com- pulsory, since politeness alone (to say the least) required that I should chime in with all the habits of the household. Yet I was neither a gourmand nor a toper, and I may as well dispose of that matter in this place at once, by averring that I have throughout a very long life been almost invari- ably an abstemious eater, from some peculiar medical notion of my own, and that during the whole time of my sojourn in the East I never drank or tasted wine. The Greeks keep four Lenten seasons of some days’ 156 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. duratioDj besides the one immediately preceding Easter day. They fast before Christmas, before the day of the Apostles, before the day of the Transfiguration, and they fast again for about a week before Ascension Day. Besides all these fasts, on two days in each week on fait maigre,'^ when botargo, oil, and caviar are the luxuries of the day. However, these were all minor considerations : the more serious one was, as to whether a longer continuance in my professional employment would conduce to any permanent settlement with a chance of independence. Besides, the still unquenched desire to see more of the world seemed to take away all wish to become a settled medical practitioner in any of the countries I had yet visited ; nor had anything worth acceptance been thrown in my way. On the other hand, the wandering life I had hitherto led had yielded a sufficiency, together with many enjoyments, instruction, and individual independence. Let me therefore adhere to what is, or in other words to my own original desire. Such are the rhapsodies which young men take for sound arguments, and which are here recorded because I find them noted in my journals. But with the light of the fuller experience which sixty-six years of prolonged life has afforded me, I am ready to declare them to be wrong, injudicious, and little deserving the success that has marked that extended life. Had I examined my own conscience more intimately, perhaps I should have discovered another more delicate and not dishonourable motive for desiring to abandon my present position. My usual good luck put me in the way not long after of accomplishing that act. A large party given by General Brune at the French embassy, enabled me to converse with my countryman, the hekim- bashi Toselli^ on the nature of his appointment under the Turkish government, and the chance there would be for me to obtain suitable rank in the medical service of the Turkish APPOINTED TO THE TURKISH FLEET. 157 navy. Toselli encouraged me in my views, and deferred giving me an answer till our next meeting, which would be at the house of a literary friend of Michael Stataki, where both of us had often passed some agreeable and instructive hours. In the mean time I prepared my good hosts to receive a communication of my intention to leave them, the excuse given being my great desire to travel. Michael Effendi had already spoken to his parents and his two sisters of the conversation I had had with the hekim-bashi of the Ottoman fleet with a view of obtaining a suitable appointment, so that my own more positive communication of my determination did not take them by surprise, though they were pleased to express their great regret. Toselli was not long in bringing matters to a close, for in a day or two I received a note from him, offering me an appointment of second physician to the fleet, and telling me to meet him at the AdmiraltjL The meeting took place two days after, and in the mean time I called on my venerable and kind confrere. Dr. Gobbes, -who approved as well as rejoiced at the step I had taken. My personal introduction to Hussein Pasha’s successor, the grand admiral, or Capudan Pasha, took place on the same day, when I received my nomination of second phy- sician to the Turkish fleet written on a large square parch- ment, with the grand admiral’s signet. I was appointed to the Patrona Bey, or vice-admiral’s flag-ship of eighty- four guns, on board of which was to be the Kiaya Bey, Minister of the Interior, for whose special service my appointment was made out, and of whose staff I was to be one of the superior officers. With my firman I received likewise the distinguishing kalpac of my rank, a species of lofty cap divided vertically into two parts at the top, a front and a back part, covered externally with fine black sable, the division lined with scarlet cloth, and a round 158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. scarlet cloth cockade fixed to it bearing the Crescent embroidered in gold. I also received a handsome Behnish, or outer cloak, of fine dark cloth trimmed with sable, having the form of an ample morning gown with long large sleeves. This clothing, forming a kind of uniform, was a present usually made to a medical officer on his first intro- duction into the service, and was his property. The rest of the garments were provided at the discretion and cost of the wearer, and consisted of all the several parts that constitute a regular Turkish costume, including the wide shawl of white muslin — embroidered or not — worn many times rolled round the waist, and the long and ample trousers of light materials, generally red, terminating in polished yellow morocco papouches to correspond. Thus rigged, the Milanese, converted at little more than twenty-one, and in the space of two years, from a Avestern military conscript into an oriental naval officer or hekim, was seen to stride about the lengthy street of Pera for the first time in that eastern costume, feeling em- barrassed at every step, leaving his papouches behind him, and having to go back and pick them up again and again, heated by the kalpac, that AAmuld keep tottering backwards and forwards, and lastly compelled to stop in order to rearrange the shawl round the waist, that got looser and looser as he advanced. I did not remember to have felt more awkAvard, in every sense of the word, when, in the character of Appius in the Virginia of Alfieri, I wore the Roman toga and appeared as the Tyrant at the Amateur Teatro Filodrammatico in Milan exactly two years before. CHAPTER d 1804. Join the Vice-Admirars flag-ship—TAe Proceed to collect the annual tribute — La Justice — Visit Tenedos, Lesbos, and Chios — Adaniantius Korai — Samos : beauty of its women — A Princess of Samos — Ferocity of the Grand Admiral— Arrive at St. Jean d^Acre — Djezzar Pasha— -Visit Mount Carmel, The Turkish fleet, of six sail of the line, with two frigates and one large corvette, dropped down the Golden Horn into the Sea of Marmora on the 25th of May, 1804, and came to an anchor at Rodosto, where it would remain for a day, in the course of which I was to join The Peacock, the vessel to which I had been appointed. She bore a vice-admiral’s flag, and had on hoard the Kiaya Bey, or Minister of the Interior. Hussein Pasha, the famous Routchouk (or little Pasha), to whose talented and unparalleled exertions the Porte was indebted for the possession of a most efficient and well-disciplined fleet of twenty line-of-battle ships, French built, had died only a few months before, when a new Capudan Pasha was appointed. The annual duty of such a commander-in-chief was to sail to all the Greek Islands and tributary coasts, there to collect the Sultan’s taxes. On the present occasion it became knowui that the fleet would have in addition to contend at St. Jean d’Acre with Djezzar Pasha, the ferocious chieftain who had for- merly defended that fort against the French with the aid of Sir Sidney Smith and a Russian vessel, and who, being afterwards appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ottoman troops in Egypt, signed a treaty of evacuation with the French, saw it complied with, and had returned to Syi’ia to 160 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. raise the standard of revolt against the Porte on the walls of Acre. 'It was a painful moment when I bade adieu to my friends at Terapia, and received their cordial good wishes. At my then age, the sympathy co-existent among five young people who had dwelt intimately together for some time, is stronger than the mere conventional friendship that is formed between people of two different nations. As I look back now through the long vista of nearly seventy years, and memory recalls with startling precision the many times when the same painful and heart-sinking ceremony of parting with those I had dwelt with for a time has been gone through, in Italy, in the Ionian Islands, at Athens, in Turkey, in Spain, in the West Indies, in Eussia, in France, in Germany, and again in England, I am surprised at the elasticity of the human heart, which can sustain all these successive impressions and yet rally again into its normal quality of sensitiveness. It is said that the heart breaks. It does not. It cannot do so. But its plastic nature may be subjected to so much compression as to suppress for ever its elastic rebound to life-actiGn. It is the only instance in nature in which we witness most distinctly the control of psychical over physiological laws.^ In my note book or diary of those days I discover some traces of reminiscences that tell of gloom and low spirits when I found myself on the quarter-deck of The Peacock. * In a very remarkaLle instance I recollect a gentleman dropping down dead on Being told of the violent death of a son under very distressing circumstances. The sudden death of the father was ascribed to ordinary apoplexy. I doubted it. His constitution was hot of the class in which sudden death occurs, and I looked upon the heart as the offender. A permitted examination showed dis- tinctly the correctness of the supposition. The heart was found so immensely compressed, and of such small volume, as to render the fleshy walls almost hard. Every drop of arterial blood had been ejected. The left cavities had collapsed, while the right, with the lungs, were turgid and full of black blood. It was an apoplexie foudroyante of the heart that had snapped the thread of life. ON BOARD THE PEACOCK. 161 The noise and bustle of the preparations for weighing anchor and making sail were almost overpowering. To a delicate Italian ear such a confusion of tongues and mixed utterances, shrill and loud, in Turkish, in Greek, in Slavonian, in lingua franca, with the monotonous drawling exclama- tions of the seamen at the capstan as an accompaniment, proved too much for me at the moment, and I gladly took shelter from it all by shutting myself in my spacious cabin, well furnished and well appointed, on the quarter-deck under the poop. There I sat down and took my head in my hands, feeling for an instant truly miserable. Imagina- tion leapt over seas and continents to light on Milan, the only place where a circle of loving souls might be found, the remembrance of whom could alone fill up the vacuum left in my heart by my sudden withdrawal from the bosom of a family who had treated me as one of their own. I cast my eyes on my Turkish costume, and almost burst out laughing. What are these strange habiliments I see on me ? Am I again about to appear on the stage of the Filodrammatico ? On what cast have I staked my life ? Here am I, an officer in an Ottoman war- vessel, forming part of her crew, consisting of twelve hundred souls, some hundred of them galley-slaves or condemned prisoners, a large number military, many Italian or Ionian sailors, and I, unknown to them all, an object of indifference to their commanders ! What a con- trast in twenty-four hours ! Yesterday esteemed, valued, and cared for by those around me ; to-day a solitary crea- ture cast on the waters ! No pilgrim on the arid sands of Palestine could be more desolate ! Such were my reflections of the moment, and I know not how much more deeply I might have indulged in them had not my servant (a Corfiote engaged for me by Hekim-bashi Toselli) come to inquire if I did not wish for some dinner. He explained that the Proveditore had informed him that his VOL. I. M 162 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. instructions were to supply me with such repasts as I might desire, to be served in my cabin at the same time as those which were sent to the Kiaya Bey. My reply was a brief one : Anything will do ; and don't let me be troubled about orders during the voyage. Let them send what they like. I do not object to Turkish fare " (indeed their pillau was, and has always since been, a favourite dish of mine) ; I eat little, and drink no wine and during the whole time I remained on board I never had in a single instance to make a complaint. My cabin, as I said, was under the poop on the starboard side. It was divided in two parts, a sleeping-room, in which swung a large cot, and a sitting, or receiving-room, it being understood that all sick persons above a sailor should attend in my cabin for advice, unless confined to their bed. The hours of attendance were immediately after early prayer. In this part of the cabin I had arranged my few books, my writing materials, my surgical instru- ments, and the portable medicine chest supplied by the Admiralty under Toselli’s directions. There was no regular assistant-surgeon attached to the vessel — a great and singular deficiency, as all the Turkish vessels of war were supposed to be managed entirely on the European model. However, Toselli had assigned to me one of his Constantinople apprentices, a young Fanariote well ac- quainted with the Turkish language, especially as regards medical nomenclature, and also with the particular whims, fancies, and superstitions in matters of medicine that were prevalent among the Turks. This was a real relief to mq, for I found him a young man of great intelligence. I set him to keep my registers both in the Greek and Turkish lan- guages, and to enter such notes of important cases as I might dictate. Hekim-bashi Toselli had expressed a wish that I would send him a weekly report of the state of health on A TURKISH SHIP OF WAR. 163 board. At this request I rejoiced, as in my present posi- tion I was not likely to be over-burdened with occupation for the many waking hours of a long summer^s day. On the opposite, or larboard side under the poop, was a similar cabin to my own, occupied by the Navigating Captain,^^ Nicolovitch, a Eagusan, The two great state rooms, with a gallery astern under the poop, formed the apartments of the Kiaya Bey and his two secretaries, who had each a separate berth adjoining. These saloons were splendidly fitted up, Turkish fashion, and while the fleet was at anchor before some port, were almost constantly encumbered by people who came to transact business v/ith the great minister, who for the time being was Chancellor of the Exchequer. As such he had to receive and account for the different taxes or tributes we collected during our cruise. When at anchor the communication between our ship and that of the Capudan Pasha was necessarily frequent ; but the latter preferred a smaller and swifter sailing vessel for him- self, and had hoisted his flag on board a French-built frigate called La Justice, which had been captured by the English squadron in 1801, and presented to the Porte. In that vessel the Capudan Pasha would often precede us in our regular expeditions, or absent himself and return unex- pectedly to see if he could detect any fault or cause for com- plaint, that he might exhibit an innate bad temper. Prince Kallimachi was his dragoman, and he generally remained on board the real flagship, Sultan Selim, a three-decker, seldom, accompanying his chief in the smaller vessel. Unfortu- nate Kallimachi ! The cruise proved disastrous to him. The new Capudan Pasha showed unmistakable signs of turning out more despotic and severe than his imme- diate predecessor, Hussein Pasha, whose memory was now regretted. The appearance of La Justice, her grand- 164 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. admirars flag at the main, in the waters of any of the islands was well calculated to inspire terror, the yard-arm justice he was fond of putting into execution against defaulters or dishonest cashiers of local contributions being well known. The vice-admiral, or Patrona Bey (Suleiman Pasha), whose flag we carried at the fore, occupied the great state cabin on the upper deck. The officers of the ship, Turks, who were perfectly useless, had no wardroom properly speaking, but clustered both right and left to a certain extent in front of the vice-admiral’s state rooms, to which they had free access. In the navigation of the ship they seemed to concern themselves but little, that task devolving entirely on the navigating captain, with some Greek and Italian minor officers dependent on him. The discipline among both officers and crew, though with the appearance of bustle here and there to a stranger like my- self in naval or military matters, seemed nevertheless to be carried on without difficulty, disputes, or hesitation. An- other fact struck me at once, namely, the order and cleanli- ness in every part of the vessel, especially where the seamen and soldiers messed together between the guns — a space which four or six of them occupied in common. There they spread a carpet at night to serve as a bed, and on this in the day- time they knelt to say their prayers, a practice which no Turk ever forgot or neglected. In these recesses I visited my patients whenever called upon to do so, but in general I had all such as were really ill transferred to a sick-bay, a large space under the forecastle, which the navigating captain had had railed off for my use at ihy request and with the approbation of the vice-admiral. My special duty towards the Kiaya Bey was to inquire personffily every morning after his health, which troubled me little, as he was a hale, robust Turk, who took good THE ISLAND OF TENEDOS. 165 care of himself. His showy dress and turban, with an im- posing beard, imparted to his person an air of magnificence which I ever admired in the Osmanli race of my time, a magnificence that must h^ve been due to that special dress, for the Turks of high degree I have since met in society in many parts of Western Europe, in their skimpy blue tunics and their fez or red skull-cap and tassel in lieu of a turban, are but a mean representation of the gorgeous oriental magnificence of the days of Selim the Third or Mustafa the Fourth. On emerging through the Dardanelles we shaped our course along the Asiatic coast towards Tenedos, where vm dropped our anchors and received the primates of the island, who on the appearance of the dreaded flag had got together the taxes, with which they came on board our ship to deliver them to the Kiaya Bey and obtain a discharge in return. No opportunity w^as afforded me for communica- tion with them, but I was permitted to go ashore and visit an island which played so conspicuous a part during the Trojan war, by serving as a screen to the Greek fleet while it pretended to have abandoned the AEgean waters. When on shore I examined the coast with the view to ascertain whether in reality a number of vessels could cluster together at the back of the island, so as to escape detection by people on the Asiatic shore. If the Greek vessels were not larger than our present gunboats or war schooners it might have been possible for a day or two to escape being discovered, as the Virgilian account has it, though not according to the Homeric. The experiment, however, in the present instance was not a fair one, for Agamemnon’s fleet and that of the Capudan Pasha neither in number nor in size bore any resemblance the one to the other. Be that as it may, the idea which suddenly surged in my brain after I landed, that I was actually treading on the very ground 166 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. which the feet of Achilles had trodden, so impressed me that all other thoughts and mental speculations vanished before it, even to the extent of forgetting the barbaric act that intractable Glrecian chief perpetrated on that same ground, of slaying Tones, the deified King of Tenedos, son of Apollo. The ruffian act also of Verres, who stole the brazen statue of the new-made god from the people of Tenedos, was justly consigned, together with its author, to deserving ignominy by Cicero’s burst of eloquence in his first oration against the rapacious pro-consul. We next sailed over to Lesbos, or Mitylene, into whose spacious harbour the Capudan Pasha did not venture to lead his fleet, dreading its narrow and intricate entrance. Here again the fiscal contribution of the year was found ready, and the frigate La Justice^ which alone had penetrated into the harbour, soon made her appearance again. So much dreaded was the presence on shore of the Turkish crews, that each community invariably strove to do away with any sort of excuse for a protracted detention. However, both officers and crew had their festive day at the island of Chios, to which we proceeded on leaving Lesbos, and where we remained a few days. Fine exhilarating air, a fertile soil, with a large clean city to be envied by an Athenian, were sufficient temptations to allure Mahomedans, without the many other additional attractions. 1 was not a little pleased on landing to find myself as it were in an Italian city : handsome wide streets, palaces in the style of those of my native land, and the man- ners of the people (those of the ladies especially) so much resembling the manners of the ladies of Venice and Genoa, nations once masters of the place. I noticed, on being introduced by Toselli into one or two of the principal families whom he had often visited on former occasions in ROSES OP CHIOS. 167 his official cruises^ the graceful manner in which we were offered, together with the fragrant coffee, a preserve of rose-leaves — a famous sweet compound invented in this island — and after it a few grains of the gum-mastic, a noted masticatory of which I became so fond that during the remainder of my residence in the Levant I never omitted to use it after every repast, as well as after smoking, as it imparted a most agreeable perfume to the breath. No Greek woman of quality ever goes out unprovided with a tiny honbonniere containing some picked grains of this white gum, which, brittle in itself, becomes as soft as wax through the heat of the mouth and as elastic as a jujube. The exaction of the harrach in this island I learned was exclusively destined for the use of the Sultana mother, and was collected on the present, as on all other occasions, by an officer of her own, who sailed in the flagship as part of the staff of the Capudan Pasha. A portion of the tribute due to her is levied on the two identical articles I have just mentioned, namely, the gum-mastic and the preserve of roses. The abundance of roses all over the island south of Mount Palmseus is almost fabulous. When the north breeze from the Asiatic shore has passed over that high mountain, and has gained warmth by running down its heated flank, it sweeps along through the vast rose planta- tions in the south-west district, that has the appearance of a garden, and the delightful odour is carried to such a distance as to reach the crews of vessels in the offing. But Chios had better claims to fame than these, in having founded a large public school supported by a number of wealthy merchants at the instigation of Adamantius Korai, probably the most learned son of modern Greece, who had just about that time published his translation of Hip- pocrates. Although born in Smyrna, his father belonged to Chios, on which city Adamantius reflected all the glory 168 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR, GRANVILLE. that justly came to him of being the most able and dis- tinguished of the Neohellenes. Korafs contributions to modern literature, by his translations from or reflections on the writings of the most renowned authors of ancient Greece, have been numerous. His correspondence, pub- lished in Athens six years after his death in Paris in 1833, exhibits him in the character of a good as well as a very able man, full of enthusiasm for his country's political re- generation. This person, this vir incomparabilis,"'’ as he has been styled by a learned German, I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with in Paris in 1817, oh a self-introduction, simply, addressing him in his native language and reminding him of his fatherh native city. Still hugging the Avestern coast of Asia, Samos was the next important island which the fleet visited. If all that has been written oh the island of Samos by ancient authors is not fabulous, then I must declare that the ravages of time and an ever recurrent succession of different masters and tyrants, with their various modes of government during centuries, and the many demolitions and changes of all sorts that followed, must have been more vast than we Avitness in other parts of Greece after an equal period, for nowhere in that country do we see such utter desola- tion. The natural features of the island as described by Herodotus and Pausanius of course remain as they Avere — mountainous, rude, and standing high out of the water ; while the fertility of its soil, the exuberance of its produce (bis anno ficos, uvas, mala, rosas, nasci narratur), the striking form of its inhabitants, and the beauty of the women are yet visible, and such as they have been noticed and dwelt upon by the more modern travellers who have visited the island. But to us who came last in the field of observation, the view of the island and its population created other ira- pressions than those received by our Mussulman brother GREEK BEAUTY, 169 officers, who looked upon these few thousand despised giaours, carrying on a thriving trade in spite of oppression, with feelings of hatred mingled with envy. These feelings they were not slow in showing by the rude manner in which they levied the several fiscal imposts and taxes claimed in the name of the Sultan. I have mentioned the beauty of the women in Samos ; I might also have made a similar remark as regards the women of both Chios and Tenedos without any distinction of classes. Subsequent visits in my private character to some of the minor Sporades, some adjacent to one another, others at somewhat greater distances, but all in the same meridian, and nearly all equally far from the continental coast, enable me to declare, that in all such islands and islets the same distinguishing feature of the female Grecian population — personal beauty — prevails indisputably ; while both history and tradition assure us that this same remark- able and interesting characteristic of the insular Hellenic females has existed from the very oldest times, constituting, as it were, an inherent ethnological character of the race. To account for its cause is not so easy as to admit the plain fact itself. This ethnological feature in the present case will appear even more striking as well as singular, if we reflect that Samos, after the death of its tyrant Poly crates, had been subjected to a general massacre under a Persian commander. The island had been reduced to the condition of a desert, with only a few solitary inhabitants left. Yet that fragment of the people brought forth its fruit, and that fruit with the beautiful form and complexion it could boast of before, and which it has retained ever since, through a period of many centuries. But although the physical features of the Samians have remained indelible, and their language has continued very nearly akin to the classical or ancient idiom, their memory of their forefathers is of the 170 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. darkest, not one of the educated Samians being able to give an account of the old worship of Juno, nor how it came to pass that of the splendid temple erected to that goddess scarcely a vestige now remains. This entire ignorance of the history of their fathers, and of the religion they pro- fessed, is most remarkable, and helps to distinguish the modern Greek nation from the rest of the civilized nations of w^estern Europe, all of which can carry their knowledge of their own origin to the remotest periods. Even a Calogeros, reputed to be a most learned monk of the convent of St. Spiridion, in Mount Ampelus, whom I visited and found in possession of a copy of the Old Testa- ment (a rare occurrence with monks or priests in Greece), expressed great astonishment when I reminded him that a very celebrated man, whose writings were even more widely known than the prophetic books of his contemporaries, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and whose disciples deemed it a sufficient warranty of the truth contained in those writings if the master spoke the oracular words avros e^cc, was a countryman of his own ! The good Calogeros did not even then imagine I referred to the great Pythagoras, who was the first to drop the designation of cro<^o? for the more modest title of Philoso^heT. Sixty-six years have passed since the preceding occur- rences took place, and I have now to add that only two years ago, when at Kissingen, a lady with her family and suite appeared at that fashionable and aristocratic spa, announced in the list of arrivals (Kurliste) as Princess of Samos,” who introduced herself as such to me. This curious rencontre with one of the pulcherrimcB insulares of Athenaeus roused the old sympathies for that island, though I confess with some misgivings that the high-sounding and hitherto unknown title in Greece of Princess of Samos was an assumed nom de voyage^ until she informed me of the A PRINCESS OF SAMOS. 17] recent political transaction between the Porte and the Samians, by which their island had been- converted into a species of mediatized Beylerbey, having a Fanariote as governor at its head, with the title of prince, which I fonnd to be a fact. Her hnsband^s family name was Aristarchi, but he did not reside in Samos, having the privilege of sending thither a lieutenant-governor of his own nomina- tion. During the many agreeable meetings we had in the gardens of Kissingen, and during some pleasant excursions in the country, accompanied by the princess's children and by my daughter, who for the time being became very intimate with the princess, Madame Aristarchi, who spoke French fluently, informed me of the many improvements that had taken place in her island within the l^st half- century, and especially since its constitutional regeneration. Its Greek population had increased from 15,000 in my time to 50,000, due, she thought, to the comparative independence the Samians enjoyed under their new form of government, though acknowledging still the suzerain control of the Porte. The Capudan Pasha, who in his flagship, in company with La Justice, had left us for Ehodes, returned after a few days, having accomplished his object. This I learned from Toselli, who, accustomed as he had been to scenes of terror in the Turkish service, admitted that what he had just been a witness to on the deck of the flagship had nearly paralyzed him. It appeared that the authorities of the island of Ehodes had urgently petitioned the Turkish government to free them from the presence of pirates who infested their coast. At the close of a war such as the Turks had just terminated against the French, it was hardly to be expected that disbanded sailors and soldiers, with other vagabonds, would not avail themselves of the state of confusion into which the local, not less than the 172 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. general, government of the country had been thrown during the last few years. Accordingly, brigands on shore and pirates on the sea became numerous as well as trouble- some. The latter had also become very daring, for they would land on the coast, and not only strip the . locality of all it possessed that was valuable, but would likewise carry off young persons as slaves. The Capudan Pasha determined to put an end at once to this state of things ; and by arming some small craft with sailors and marines from his own ship, and sending them in pursuit of the most daring of the pirates, he succeeded in capturing two of their ringleaders in their own boats. These men were taken on board the flagship, their own crew remaining in their boat by the side of the vessel. No sooner had the two head pirates reached the gangway than they were hurried towards the forecastle, and there at once strung up, the one to the starboard, the other to the larboard foreyard arm, where they were left suspended until they died. While this awful execution was taking place on deck, the crew in their boat alongside had their hands and feet chained together, after which a large plug, previously arranged for the purpose, was withdrawn from the bottom of the boat, and the miserable wretches stretched in it were consigned to a slow, lingering death. Such was Turkish justice, severe as it was prompt, and which the Capudan Pasha assumed the right to administer by virtue of his paramount ofiice. No one before this startling episode was aware of the kind of man who had been appointed to succeed Hussein Pasha as admiral-in-chief. But this example of severity and disregard of life filled every one with dismay when made known to the rest of the fleet. After an interview with the Kiaya Bey, who gave an account of our proceedings to the admiral during his absence, the signal for weighing anchor was given, and the MEDICAL ARRANGEMENTS. 173 fleet moved off in the direction of Cyprus, where we remained long enough to receive the taxes, and thence continued our course towards the Syrian coast, passing Tripoli, Beirut, Seyde, and casting anchor at last before St. Jean d’Acre on the 4th of July, 1804. The crew consigned to my charge enjoyed good health. A large proportion of the Greek sailors were galley-slaves, occupying the lowest part of the cockpit, to which air was conveyed by wind-sails. They were very well and regularly fed, and I had insisted on cleanliness in their berths — vermin and infection being two plagues I was anxious to keep off. I abolished mattresses and woollen blankets, and made the men lie in rows on the deck on loose sacks of picked oakum, which w’ere shaken every morning and picked over once a month. My daily official report con- cerning the health of the crew w^as laid before the navi- gating captain, that he might always be aware of the state of efficiency he had to rely upon. From him (who spoke Turkish fluently) the report went to the vice-admiral, and ultimately to the Kiaya Bey. This arrangement was altered at the suggestion of the last-named high official, and the medical report after our arrival before Acre (where sickness began to show itself in the fleet) was verbally made by myself to the Kiaya every day, the assistant-surgeon taking a copy of the number on the sick list, together with any of my professional suggestions for the information of the navigating captain. Thus, by immediate reference to the highest authority on board, I had the means of having the wants of the sick at once attended to, an advantage of which I was not long in discovering the importance, as the fleet on arriving before Acre found the standard of rebellion hoisted on the fort, and it became manifest that our ships of war would have to tarry longer in these waters than was expected. 174 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR.^ GRANVILLE. In the long list of ferocious and infamous chiefs or leaders in the Turco-Egyptian army, who played a con- spicuous part at the close of the last century and at the commencement of the present one, none can be named so fully deserving of both those designations as the pasha whose defiance we were now about to encounter. A Christian apostate before twenty years of age, the ravisher of his brother s wife, next sold as a minion in the slave- market at Constantinople, and raised from that degraded state to the rank of a favourite mamelouk by Ali Bey of Egypt, his patron, Djezzar retained his favour by becoming the assassin of the bey's enemies, so effectually indeed as to acquire the surname of Ahmed (butcher). In Beirut, at last, he found a post of dignity, being placed there by Yousouff, chief of the Druses, to defend the place from the Ottoman forces. But he betrayed Yousouff, took posses- sion of his accumulated treasures, and adding to these the almost fabulous amount of money obtained by himself through extortion from the unfortunate Druses and other inhabitants, he became rich enough to bribe himself into the pashalick of St. Jean d'Acre. Here his name soon became a word of terror, not only on account of his extor- tions, but also for his atrocities, which left but few men of valour that were not maimed by his orders, many examples of which we had occasion to witness when fugitives from Acre came for shelter on board our vessel. Few people who may have visited Acre at the epoch here indicated can forget having met in the streets of that miserable place a number of men without a nose, an ear, or both, in some cases even without the three organs, which had been cut off by order of the tyrant butcher. ^ * Dr. Clarke, wko had had ample opportunities of seeing and conversing with Djezzar about three years before the time I am referring to, calls him The Tyrant of Acre, the Herod of his time,” and humorously adds, that the Story of Blue Beard seemed altogether realized in the history of this SIEGE OF ST. JEAN DRAGEE. 175 After a lengthy negotiation with the rebel pasha, which ended in nothing, hostilities commenced in earnest, and a regular siege was opened by sea and land — the pasha of Damascus having arrived with a considerable force to invest the fort on the land side. Our duty was to maintain a regular blockade by sea, extending from Garrim at the north and Jabel Oarmel at the south. The fortifications, which the French had considerably damaged, had been put in a state of repair and defence by English engineers, but were not mounted by guns of sufficient range to keep off our vessels. Our larger boats, well armed, were kept cruising between the fleet and the fort, keeping a sharp look- out. The rebel forces had no means of annoying us by sea, and the land investment by the Pasha of Damascus was reported to be so strict, that although Djezzar had made ample provision for his commissariat before we ap- peared in sight, it would not be long before he lowered his defiant flag for want of provisions. In the mean time officers as well as sailors in small parties were permitted to go on shore at the foot of Mount Carmel, where the mouth of the River Kishon afforded a very easy landing on the promontory of that cretaceous hill. Although, as most Italian Roman Catholics, I wms entirely ignorant of the Old Testament accounts connected with these localities, I hoary potentate.” One of the means this potentate ” had recourse to in order to increase his already immense wealth, we collect from another writer of no inferior authority (my former travelling companion, Mr. Hamilton), who, in his account of Egypt, speaking of Djezzar Pasha, with whom he had to treat, makes a statement which well deserves to he transcribed in this place : The retreat of the French from Acre had left him in possession of the several trading vessels in the ports of Syria. These he obliged the Christian merchants at Acre to freight on his own terms with goods for Egypt, and bring back rice and corn. Under cover of his name the merchants escaped the payment of duties at Damietta, but on the return of their ships he made them pay to himself the amount they would have had to pay in either circumstance. He next took all the new rice and corn to his own granaries, and re-imbursed the merchants from his own stores, His profits were enormous,” 176 AUTOBIOGEAPIIY OF DE. GEANYILLE. remembered something about the Prophet Elijah and his dwelling in some cave on Mount Carmel. This recollec- tion, and the particulars I received from some of the parties who had been on shore, that there were still in the ruined convent some Carmelite monks, induced me to seek an interview with the holy fathers. I found only two in a small wayside chapel half way up the Mount, to the top of which, at 1500 feet above the sea, I should have had to ascend had I been desirous to view the remains of the old convent dedicated to St. Elia, which the French had devastated after having used it as a hos- pital. The two good Carmelites, who spoke neither Greek nor Turkish, were rather surprised to hear themselves addressed by two turban ed strangers, who accosted them with ^bBenedicite.'^ They informed us that their monastery had been abandoned since the French invasion ; that a few of the old monks now resided at Caiffa, at the bottom of the hill on the border of the sea, and two of the order undertook by turn the care of the chapel, which bore the name of the Chapel of the Cave, being the one, according to tradition, in which the holy Tishbite had dwelt. I found Mount Carmel clothed with verdure to its very summit. Shepherds were leading their flocks through the rich pasture to be found among the gorges in the sides of the mountain, over which tiny forests or clusters of oak and pine trees grow, shading an entangled underwood of sweet-scented herbs and flowers. CHAPTER XII. 1804 . Obtain leave to visit the Holy Land — Anecdote of Consul Damiani— Arrive at Jerusalem — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — The Mount of Olives — Bethlehem, and the Church of the Nativity— -Arrive at Jericho — The Jordan — Keturn to the fleet-- Eesrulations on board a Turkish man-oL O war. The appearance of sickness in tlie fleet having entirely subsided, and the assistant-surgeon being considered suffi- cient for the service during the protracted negotiations which had been resumed in consequence of fresh proposals sent direct to the Porte, Captain Nicolovitch, the Ragusan navigating captain, and myself, tempted by the proximity of Jerusalem, obtained leave of absence for ten days to visit the Holy Land. Our own boat landed us at Caiffa, whence we proceeded to Jaffa in an Arab boat. At the latter place Signor Damiani, the English consul, finding that the two Turks just landed were in reality countrymen of his own, at once seized upon us, and insisted on being our host and cicerone. In the latter character he showed us the ruins of a wretched habitation by the sea, said to have been the dwelling of Simon a tanner,^'’ in which was received the messengers sent by Cornelius the centurion to call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter.'^ Of this hut Signor Damiani was the present proprietor. At supper he entertained us with the following little anecdote in regard to himself : When General Bona- parte, about three years ago, came from Rosetta, and halted at Jaffa, the ever-memorable place of his devotion to his soldiers stricken with the plague (a fact which VOL. I. N 178 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Damiani confirmed), the general consulted me about a safe guide to St. Jean d’Acre, and was so satisfied with the information I gave him, that he peremptorily insisted on my being the guide. I represented that my official position as English consul in Jaffa forbade my undertaking such a task. But Bonaparte would accept no excuse, and so the French corps d’arm4e on its way to attack Sir Sidney Smith, the beleaguered defender of Djezzar^s Syrian fortress, was actually marshalled to its destination by an English consul ! The general addressed me always in Italian, and ivhen he returned, on his retreat to Jaffa, defeated and discomfited, he commended me for my loyalty, and added ^ Mille grazie,'’ and that was all I got for my pains ! The red ribbon had not then been invented. On the following morning we proceeded to Lidda, and thence to Eamlah, through the narrow gorge by which Jerusalem is reached from Jaffa, at first over loose sand, which lasted two hours at least out of the whole journey of twelve. At Eamlah we found a convenient halting-place during the noon-day heat, and I should have been inclined to have bivouacked there also for the night, as we had before us some miles of a road (though roads there were none worthy of the name), the character of which its classic title of Arabia Petraea so well describes. But the guide whom Consul Damiani had recommended to us, and who proved invaluable as well as faithful, assured us that at the easy pace of three miles an hour our horses would carry us into Jerusalem at the hour of matins, ivhen the good fathers whom we intended to make our hosts would be singing their morning hymns. So we continued our journey, and as we happened to have a splendid full moon during the last three hours of the romantic amble, we had in reality no reason to grumble except at being completely knocked up. REACH JERUSALEM. 179 The morning was farther advanced than we had anti- cipated when we entered Jerusalem through the Jaffa gate, Bab-el-Khuly, and reached the Monastery of San Salvatore. Matins were over, and the good Franciscan monks were at their frugal morning repast, but on reading the letter we had brought from Signor Damiani, the prior sprang from his seat and himself insisted on receiving us at the gate, and introducing us into the refectory, where a couple of cups of well-milled chocolate somewhat restored us. Some of the good fathers were from Italy, and to one of them, Padre Andrea, my father s name was not unknown. But it was Consul Damiani’s recommendation that pro- cured us all the advantages and facilities we enjoyed durinof our short visit, for the consul’s name was held in grateful esteem for the frequent opportunities he had had of doing the monks service in their occasional migrations O O out of and into Palestine through Jaffa. Repose, however, was Avhat we required, and this was accorded us till vespers, when, after prayers, we joined our good monks at their plain hut substantial repast. Our beds had been equally simple — a mere monk’s pallet, but to one who had slept sub divo with a piece of rock for a pillow under the monasteries of Meteora, a monk’s pallet at Jerusalem was Paradise in comparison, and I slept most profoundly, as did also Nicolovitch. We had but a few hours of daylight left, and by the help of the contents of our valises had refreshed ourselves with those best restoratives to worn-out travellers' — soap and water, a rough towel, and fresh linen. Nicolovitch added some wine, of which, however, I did not drink. On Padre Andrea, who had offered to be our guide for the occasion, and who spoke the language of the country as well as Italian, I deemed it necessary to impress the fact that we had but a short time to devote to the inspec- 180 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLK. tion of -vvliatever lie might be disposed to show us in the iilace. As regards myself, I told him I had no pretension to any particular knowledge, historical or biblical, of what concerned Jerusalem, beyond what I had learned from, the four Gospels and “ La Gerusalemme Liberata.” Everything therefore would be new to me, and interesting ; but, as our time was short for a regular “ lustratio municipiorum,” we would limit ourselves to the view of a few of the prin- cipal objects worthy a visitor’s attention. Padre Andrea agreed, and as we were about to start on our peregrination, I suggested that as I had just been visiting the metropolis of Paganism, I should like first to look at the most sacred spot of Christianity. To this he assented, and our first visit was to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which he expected we should at that hour find pretty full of de- votees of every sect. To any one brought up in a Christian country, accus- tomed to worship in spacious and symmetrical basilicas, the interior view of the so-called Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is a bewildering puzzle. The eye seeks in vain for a line of repose, or for some combination of lines that shall form a well-defined group of architectural elements. That is an object not difficult to accomplish in a temple where the adoration of the Deity is marked by its oneness ; but here we have within one edifice, as irregular in its outer form as within, a collection of chapels as varying in shape as in size and design, some more or less ornamental, placed at different levels and in distinct parts of the building, each chapel intended for a special subject of adoration, and that adoration too of twin form, Greek and Latin, for each of these divisions of Christian worship claims and tries to maintain supremacy within these walls. We spent three hours in proceeding from one part to another of this so-called church. Nor would Padre Andrea CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 181 omit even the least significant of the objects to be seen in the Church of the Calvary, which the Greeks consider as their own particular church, and in the choir of which a round point is shown, said to be the centre — the o/x^aXo9 — of the earth. We reserved for the next day other and different objects of remark. In the mean time in this one edifice we had been shown sufficient sacred objects, localities, and remi- niscences to satisfy the most rigid and pious Catholic. Next we were shown the Stone of Inunction,^^ on which the body of Jesus was laid to be anointed by Joseph of Arimathea ; the Calvary, to which we ascended by a stair leading to two small chapels, one to the south, where J esus was attached to the Cross, the other to the north, marking the spot on which the Cross was erected between those of the two thieves. The spot also was shown, in a very small chapel not far from the stairs that led us to Calvary, where J esus was crowned with thorns ; and a little further we met with another stair that led down to another chapel, marking the place where St. Helena waited while search was being made for the Cross, which was found twelve feet deeper in the ground. But all these localities, so scattered about, necessarily bear no reference to the real Church of the Holy Sepulchre, properly speaking, at the west end of that part of the build- ing I am describing, and which is called the Greek choir.’^ It has a circular form, and is lighted from the dome ; no other light being admitted from between the several marble columns which support a gallery all round, and above it a second gallery is supported by an equal number of pillars. In the centre is placed the sepulchre, over which are con- stantly burning gold and silver lamps. I did not enter very particularly with Padre Andrea into the question of the Greek and Latin pretensions to the monopoly of some 182 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. of the consecrated spots just enumerated ; they were not then of sufficient interest to me. I beheld enough to satisfy me, that to one who accepts as true records the plain and consistent statements of St. Matthew and St. Luke con- cerning the last days of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, all that Father Andrea had shown us bore the character of consistency, and served to illustrate in the simplest manner the most portentous event humanity can commemorate, from which have flowed, and will continue to flow to the end of time, results of such vital importance to man. I am glad to have preserved a record of this complicated arrangement of structures so sacred, that my description may be compared with the improvements which no doubt have been introduced in their reconstruction after the disastrous conflagration which took place some years sub-* sequent to our visit. Leaving the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we gave a glance at the Pool of Hezekiah, which lies by the side of the Hospital of St. J ohn. Another pool we were more desirous of seeing required a longer and more fatiguing walk, nearly across the whole city from west to east, where we found the Pool of Siloah, at the foot of Ophel, a ridge parallel to a deep depression in the ground called the Valley of Jehoshaphat, but in reality the bed of the Eiver Kidron. The ruinous appearance of the long flight of steps that led down to the pool, and of all the structures around, and even of the very opening, disinclined me from going down ; but Nicolovitch, a nimble sailor, was at the brink of the water in a moment to taste if it were sweet. We next reached the Golden Gate, and leaving this on our left we climbed up the Hill of Ascension, to retrace our steps through the Golden Gate and mount the insulated ridge called Haran el Scheriff*,'' part of which is the Hill Moriah, on which Abraham had set up an altar for the im- MOUNT OF OLIVES. 183 molation of his son Isaac. Probably the most graceful and attractive object seen from this, and indeed from many other parts of the city more or less distant, is the Mount of Olives, which rises in the eastern part of Jerusalem, beyond the Valley of Kidron. I have just mentioned the Hill of Ascension, which forms the central of the three elevations of the Mount. The northern is the loftiest; the third elevation is the Mount of Offence, so called, our guide told us, to reprobate Solomon’s idolatrous worship on this spot. The prophet Zechariah had predicted this violent dis- union of the Mount of Olives, which (he says) is before Jerusalem on the east,’’ and it shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley,” evidently the valley of Kidron, which this river formed for its bed during the dis- ruption. After descending the Hill of Ascension, Padre Andrea pointed out to us another scriptural name of importance, no less than the Garden of Gethsemane, which belonged fo his own convent of St. Salvatore. When we entered it we were shown the sepulchre of Mary, the mother of Jesus ” (a title disputed by another locality in the vicinity of Siloam), and, down some steps, the sepulchre of Joseph her husband. In these localities worshippers of every creed, including Mahometans, had small chapels or houses of prayer to them- selves. To me the sight of these motley groups of Latins, Greeks, Armenians, and Mahometans, come from all parts to see, at all events, if not to worship, the places wherein the bones of the earthly parents of the Divine Legislator sent by the Almighty to redeem mankind, had been deposited, Avas a sight of the most intense interest. The heart was touched, and many serious reflections surged in my mind too sacred to be divulged. Neither the lapse of sixty-six years, nor the subsequent perusal of Eenan’s cynical passages in the 184 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, second chapter of Vie de Jdsus/^ has wrought the smallest change in the burthen of those reflections. Zion, the larger of the several hills on which J erusalem is built, extends farther in its prolongation southward than the opposite or parallel hill, Moriah or Ophel. It is the Armenian quarter, and here the presumed tomb of David, the Coenaculum, and the house of Caiaphas, were pointed out to us. Having satisfied our curiosity to the fullest extent, as well as to the limit of the time at our disposal, we took leave of our good padri, not without, however, leaving directions to them to light an additional lamp to San Kocco, patron of travellers, and likewise to say a certain number of masses for the good of our own souls. Mcolo- vitch and I were soon after in close discussion for a couple of hours, trying to trace out the best route back to the fleet without going over the same ground by which we had come, and not too near the scouts of Djezzar. But before commencing our journey we determined to visit the place of the Nativity, which being from its position south of Jerusalem, was not on our route back to the ships. Arrived at Bethlehem, at the Convent of the Nativity, I confess to having been unprepared to And an architectural structure vying with that of many minor ecclesiastical buildings in the Levant, imitating the Greek style, with forty-eight columns of the Corinthian order twenty feet in height, supporting a heavy architrave and frieze, but with a simple wooden soffit. The Church of the Nativity is a distinct building from the convent, of which it forms part. The vestibule of adoration is of a graver and more homely architecture. From its wooden roof hung scores of burning lamps. But the most dazzling effulgence within the area came from within the sacred latticed screen, where the burning lamps are indeed in profusion. The CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY, 185 “ Stable and the Manger” were not visible, and we came away satisfied at having beheld the places in which they should have been, and were, as we were assured, although we did not see them. There are mural decorations in the vestibule, some draperies, also some paintings, to which both G-reeks and Latins contribute. We returned the same evening for a few hours to St. Salvatore, which we left with some capital horses belonging to a private party, who was glad of the opportunity of having them conveyed in safety to some friends at Jericho. We had been told at Jerusalem that the road to Jericho, besides being indifferent, was also dangerous, being in- fested with thieves ; but the Commandant at J erusalem had granted us an armed escort, as ofhcers in the Capudan Pasha’s fleet, for he considered it his paramount duty to see that no harm befell us as such. The journey was accomplished accordingly without the smallest check or hindrance as far as Jericho. The owner of our riding-horses was an Armenian mer- chant, Khir Bartholome, a very intelligent man, who had long been a resident in Palestine, but had also travelled much in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, as well as in Eussia and in Greece. He had some magnificent gardens adjoining his house, from which we obtained a view of the Eiver Jordan when we were roused at early morn to com- mence our projected water journey. From our host we endeavoured to obtain some information concerning St. Jean d’Acre and its present usurper, but he was perfectly ignorant of everything connected with that subject. Find- ing that I spoke with great warmth and interest of what I had seen at Jerusalem, as well as in allusion to our journey from Acre to Jaffa, and thence to the Holy City, he reminded me that the mention of both those names recalled to memory a passage in the sixteenth verse of the second 186 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR, GRANVILLE. chapter of the second book of Chronicles, which he repeated by heart : And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt need : and we will bring it to thee in flotes by sea to Joppa ; and thou shalt carry it up to Jeru- salem.’^ I thanked him for the quotation, and apologized for venturing to inquire how he came to be so conversant with the matter, when he assured me that the first fourteen books of the Old or Jewish Testament, inclusive of the five Mosaic books, translated into the Armenian idiom, were habitually in the hands of his own countrymen, constituting in fact their chief religious reading, as well as a large por- tion of their daily worship. On hearing this I made some inquiry respecting the balm of Gilead, mentioned in Scrip- ture, and which a heathen author — Strabo — says is not to be found elsewhere than in the gardens of Jericho, where I also expected to find the famed rose of Jericho. Khir Barth olome’s reply satisfied me that he knew nothing beyond what we find in all books of cosmography and materia medica on those subjects. The first view of the Jordan disappointed me : its breadth, of little more than eighty feet in front of Jericho, with a depth of scarcely six feet, represented to us an insignificant stream, the lowering bed of which was plainly indicated by the very rapid way in which its muddy water was rushing to mix with the bitter Lake Asphaltites. I could not help contrasting the scene with that of the equally rapid but cerulean and transparent Adda, which had so often en- livened my scholastic rambles as a collegian at Merate, during the early years of my classical education. Nor were the double banks of the Jordan, of sand and mud on each side, more attractive to me than the banks of the Maas, or of any other of the Dutch streams I became acquainted with later. Indeed, in all we beheld there was little encour- agement offered to us to undertake a water trip of several THE RIVER JORDAN. 187 miles, with the hope of saving fatigue while enjoying a novel mode of travelling. When our new friend Khir Bartholome heard what Nicolovitch proposed to attempt, he positively burst out laughing, and with many apologies for his merriment, in- formed us at once that we were meditating to do that which it would be impossible to accomplish even in a dream ^^Your nautical science is of no avail here, my dear Captain. With how many pair of oars could you hope to stem a current running against you at the rate of eight miles an hour ? Supposing such a feat possible, have you reflected that the Jordan courses between any two given points, as for example between Tabarizza in Galilee and Jericho, twice at least, if not three times the distance that actually exists on land between the same two places travelled on horseback ? No wounded snake makes as many wriggles as it trails itself along the sand as the Jor- dan does from the moment it leaves the last-named lake until it reaches this poor place of ours, shut in between chalky hills. But, worse still, you would arrive at parts of the river where the banks become rocky, approximate each other so as to form a defile, through and over which the stream has to leap to fall into a lower level. How would you get over that difficulty 'I ’’ Of course we stood aghast at such an unexpected demon- stration of the absurdity of Nicolovitch s projected plan of operations, and as neither our travelling map nor our personal knowledge of the localities afforded us means to contradict any of Khir Bartholome s assertions, we sub- mitted with a sigh at our disappointment, and more so at our ignorance. It ended in our engaging fresh horses and a guide, dispensing with the escort, as we were assured the roads were entirely free from danger. We might meet with 188 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. parties of Bedouins, but they would not molest two such travellers as ourselves. AVe therefore entered and followed the road through el Zhor, or the Great Plain of the Jordan, to reach the Plain of Esdraelon, at the western extremity of which we encoun- tered the river Kishon, from whose bank we discerned the majestic three-decker Selim and her consorts quietly at anchor ; and soon after we joined our own vessel and reported ourselves to our superior officers. My own special department I found in the most perfect order, thanks to the zeal and assiduity of two assistant surgeons who had been recently appointed. The sick-bay contained but a small number of patients, suffering from the effect of excessive heat and the immoderate use of melons brought from Jaffa and Beirut. Meat in the Turkish navy was sparingly supplied, and only once a day, but there was plenty of bread and tobacco. The perfect and constant state of cleanliness of the decks, upper and lower, was really surprising; and what was more so was the simple manner in which the whole crew, comba- tants as well as the mere common sailors, lived without table, stool, or any of the many contrivances required in ordinary life. In the spaces between the guns the meals Avere served on a round light copper tray, Avhich admitted of being folded into four when not required for use, and so stOAved aAvay. The tray was laid on a circular block of Avood, six or eight inches from the deck. On it was placed the ample dishes of pillau and meat, generally roasted mutton, Avhich dishes Avere fetched by one of the party in turns. Each person helped himself with his fin- gers. The roast meat Avas cut Avith a pocket clasp-knife, and a wooden spoon Avas permitted to each with Avhich to eat the pillau. I never knew any Avine or spirits admitted during the messes. Opium at times Avas indulged in by MUSSULMAN SAILORS. 189 some of the men, but sparingly, as the drug was found an expensive luxury. I may add, that the more cumbersome part of the Mussulman costume was set aside on board, and. a species of light jacket was worn, with large and wide white linen trousers, and an Albanian skull-cap, but oftener there was nothing on the head. Such was the life of the crew of the SultaAs fleet in 1804. The Turks had profited by what they had witnessed among the French and the English three and four years before. Whether they maintained that character when lying by the side of those same national vessels at Navarino, I leave those to decide who were present at that untoward^’ event. Among the officers, the Mussulmans congregated among themselves much in the same fashion as French or Italian officers would do. Those of the Greek faith had a mess of their own, while the Giaours and aliens lived by themselves in their own cabins, the quarter-deck being the general rendezvous. CHAPTER XIII. 1S04. Surrender of Acre, and death of Djezzar Pasha — Resign my appointment— Transferred to the Active-— KmvQ at Cyprus — Catarina Cornaro — Alex- andria — Baron Larrey the first to employ horseflesh as human food — Reach Rhodes, and quit the Turkish service — Description of Rhodes— Visit Cos on the way to Smyrna. The operations of the fleet before Acre were carried on without spirit and without method. The Pasha of Damas^ cus had made one assault and had been repulsed on the land side. Our own flying broadsides produced no effect on the bastions ; it was so much powder and shot wasted. The rebel chief had, besides the pashalick, too large a stake in his redundant treasury not to fight hard, either with arms or by means of negotiations. It was by the latter that the Capudan Pasha^s expedition of 1804 terminated at last. But whether by fair negotiation or by downright treachery, we in the fleet were only allowed to surmise. All we learned was, that not long after the rebel flag had been lowered, and the great standard bearing the crescent had been hoisted on the ramparts of Acre, under the dis- charge of a hundred cannon, Djezzar was reported to have died suddenly of apnoea— want of breath — a fatal com- plaint imported by a special messenger from the Porte ! Be that as it may, the fact is well known, and recorded in all the histories of the time, that this extraordinary and ill- fated chief met with his death towards the end of 1804, and that Acre was immediately taken possession of by the Capudan Pasha and the Pasha of Damascus. DEATH OF DJEZZAR PASHA. 191 In Dr. Clarke’s instructive volumes there is an error in the date and in the manner of the death of Djezzar, whom the learned doctor had personally seen in June and July^ 1801, and whom he supposes to have died of some un- known illness in that year, which is antedating that fatal event by three or four years. We were now drawing near the month of October, and the fleet would soon be shaping its course for Stamboul, which capital it was not my wish again to visit. Moreover, my own position on board the Kaiya Bey’s ship, owing to that part of my functions which made me acquainted with that great officer’s habits, had been rendered so exceedingly disagreeable as to become at length intolerable. I there- fore sought an interview with the hekim-bashi, and plainly expressed my desire do leave the service, as I had made up my mind to turn westward, now that I had seen enough of the Levant to satisfy my curiosity and the love of wan- dering. I felt I was never made to become a settled practitioner in any of the places I had yet seen during my travels, whether in Turkey or in Greece. The horizon spread before me Avas too vast and bright to my young imagination to alloAV my restless spirit to fix me like a transplanted tree in a hole, there to take root, absorb nutri- ment, grow strong, serve as a shade and a support to some entwining vine, groAv decrepit and perish, leaving no memory of the past behind me. ^^No, no ! The mere thought of such a life makes me shudder.” o Toselli, smiling at tlie warmth of my manner, so little in character with the gravity of the dress I wore, said, “ I see that the experiment you have gone through in the last few months has not calmed down the exuberance of your Lombard youth ; and that in truth your character is not in harmony with your surroundings. You engaged to serve during the whole period the Capudan Pasha’s expedi- 192 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. tion usually lasts, namely, four months ; that time will expire in a couple of weeks, but as you dislike some of the duty you have to attend to on board the Patrona Bey s ship, although for the matter of that you would find the same objections in all, I will see whether I can transfer you to one of the frigates, which I understand are likely to remain behind, while the bulk of the fleet returns to the Tersanah.'^ I was accordingly transferred to the imperial frigate, the Seratlii^ which would be detached immediately on separate service to Cyprus, Alexandria, and Rhodes, where I might have a full discharge. As the Kiaya Bey, to whom the defterdar accounted for the taxes, was the general treasurer on the occasion, my pecuniary concerns were settled for the whole period in the most liberal manner, I retaining the right to wear the official costume even after my period of service should be completed, and receiving a signet ring from the Kiaya's own hands in token of satisfaction. The frigate I joined, named the Active [Serathi), was one of the fifteen in the list of the Turco-Egyptian fleet assem- bled at Navarino nearly a quarter of a century later. We parted company from our fleet, with sealed orders and particular instructions to execute them with suitable celerity. Our course was to be from Acre direct to the island of Cyprus, thence to sail down to Alexandria, and finally to proceed to Rhodes, from which place the Active was to return to Constantinople, while I should receive my official discharge, according to the arrangement entered into by Dr. Toselli with the Capudan Pasha. Although I did not anticipate any great advantage from these several visits to interesting localities, considering the haste with which they were to be carried out, I was never- theless glad of an opportunity of adding to my knowledge of the Levant by an acquaintance with three such remarkable THE ISLAND OF CYPRUS. 193 places. I may at tlie same time record that, as far as personal comforts were concerned, my change of ship proved the reverse of an improvement, since the accommodation afforded by a frigate was not such as a line of battle ship supplied to an officer of my class. Besides, I found myself among entire strangers, there not being a single Italian, Greek, or foreign officer but myself on board. The same state of cleanliness, order, and discipline prevailed as in the larger vessels, and my duty was light with a crew of three hundred in lieu of twelve hundred men. Having so recently been immersed in an archipelago of innumerable islands, from Cerigo in the west to Santorin in the east, and from Skyro north to Candia south, I was much struck with the fact that we kept crossing and recrossing the same Mediterranean waters, now circumscribed to the form of an almost circular lake by Crete and Ehodes, which shut out completely the insular region from the Syro- Egyptian sea or South Mediterranean, in which lies in proud and lonely majesty the island sacred to Venus. There it rests without a near neighbour or rival, that lovely island with its handsome harbours of Larnaca and Fama- gosta, its pure and balsamic air, its myrtle groves and its luscious wine, wdiich even I was induced to partake of, so enthusiastic and pressing were the foreign consuls I visited at Larnaca in praise of the nectar of the goddess of Beauty. I know not whether it was that during my stay at Venice the name of this island had so often been men- tioned wdien the Vino di Cipro was offered as a matter of course to the guests at a dinner-table, or the fact of Venice herself having been long mistress of the island, but on landing at Famagosta I fancied myself in a known land, one too that commanded my warmest sympathies, YOL. L O 19i AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Better versed in the annals of Venice than acquainted with those of the people of Israel, as I have had occasion to show, I had hardly cast my eyes on the ancient palace of the Venetian Proveditors, once masters of the island, than the remembrance came vividly into my mind of the delight- ful story of Caterina Cornaro. I know not whether among the various romantic tales of female celebrities culled from the history of my native land by G. A. Sala or T. Trollope, the historical life of the beauteous queen of Cyprus of the fifteenth century, so fraught with elements to produce the deepest sensation, has been treated by either of those able writers. If neither has done so, I would venture to recom- mend a subject well calculated to add to their popularity. Born the niece of the Doge Marco Cornaro, chosen at the age of sixteen, out of seventy of the handsomest maidens of Venice, as the bride of Jacopo Lucignano XIV., King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, a widowed sovereign soon after for a period of fourteen years, she assigned all her vested and inherited rights in the island over to the Eepublic by a solemn act celebrated in the Basilica of San Marco in 1486. In return for this generous and munificent gift, the Senate invested her with the absolute possession and command over an extensive district or province around Asolo, among the Trevigian Hills. In that capital city, which was pro- claimed to be a royal court and castle, with a numerous retinue of courtiers and followers, and a garrison of soldiers to do her honour and protect her, this Cyprian queen passed the next twenty-one years, visited by foreign poten- tates, statesmen, and men of letters, among whom Cardinal Bembo bore a conspicuous part, both as a loyal subject and a relative of the queen. Nel beh Asolo'' (says Bettinelli in his work entitled '[11 Eisorgimento dell' Italia"), ''Caterina Cornaro, Eegina di Cipro, tenea tre corti ad un tempo, quella delle Muse, quella dell' amore, e quella della magnificenza x\LEXANDRIA. 195 e dignity regale ; e di tutte tre era il Bembo 1’ anima e r ornamento.” * After reviewing all tlie pleasing reminiscences so inti- mately connected with Cyprus, and enjoying its beautiful air, gardens, and fruit for the three days we remained at anchor, we shaped our course for Alexandria. Here all the world appeared still under the spell of the terrible events which had made the first three years of this century so famous. The motley mass of nationalities exhibited on the quay and along the inner harbour spoke of the number of distinct races who had had a share in those events. The one who had conquered in the end remained still to display the flag of St. George. Of the conquered race, the few that were left behind badly hurt, were now prisoners at large, exhibiting their crest-fallen emblems of revolutionary liberty. The Turk looked with a jealous eye on the Egyptian, while the Mamelukes would gladly have crushed the soldiers of Stamboul. The French had carried away the Luxor Obelisk, which they succeeded years after in planting in the centre of their own Place de la Concorde, while the English were making preparations to convey to their own land one of Cleopatra’s Needles, which has never reached its destination. I had an opportunity of conversing with a Frenchman who during the war three years before had served under General Menou, and who, being wounded, had been left behind in the hospital, to become afterwards domiciled, as was the case with many more. He gave me a piece of information concerning the celebrated French surgeon-in - chief Larrey, which would seem to establish his claim to priority in the use of horse-flesh as human food before that * In fair Asolo, Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus, held three courts at the same time : one of the Muses, one of Love, and one of magnificent and roya_ dignity. Bembo was the soul and ornament of all three. 196 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. which has since been set up by Parisian cooks, and still more recently by Napoleon III. My interlocutor at Alexandria,, asserted, that while lying ill in the hospital he was, with the rest of the patients, supplied with delicious broth obtained from horse-flesh by direction of that great surgeon, with whom it was my good fortune to become well acquainted thirteen years later. We made but a brief stay at Alexandria, and it transpired just as we were weighing anchor for Ehodes, that our present expedition from Acre had had for its object the conveyance of a portion of the fabulous sums of gold coin found in that fortress, hoarded by its ill-fated chief, destined for Khosreus Pasha, Governor-general of Egypt, patron, and afterwards the dupe, of the more fortunate and renoAvned Mehemet Ali. I do not remember, among the many places I had visited down to the time of my reaching this Paradise, one more captivating, or Avhich afforded me greater personal gratifi- cation, than this very island of Ehodes. Hoav the Cyprian goddess came to miss this far preferable residence for the one she has been placed in by poets, is to me a puzzle. True, the Cyprian isle is nearer to the sun, and the natural penchant of the goddess for Apollo may have been the reason for the choice. But I Avould rather attribute it to the fondness for privacy and seclusion, so dear and essential to her mysterious rites, Avhich she could sooner and more surely find in the perfectly isolated island of Cyprus, in a sea of its own, than in the noisy, bustling, and open prospects of a large island like Ehodes. In the neighbourhood of hundreds of other insular regions, large and small, over Avhich the higher poAvers of Olympus, Jupiter tonans, revengeful Juno, tricky Vulcan, and the versatile and thrifty Hermes held undivided sway, there Avould be left but secondary parts to play for the goddess of beauty. QUIT THE TURKISH SERVICE. 197 I am not quite certain as to the object of the Actives mission to this island. It could have been only of a very trivial character, as after landing an officer with some des- patches, and her surgeon, myself, who in virtue of the late agreement was leaving the service, the frigate sailed away for Constantinople. I read in my notes of that period that the moment I found myself on terra firma, with my firman of discharge and written attestations of an appreciated conduct from the Capudan Pasha and his hekim-bashi in my hands, I drew a long breath, and cried out in the words of my school-days’ favourite, the Venusian bard, ‘^Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,’’ &c. — such ^^negotia’’ as I had lately submitted to, much against the grain. Here am I (I wrote down that night) once more master of my own fate, to choose the next path that is to lead me on through life. I have visited strange lands, inquired into their ancient annals, their gods, their learning ; I have studied practically their more recent institutions and the character of their more modern citizens ; I have mastered for the time their languages, and mixed myself up in their domestic concerns.’’ Quae sint, quae fuerint,” as regards life in the East at the opening of the present century, my written records attest. What sixty-six years, added to the date of those records, have supplied of events or revolutions, the historiographers of the day will tell us. A comparison of the two statements will lead to the conclusion, not less startling than mortifying, that the regions of civilized nationalities we call The East,” in the seventh of the ten decennial periods of the nineteenth century, have ceased to be the home of profound philosophy, oratory, poesy, belles-lettres, and the Fine Arts ; nor are they any longer the cradle of wise law-givers, heroic rulers, daring commanders, splendid conquerors, and unflinching patriots. 198 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. The liberal manner in 'which the Ottoman authorities had treated me, added to the generous remuneration I had received from the Stataki family, had served to augment the pecuniary “ resources I had obtained from my late travelling friend Mr. Hamilton, all which had remained nearly intact, since I had had little occasion for any dis- bursements. I found myself therefore at this conjuncture in possession of a considerable sum of money, the legitimate and honest fruit of my profession, that rendered me perfectly independent, and set me free from anxiety as to any futura res angusta domi. Four-fifths of the entire sum I con- verted into letters of exchange on Smyrna, the place I had designed as my ultimate point of departure for the West. These letters I obtained at the Austrian consulate, to which I hesitated not to apply and introduce myself as the brother of a superior employe in the Austrian government at Venice — a self-introduction which proved of great use and ad- vantage to me during my sojourn in Ehodes. To that dear brother I took pleasure and pride in communicating the news of my professional success thus far, adding the assur- ance of iny perfect health, with the ex]3ression of my hope that I should soon obtain some family news through the Austrian consuls in the different cities of the Levant, with whom I should always take care to leave an account of my own whereabouts. Up to this period I had received no tidings from home since my departure from Constantinople, a reticence I did not marvel at, considering the perpetual state of movement and shifting of quarters I had been subject to, which precluded all chance of a regular correspondence through the post. Signor Giustiniani, the consul and banker, had recom- mended me to a private family in the town, one of whose sons was clerk in the consulate, and who would assist me in my peregrinations through the island. The town itself RHODES. 199 I was able to examine alone, for all the localities to which any historical interest is attached are exhibited to strangers with readiness, and a knowledge of the Greek and Turkish languages was a passe-partout, especially for one dressed in the oriental costume, which I still retained. But after all it was the knowledge of Italian and old French idioms that was needed to comprehend and enjoy the historical remains scattered about the town ; for many and enduring have been the vestiges left by the warrior knights in Rhodes, and the city retains so much of the aspect of an ordinary European city, that one forgets its origin and its many subsequent historical vicissitudes and transmutations. In sailing into the harbour in the Active I had noticed a huge square tower of considerable- elevation and strength, with a small turret at each of the four upper corners, which I heard called the “ Knights' Tower,” intended as a defence of a vast and almost quadrangular harbour. The knights had likewise one of the principal streets within the gates which bore their name. At the corner of this Rue des Chevaliers, the arms of England were to be seen surmounted by a ducal coronet, marking possibly the residence of Robert, Duke of Normandy. The old convent, perhaps the knights' hospital, which is very large and most solidly con- structed in the Gothic style, with massive pillars, was then a school in which young Turks were taught to read the Koran previous to their entering their so-called tioly Orders, a study which is supposed to contain all that is requisite for a true believer to know of philosophy, history, poetry, morality, physics, and religion. Altars there were before almost every house in the town, with inscriptions in Greek characters, and the same also on square pedestals. The private houses in this and the adjoining streets showed a Gothic design with low arched entrance gates of moderate elevation, bearing escutcheons inscribed with old French or 200 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Italian devices and coats of arms. Some minor remains of princely palaces exist to tell tlie story of their unfortunate masters. I sought in vain for a single monument to recall the primitive Hellenic race. All had been absorbed between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries by the rule of the Christian knights, and even the tradition of the great Colossus seemed to be forgotten. But the true admirers of high ancient art contemporaneous with the best productions of Phidias s chisel, will not forget that magnificent group in white marble of the Laocoon, so eloquent in its composi- tion and details that it needs not the gift of voice to tell its own affecting story. That wonderful group was the joint work of three Ehodian sculptors- — Agesander, Athe- nodorus, and Polydorus, and shame to the Ehodians who suffered it to be carried away as war booty to Eome, there to be long exhibited in the palace of the Emperor Titus. Instead of feeling proud of my Turkish trappings, I felt ashamed of them when I found myself on the jetty in a quasi Venetian colony, and still more so when received in the houses of those Ehodians to whom my courteous banker had introduced me, some of them Greek sang, others semi Venetians, not a few Illyrians and Eagusans, and even in one instance a Jewish family, whose wealth, intercourse with foreign people visiting the island, and liberality of opinion, made them equal to any of the prin- cipal families there. I said I was ashamed of my Turkish trappings, but I see from my notes that I made myself ridiculous, Avhich is the more correct phrase. What could be more so than for one accustomed to receive and acknow- ledge acts of courtesy from Italian, French, or Eomaic ladies, and exchange compliments with high-bred seigneurs in society, to attempt to sustain the solemn, grave, and stiff air which the Ottoman vestments imposed on him in LIFE IN EHODES. 201 liis social intercourse ? If there was one house I preferred to visit, it was that of the Jewish family, all the members of which wore the oriental costume. If the daughter of Laban, whom Jacob loved, bore resemblance to either of the two daughters of this descendant of Israel, the beauty of the Hebrew female type must indeed have been exquisite. Both daughters were the admiration of their society, among whom they lived in that unrestrained yet decorous Franco-Italian fashion which had found its way into Ehodes during a period of nearly three centuries, before Soliman II., with the loss of nearly two hundred thousand men, conquered and subjected the whole island to the Turkish rule. The presence of so many foreign consuls, occupying villas of a commodious and pleasing architecture, the occasional and temporary residence of families from many parts of continental Greece, who visit this island for its salubrious and mild air during the winter, and the almost constant intercourse with the great centres of civilization, are cir- cumstances which have contributed to make Ehodes a very important place. From my own experience I may add, that a more desirable residence for one contented to pass the term of life in the enjoyment of every sort of worldly indulgence, could not be found than in one of the many lonely spots which the interior, not less than the coasts, of the island offers to a wandering cosmopolitan. He need not be master of more than a modest income, which would enable him to live as if he possessed a large fortune. Ehodes, in fact, might have proved a Capua for the inex- perienced Milanese youngster, who accepted as never likely to alter those demonstrations of friendly courtesy that were shown him among the families he frequented, had he not always kept in view another and far higher aim than that of living a life of mere sensual enjoyment. 202 AUTOBIOGRAPHr OF DR. GRANVILLE. The proximity of the island which tradition represents as the birthplace of the great and immortal master of our art, induced me to visit Cos on my departure from Ehodes. The voyage to Cos resembles more a pleasant excursion on a smooth lake than one on an open sea, so many are the islands passed in the short journey, during which land is never lost sight of. The distance is very short, and in engaging a small vessel to convey me to Smyrna, the place I was next bound for, I covenanted that it should first proceed to and land me for one day at Cos. I found on landing there, and addressing myself to some man in authority, a Greek, that the memory of Hippocrates was still common everywhere in the island. Indeed, they could not well forget it while a limpid and abundant spring is shown on a hill three miles from the town, which bears the hallowed name of the Father of Medicine. Nay, more, the patriotic effect of the decree of the Macedonian king, Perdiccas, granted at the request of this great phy- sician, still subsists, which entitles the people of Cos to send their young sons to Athens for gratuitous education. Brave islanders, who preferred to endure the many violent acts of Artaxerxes rather than deliver up to that enraged monarch their illustrious fellow-citizen, who had scornfully refused to submit to a royal summons too contemptuously delivered for an illustrious physician to obey ! CHAPTER XIV. 1804 - 5 . Arrival at Smyrna — The Turkish costume — Become supercargo of a Venetian polacca — Leave Smyrna for Messina — Take refuge in Port Tero — Enter the port of Messina — Effects of an earthquake — Steer for Malaga — Chased by an Algerine corsair — Arrive at Malaga — Herr Carl Muller — Spanish tertulias — Sor, the guitarist — The guitar as a serenading instru- ment — Yellow fever breaks out in Malaga — Measures adopted — The cathedral of Malaga. On Cliristmas-day, 1804, Mr. Consul Worry opened liis hospitable residence at Smyrna to the friend of Mr. Hamilton. He informed me that my arrival had been expected some months before, and he added much informa- tion respecting my good friend's doings while he remained at Smyrna or travelled in the neighbourhood until his final departure for England. The consul was one of a genial class of men with whom you are soon well and heartily acquainted. His kind and courteous manners placing me at my ease, I at once com- municated to him my plan, which was to return westwards in some large merchant ship trading Avith Italy and Spain, which latter country it was my real wish to reach. I mentioned to him at the same time that I had drafts on a merchant in the town, and asked him whether I might not find means to invest the larger part of the money in a share of such cargo as the ship I selected might be freighted with. Inquiries, he answered, should be made o^ Change, and in the mean time I might occupy my leisure hours in looking about the city and its neighbourhood, which to a scholar, he observed, offered some interesting reminiscences. 204 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. I am ashamed to have to record here, that so truly tired had I become of the life of au inquirer, investigator, anti- quary, and what not besides, that I preferred settling myself down into the condition of an ordinary citizen, going about his own business and attending profitably to it. Properly to commence this new sort of life, I hastened at once to put aside my Turkish dress, and again appeared in my European costume, thanks to Mr. Werry^s tailor. This sudden change of attire caused in me an almost equally sudden alteration of feelings and thoughts. I became light, brisk, and lively, and happily discovered that I had neither forgotten European breeding nor the manner of expressing it. As regards the Turkish costume I may, in my character of a physician, make one or two remarks in this part of my memoirs concerning it. I w'ore that costume a sufficient length of time to authorize me to express an opinion respecting its superiority over the modern European style of dress,, whether with regard to health and the proper development of the human frame, or its suitable and decorous appearance. In each of these requisites the oriental costume indisputably bears away the palm of superiority. The surface of the human body in a state of complete civilization requires to be protected, both winter and summer, from the influence of capricious and frequent changes in the atmosphere by which it is surrounded. The covering should be proportioned to the degree of protection required, and should be uniform for the entire surface. It ought to be of ready and easy application, with few impedi- ments and contrivances to occasion loss of time and temper. It should be free from all tight ligatures, whether partial or general, that tend to impede the free circulation of the blood. It should invest the whole person with becoming decency ; lastly, it should not interfere with the free action THE TUEKISH COSTUME. 205 of all the parts of the external organization. Now each and all of these requirements are attained with the Turkish costume. In five minutes after quitting your couch in the morning, and your general ablution performed, you may don it, and it is as quickly thrown off in the evening when you retire to rest. Every part of the body is uniformly covered. You may even dispense with an attendant to put the long wide sash or shawl round your waist, which is de rigueur ; for if you fasten one end of it to the key of your bedroom door, and stretch the shawl to its full length by going towards the opposite wall, you may roll yourself neatly up in its folds, keeping the straight end tight in one hand, while you waltz round on your return to the first end, which you then detach and tuck in at the waist. The operation used to occupy me one minute exactly. At dinner on the 2.9th of December, Mr. Werry intro- duced me to an Italian captain of a large polacca, il Cavaliere Adorni, formerly a naval officer in the service of the Venetian Eepublic, whose ship was then lying in the neighbouring bay of Scala Nova, taking in a cargo of fave (dried beans), currants, figs, raisins, and wax. Its desti- nation was Malaga, but part of the cargo was to be delivered at Messina. The cavaliere had been informed by the consul of my intention, and he consequently invited me to return overland with him the following day to Scala Nova (a very short journey), to inspect the ship and her accommodation, and enter into a negotiation afterwards with the merchant skipper as to my assuming part of their cargo of beans for a consideration. Matters were so settled, money paid down, and on the recommendation of Mr. Werry, my name, which had been inserted in the bill of lading as part owner of the cargo, was also mentioned as supercargo to see the whole of it properly consigned to Messrs. Muller and Co. at Malaga, a 206 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. responsible commission I readily accepted for two reasons, first, that it gave me a controlling power over the cargo ; and secondly, because I should be holding a certain conse- quential position on board which would give me occupation. Little did I then anticipate that an appointment so alien and so different from my pursuits and character would prove a link to my next step in life. Indeed, when I look back to what had occurred to me after I left my father's home, I cannot help being struck with the fact of each new phase in my career (giving it a new colour) being the neces- sary result of some important event immediately preced- ing— thus establishing an unbroken line of existence, which indeed, as will be apparent in the course of my narrative,, has been the case through life, verifying Seneca's opinion that — - Omnia certo tramine vadiint, Primus que dies dedit extremum.” As the day the polacca was to sail was not yet fixed, I was prevailed upon to make two or three excursions to localities rendered memorable as having been the -birth- places of .ancient poets and philosophers, all within a not very wide circle around Smyrna, namely, Homer, Anacreon, Anaxagoras the spiritualist, including also a visit to Aiosolue, or the Church of St. John, standing, as is averred, on the ruins of Ephesus and the celebrated Temple of Diana. When Cavaliere Adorni at length reported his ship ready to sail, Mr. Worry most kindly accompanied me overland to Scala Nova with my modest luggage, and left me on board the polacca with many good wishes and the expres- sion of kindly feelings. The good man has doubtless long since gone to his fathers ; but he left a son, and should he by chance light on these memoirs of one who had the good fortune to pass a few days under the hospitable roof of his FEOM SMYENA TO MALAGA. 207 parents, let me assure him that I have ever borne in mind with gratitude the acts of kindness I received at the residence of the English consul at Smyrna in the last two weeks of the fourth year of the present century. The polacca was deeply - laden with small packages, which the officers of the vessel were permitted to ship. In the midst of these I yet found room to fix my cot and a few necessaries for cleanliness and comfort. Captain Adorni invited me at the same time to make use of his own cabin on deck whenever I was disposed for reading or writing ; and as we messed together, our intercourse neces- sarily became almost continuous. We came out of the Gulf of Scala Nova hugging the land close on our starboard tack, passing Cape Brano and the Port of Tschesme, memorable for the famous sea-fight between the Turks and the Kussians in 1770, exactly one century from the date I am now writing. Tschesme is opposite Scio, where we stopped for the night, setting sail again on the following morning. The weather wore a propitious aspect, and we were in high spirits, when all at once a violent south-wester rose like a hurricane, drifting the polacca towards Mitylene, in one of the two vast harbours of which island we took refuge. It was fortunate that the pilot whom Cavaliere Adorni had taken on board to see us clear off the Asiatic coast and Greek islands was well acquainted with both the harbours of Lesbos (Mitylene). The one which haply lay near to us was Tero, with a south-west bearing, but with an entrance so narrow and intricate, that to a ship driven under a close-reefed foresail and jib it presented almost certain destruction. To this day I cannot recall the scene without a renewal of the shudder I experienced as I stood on the fore-deck, lashed to the mast to keep me steady, watching the drifting of the stout and nimble polacca through the intricacies of the 208 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. narrow channel by which ships amidst a foaming surge are piloted into this marvellous haven — one of the finest as well as safest in the world, in which more than one large European fleet could ride safely at the same time. Once within, the deafening tempest outside lapses magically into the silent and perfect calm of the unruffled blue "\^ater of a spacious lake protected all round by lofty hills. Hither, after his defeat at Pharsalia, (August the 9th), forty-eight years before the Christian era, did Pompey fly in a boat from the mouth of the Peneus, and being joined by Cornelia his wife, daughter of Scipio, proceeded to Egypt, there to fall under the murderous hand of Cleo- patra's brother, whose hospitality he had come to claim. But Lesbos had other and more pleasing reminiscences to offer to my imagination. It was the birthplace of a love-sick maid whose fatal leap to cure her disordered brain had rendered for ever memorable the Leucadian Rock I had visited from Cephalonia. It had also given birth to Theophrastus, whose name a student of Materia Medica must ever venerate. A few days of fine weather at length set the imprisoned voyagers free, and the ship proceeded onwards to her several destined ports. That of Messina was reached in due course. Adorni's polacca was a good sailer, and we frequently made our ten and eleven knots an hour with a sirocco or east wind. Not wishing to be completely idle during the voyage, I gladly availed myself of the kind offer of the captain to instruct me in the first principles of navigation, and in the use of the quadrant in taking the sun s altitude at noon, which we were able to accomplish every day, the sky proving uniformly serene. A few years later I rather surprised some of the English naval officers by my acquaintance with the nautical terms and ordinary daily operations, in working out our position on the chart ENTER MESSINA. 209 from the latitude thus ascertained and distance shown by the log-book. In all these simple observations I became very interested, but my knowledge never went further, for my study was not continued. The passage through the Faro of Messina being direct north, the fresh east gale we had brought with us on our starboard quarter served us well ; but it was soon lulled as we passed under the lee of Eeggio and the hills at the back of it. Hence the polacca had to contend with the currents so proverbially dreaded in this passage ; yet we entered the superb port with ease, spite of Scylla and Charybdis. The fort of St. Salvatore, the lanterna (lighthouse), and the vast citadel were conspicuous objects that came into view while we were yet at some distance from the town. Once inside its ample and almost circular harbour, with its deep water and fine quays, you view the city spread like an amphitheatre from the waters edge up to its hilly quarters. I well remember the strange sensation I expe- rienced on beholding the line of buildings and lengthened colonnade on the sea esplanade (the Marino or Palazzata) leaning on one side, so as to present a marked divergence from the perpendicular. In that state they had been left by an earthquake which accompanied a violent eruption of Etna in the year in which I was born (1783), a date near enough to the time of our present visit to make the awful calamity a subject of ordinary conversation among the matter-of-fact and business people we had to deal with, as also among well-educated persons with whom we con- versed. In truth it could not be otherwise, considering that one could hardly walk a hundred paces without meeting traces of that remarkable catastrophe which astounded all Europe at the time. I must not omit to commit to writing my vivid recollec- tion of a visit I paid on shore in violation of the quaran- p VOL. I. 210 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, tine laws, incurring thereby a heavy penalty, only avoided through bribery. That visit was to the rich collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts and books formed and bequeathed in gratitude by Constantine Lascaris, whose memory is revered from the circumstance that just three centuries before he had introduced and tauoLt the Greek o language in Milan. It is to that collection (since trans- ferred to Spain) that my fatherland was indebted for a knowledge of the most eminent and ancient writers of Greece. At Messina we landed many of the smaller articles of the cargo without breaking bulk, which was wholly in- tended for Malaga, but we shipped some Sicilian silks, a few chests of liquorice juice, and many baskets of Avola almonds, articles we were certain to dispose of to advantage at Malaga. We set sail from Messina on the fourth day after our arrival, and after entering the Golfo di Gioia, kept to the northern shore of the island as far as Melazzo, passing that night through the line of the Lipari isles, one or two of which cast a lurid light on our track with their intermitting bursts of flames. When these were once behind us our head was put west, and as wide a berth as possible given to the African coast, for good reasons. Our ship, I should have remarked, w^as fully armed, to protect us from Tunisian and Algerine corsairs, who were then infesting the waters of the Mediterranean. By one of the latter of these depredators the polacca was chased off Capo di Gatta, until on a nearer approach, after a mutual firing of several long shots in vain, the pursuer noticed the long broadside of guns of the Venetian ship. The corsair then shortened sail, and dropped a long way astern, leaving us to complete our voyage without further molestation. The old white castle on the hill, the noble pier jutting out some hundred feet on the eastern side of the harbour. ARRIVE AT MALAGA. 211 with the lighthouse at the end, and the cathedral towering in the centre of the town, announced our arrival at Malacca. It was too late to report myself in my capacity of super- cargo to Sefior Carl Muller, to whom the polacca was con- simed. We received on board a custom-house and a o municipal officer, who came with a port pilot, whose duty it was to place us in a suitable berth within the Mole for the purpose of unloading. We were informed that the counting-house of our consignee would be open, according to the custom of the place, as early as eight o^clock ; and at that hour I presented myself with the ship's papers, Cavaliere Adorni accompanying me. It turned out that the cavaliere was personally known to Sefior Muller through some previous mercantile transaction, and we were both most civilly welcomed. It was not my intention to remain on board longer than the mercantile part of my business would require. That being comjjleted in about ten days (vessels were not un- loaded at Malaga as expeditiously as I have seen in a London dock), I settled with Adorni and committed to Sefior Muller all my separate packages, as well as the disposal of my share of the main cargo, simply reserving to myself the right to agree or otherwise to the price he should propose to sell at in the market. The cavaliere was not long in finding a cargo of uvaspaccas and Malaga wine for Venice, with which he sailed in less than five weeks, bearing a letter from myself to my excellent brother in that capital. I had taken private lodgings not far from the cathedral and near the Alameda, in which spacious street Senor Muller had a splendid mansion on the left side, that nearest the sea, as indeed had all the princi]3al merchants of Malaga, as well as most of the foreign consuls. Sefior Muller came AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. 2ia from Hamburg, and had married an Andalusian lady, to settle down almost a naturalized don. He spoke French tant hien que mctl, I knew nothing of the Spanish lan- guage, and as to any German, all that I had learnt of it in my early days, when the Austrian regime was rife in Milan, had pretty nearly vanished. By dint, however, of termina- tions put to words of my own native tongue resembling Latin, or even real Latin words altogether, with the addi- tional help of the guttural I had learned the knack of in Greece and Turkey, I contrived to make myself understood both at the counting-house and in my own private lodgings. An Italian is enabled quickly to master the Spanish lano-uage if he be bold enoimh and does not mind a little o o o banter, especially among the ladies ; for although polite and civil (to excess, I was going to say), a sehorita or even a sehora will sometimes indulge in the pleasure of laughing outright at the blunders of a novice in their own language. By the end of a month I Avas quite acclimated, and had been introduced into several agreeable tertulias, a species of nightly at home,'' at which the lady of the house enter- tains a certain number of intimos, to converse Avith, play tarroque, sing, or play on some instrument, drink sugar and water, or a cup of milkless tea Avith a squeeze of orange juice, the latter a fashion the mistress of the house informed me Avas borroAA-ed from the Enolish : es la costumbre de O los Inglezes." La Senora Miiller, as the Avife of the Austrian consul, had her oAvn tertulia on two nights in the Aveek, so after accepting for a month or so all invitations, I preferred to confine myself to these two out-of-door evening visits, AvhiclUnever commenced later than eight o’clock, nor extended beyond eleven — a most sensible arrangement. Besides these simple reunions, s oine of the principal hmiilies would through the Avinter give a soiree or ball, at which both the family and all invited guests would assemble in 213 SOR, THE GUITARIST. great state. It was on such occasions that the dazzling eyes, the exquisite feet, and the coquettish grace of the fair Andalusians shone conspicuous. In no other quarter of the civilized world could such an assembly be found, thougb some over-fastidious persons object to the often repeated samples of the same pretty object. I am almost ashamed to write again of my quieter per- formances. It required, indeed, no little assurance in a stranger to come forward in the centre of such an assembly with an instrument peculiarly Spanish, and attempt to sing an aria after the company had been listening to the delicious seguidillas of Sbr, an artiste whose skill on the guitar, accompanying a mellow voice, was prodigious. But for his seguidillas I had my Venetian barcarolles ; and when these palled, the sudden introduction of a Greek romanza carried off all the bravos. The two performers became however friends, and I took lessons from Sor on the instru- ment he had made so peculiarly his own. This young man belonged to a most respectable family, and though intended for a serious profession, wasted his opportunities of dis- tinguishing himself in it through his passion for music ; the full indulgence in which proved a fatal impediment to his progress in more essential pursuits, for he only attained the reputation and name of the first Spanish guitarist. He was one of the examples I had in view, besides many others, when in the early part of these memoirs I inveighed against young men indulging in amateur music when they have to get their own bread in life. I have preserved one of Sor’s poetical compositions, with accompaniment for the guitar, to the air of a popular dance much in vogue, called La Gravina,'^ in allusion to the well-known admiral of that name. This piece was sung in the most fashionable ladies^ assemblies, although the subject was in dispraise of love, which would probably remind English musicians of theii' £14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR, GRANVILLE, own countryman PurceU’s elegant little ballad, I attempt from Lovers sickness to fly/^ In Germany, with a grand piano before him, Sor might have become a Mozart, or a Wagner with grandiose ideas ; but with so simple and poor an instrument as the guitar, none but light and trifling melodies could be expected. With such poor materials for inspiration, it is not surprising that Spain should not liave produced a single musical composer in the present century to match the famed German and Italian maestri : yet if w^e are to believe what ' %j has been stated by Geminiani, well known to English com- posers, and a pupil of the famous Scarlatti, the best work on musical composition, unequalled in any of the modern languages, was written by Lorente, organist of the principal church in Alcala. Considering the object for which the guitar has been adopted by all classes of society in Spain, and more especially in this light-hearted Malaga, namely, that of serenading al del sereno a favourite belle or a mere friend during the still hours of a starry night, no instrument can compete with it for effect. As the serenader — generally attended by one or two friends to sing second or as chorus — ■ enters one of the aristocratic calles,to plant himself in front of the palacio in which the divinity dwells, and sweeps his fingers over the strings rasquerando, the soft sound pervades the air, and breaks on the ear with a pleasing thrill which must be heard to be understood. He continues Jlozeando on the strings, or as the Italians say, arpeggiando, for a few minutes, certain that by this time the harmonious sound has penetrated to the intended nook within the abode and awakened the favoured inmate. Then a tenor, a bass, and a baritone are softly combined with the sounds of the guitar, producing the effect of an opera terzet accom- panied by violini pizzicati. To make sure that this YELLOW FEVER IN MALAGA. 215 melodious prelude has awakened from her slumbers the adorata, the serenader now strikes all the strings in a par- ticular manner — gospeando, tapping the sounding-board at the same time with the hand for two or three minutes in the most hilarious style. But now the raising of the lower half of a jalousie in an upper room, through which a faint beam of light appears, once more awakens the soft arpeggios of the instrument, accompanying the touching and imploring seguidillas according as the intentional theme is required to be affectionately tender or simply joyous, and with that the serenade terminates. The many opportunities I had of giving medical advice to members of the consular body, who in common with the principal inhabitants were dismayed at the sudden irruption of the yellow fever into the town, imported, it was rumoured, from Cadiz, had installed me in a respect- able professional practice. The reputation I had acquired through the offi cious reports of Senor Mtiller, of my having had experience in the treatment of the plague at Con- stantinople, which the Malaguehos held to be something analogous to the fever that was decimating them, induced the municipality to request me to join a consulta or commission appointed by order of the Madrid government to inquire into the origin and best mode of treatment of the disease. Professor Arejula, from Madrid, was appointed president of the commission, and Dr. Desgenettes, sent by the French government, with Dr. Hernandez of Malaga, and myself, constituted the commission. The result of our deliberations was made known to the public in an able report drawn up by the president, with whom I happily formed an acquaintance which was of great value to me during my subsequent residence in Madrid. One of my suggestions was that bonfires of green wood should be lighted at night at the two ends of each street, 216 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. for I had remarked, that while those inhabitants who left the town every evening before sunset for their country residences escaped the infection, all persons who came from the country and slept in the town invariably caught the disease. The suggested process was adopted and strictly adhered to (as I had seen it adopted in Pera and the Fanar in Constantinople), and the number of deaths sensibly diminished. Of course this was not the only hygienic measure which the commission recommended for the ultimate extinction of the epidemic, which took place near the close of 1805 — a memorable year in every respect. A curious case with reference to the influence of locality and change of air on the progress of yellow fever in this town came under my notice, which tends to prove the correctness of the views I some five years afterwards maintained in two of my publications between infectious and contagious epidemics, to the former of which categories the yellow fever belongs, while the Levant plague is in- cluded in the second. The family of a wealthy citizen affected with the fever were permitted, notwithstanding the prohibitory cordon, to leave the town for their country house at Torre- Molinos. There they were in free com- munication with various persons, none of whom caught the disease, while all the individual members of the afflicted family rapidly recovered. Of the reality of their disorder having been the prevalent yellow fever I satisfied myself per- fectly, as I did also of their recovery, and of the immunity that attended their intercourse with strangers. Now, had it been the Levant plague, a like proceeding to that which here took place would inevitably have propagated it in Torre-Molinos ; nor would mere pure air have prevented its spreading. The interior of Malaga, with narrow and ill-paved streets, some of steep ascent, was well calculated to retain the seeds THE CATHEDRAL OF MALAGA. 217 of infections fever when once it had penetrated within them. But the wide Alameda, with its handsome palaces on each side, presented less chance of contagion. Most of the churches had been closed at the suggestion of the sanitary commission, as had likewise been the theatres. The ca- thedral was excepted, and to it I was sometimes accom- panied by Sehora Muller, to witness the celebration of high mass with all the attractiveness of vocal and orchestral music. This episcopal church is an imposing structure, though of hybrid architecture, but especially remarkable for its handsome tower, with an elevation of 260 feet, forming (considering that the church stands on elevated ground) a striking feature as the harbour is approached from the sea. I used to consider its interior as ma- jestic as that of many churches with which I was acquainted in Italy. It consists of a nave and two large and lofty aisles, the roofs supported by many pilasters and corresponding twin marble Corinthian columns. The chapel del Incarnacion,^^ with handsome sculptures and two mausoleums, is the most frequented on Sundays. I was glad to notice that amidst all this ostentatious display of architecture and decoration, the home of the good prelate who presides in the cathedral had not been neglected. His palace was worthy of the rank of its inmate. CHAPTEE XV. 1803. Climate of Malaga — Travelling in Spain — Granada : its Alhambra — Visit Cor- dova — The Mezqnita Tower — Count Florida Blanca — Seville as a capital — The Alcazar — Visit Gibraltar — Trafalgar captures — Prepara- tions to leave Malaga — Journey to Madrid. My citizenship of Malaga seemed now fully established, and with the concurrence of most of the members of the elite of society. One of the houses I frequented, for an introduction to Avhich I was indebted to Sen ora Muller, was that of Sehor Kirkpatrick, who had acted as English consul at Malaga until differences had arisen between England and Spain, which ended in a declaration of war, when his functions ceased. I retain a slight recollection of his two daughters, one of whom married a grandee of Spain, Conde de Montijo, Duca de Penesada, whose second daughter, well known in some of the high circles in London in 18ol, afterwards shared the throne of France with Louis Napoleon. Worldly matters seemed to go on well with me. I was at ease as to money, for the Levant speculation had turned out well. I occupied a respectable place in society ; I had gained experience of men and manners in a new country ; and my profession was yielding me both profit and occupation, albeit to a moderate extent only. I had not suffered an hour of ill health since the attack of the plague at Constantinople ; in fact I never was. better or stronger. The healthiness of the place (apart from the accidental invasion of the yellow fever) was impressed on me from many professional observations at the end of my CLIMATE OF MALAGA. E19 first twelvemontVs residence in it, and also from remarks I had made on its climate, inclusive of that of some adjoin- ing; or neirfibourino; districts I visited. With such evidence before me, whenever I have been called upon during my practice in London to name a southern climate to patients, for the recovery or the protection of health enfeebled by pulmonary ailments, I have not hesitated to recommend Malaga in preference to Nice ; its cosmic aspects being moreover much superior. Malaga receives direct the warm breezes of the African soil in front; it is sheltered at the back from the chilling north winds by the Sierra Morena ; the meeting of the Pillars of Hercules at the Straits keeps the rainy south-western gales in check, while the hills of Granada and Valencia screen this fair daughter of Andalucia from the deadly sirocco. What happier locality can be dreamt of ? With all this, excellent sea-bathing. Once well known in society, many were the temptations thrown in my way by young men (the fashionable and consular castes) to make excursions that I might become acquainted with some of the nearest accessible provincial cities. One insisted on accompanying me to Granada. He was a most enthusiastic admirer of the ancient Moorish race. A second young man, belonging to the Austrian consulate, with whom I was what the French call tres-lie, and who knew the great predilection I had for Seneca, obtained from me a promise to go with him to see that great philosopher and poet's birthplace— Cordova. A third, half an Italian, secretary to the Alcalde Mayor, fancied that if I saw the religious ceremonies at Valencia and the cathedral at Seville, I need not seek for any more information as to religious matters, unless I chose to visit the ruins of the convent of Burgos. To all these I promised to make a selection in turn; yet, after all, my hankering was more after Cadiz, and, if possible, Gibraltar. Both places were 220 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. nearer than any of those mentioned to me, although to the last named I could only proceed as an Austrian subject, and unaccompanied by any Spaniard. It was, however, determined that it should be left as a last excursion. In view of these several explorations, a little private arrangement was made between myself and the Sefiora Miiller, with the approbation of the consul, for a corre- spondence between us in Spanish, in which language I had made considerable progress : Don A Anna (such was her Christian name) receiving my letters descriptive of my journeys, while her own critical or other remarks in reply would be forwarded to me by next post. A small packet of letters was the result, and these I carefully preserved for many years, as containing valuable commentaries on my own Spanish composition by a capable person. Travelling in Spain at the commencement of the pre- sent century was a work of patience and perseverance. Charles III. and his very able, though unfortunate, prime minister. Count Florida Blanca, had established good roads on all direct lines from the principal south and western pro- vincial cities to Madrid, but mean of intercommunication from one district town to another were altogether wanting. Riding post on a mule w^as the speediest mode, and this was generally adopted, though not the safest. It was a rough sort of travelling that brought back to my recollec- tion the long and rugged excursions through Greece. AVhen we speak of visiting Granada, we must mean visiting its enchanting Alhambra ; for, independently of that marvel of Moorish art, its site, and the magnificent — I may say unparalleled — panoramic view over the Alpuxarras which unrolls itself before your eyes from the balconies of the Generalife, the town of Granada itself offers no parti- cular attraction. Yet, when you have passed through the courts and halls, and the Torres, with all the dazzling THE ALHAMBRA. 221 decorations of mixed red, blue, and gold, a feeling of disappointment seizes you unawares that you have not reached that stupendous palace your imagination had pic- tured from reading an account of the Abencerrages and of the old conquerors and masters of Spain. You look for and expect to behold such imperial palaces as in our days the sovereigns of France and Eussia hold their courts in, and you find only apartments of small dimensions. You look for giant columns, and you see but slender pillars ; nothing is vast, nothing is imposing. It is not an imperial residence : it is a skilfully designed and adroitly contrived aggregation of moderate- sized rooms, with open spaces interspersed amongst them, yet none of great dimensions. One large apartment, and that only forty feet square, does the Alhambra contain — ^the Hall of the Ambassadors, at the end of which three windows afford the opportunity to admire the top of the surrounding hills. Its general exte- rior (which presents no signs of any ideal uniform struc- ture) you can , only discover piecemeal as you clamber up to the Gate of Judgment; and such an exterior disap- points you even more than the dwarfishness of its interior apartments. Donifi Anna on the receipt of my letter from Granada, wrote in answer, expressing the opinion of the majority of the assembled Tertullians at her house, to whom my account had been read, in confirmation of mv remarks respecting the disappointment which the general view of the Al- hambra of Granada is apt to produce on many of the strangers who visit that city, although every one comes away enchanted with the rich mosaic-like ornaments of its interior. There is another reason for the disappointment I experienced, and it is one that must be common to all travellers who have had opportunities of seeing the richness of the interior of many of the great houses in which the 222 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. wealthy Turks, Greeks, and Levantines generally live at Constantinople. In these they must have seen a good deal that vies successfully with the richness of the Alhambra's internal chambers. After a short interval, on my return to Malaga, where my occupations were princdpally professional, I accom- panied others of my friends in an excursion to Cordova and Seville, of either of which cities I retain only a recollection, having entered but few notes in my diary ; all that I saw or heard of concerning; them being; recorded at leng;th in letters to my fair correspondent. These letters, with many clever and acute replies, having been left in the custody of Sefior Muller, together with some Spanish and Eomaic books of my own, I was never able to recover after the disastrous prononciamentos which brought Malaga at one time to within two inches of her ruin. But I well recollect, when visiting Cordova for the first time, that I was struck with the great mosque of A.bd-er-rahman IL, converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral, the interior view of which is perfectly bewildering, from the immense number of slender pillars and arches, horse-shoe shaped, of marble of different colours, of por]3hyry, and jasper. An exterior lofty wall, supported by square buttresses at wide distances the one from the other, is the part that first attracts attention to this great edifice. Doors, niches, ornaments, and windows appear between the buttresses. Through one of the doors, crowned with a Moorish arch, you enter to find a square court planted with orange and palm trees and cypresses, having a fountain in the middle, and light porticos run- ning along three sides of the square, the fourth side being the cathedral, or the Mesquita, as the Cordovans call it when they forget its Roman Catholic denomination, Iglesia de San Nicolo." It is impossible to determine how many aisles the innumerable columns in this church may CORDOVA. 223 form, or to tell the many vistas they present in whatever part of the church you place yourself. I doubt whether there exists anywhere a more cheerful approach than the one that leads to this imposing edifice, which on summer evenings is often resorted to by the sefioras and their Caballeros to enjoy the fresh air, redolent with the fragrance of many orange blossoms. The lateral tower of the Mesquita is equally a curious object. It has the form of a sexagon of considerable dimen- sions, strongly built, I know not how many feet high ; but the architecture of its summit, peculiar to the Moorish principles, gives it a graceful aspect notwithstanding its massiveness and the repetition of the members of which it consists, all of them ornate and projecting in due propor- tions, as if they were meant to form a capital to a great column. Cordova retains much of the Moorish physiognomy ; singular in the absence of modern fronted dwelling-houses in the town, all of which (at least those I have any remem- brance of) present lofty walls without windows towards the street, except here and there a single latticed gazebo. All necessary light for the interior is derived from the large- open patio, generally laid out in parterres, with a fountain in the centre and light galleries running round it. These houses put you in miud of the habits and customs of the days of Abd-er-rahman II., fourth emir of the Omiyados of Cordova in the ninth century. Although remarkable in many ways, ail equally creditable to him, this emir would boast, among other distinguishing peculiarities, that he had had by his several wives forty-five sons and forty-one daughters. Of Senecas claim to be a citizen born in Cordova, I could not find anv authentic record in the archives of the %j city. Canon Don Eamires Esperado, who has the repu- 224 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. tation of being a man of immense erudition, informed me that he had consulted the oldest civic records of Cordova, from the commencement of the Christian era, without dis- co veriog any statement of the birth of Lucius Annseus ; but he had found a record of the existence of Marius Annaeus the father, whose eldest son, Marius Novatus, having changed his name for that of Junius Gallio, became pro- consul in Achaia, before whom the Jews cited Paul of Tarsus, accused of attempting to subvert the religion of Moses by new-fangled doctrines. I was more fortunate in my next search, which was to see and know a Spanish statesman who had for more than half a century engaged the attention of Europe as one of the ablest diplomatists of the age — I mean Count Florida Blanca. Though the sun of his administrative glory, like that of his predecessor Tanucci, and of his ministerial contemporaries in Europe, Pombal, Kaunitz, Turgot, or Calonne, had long set, his name rang still in the ears of the Spaniards, whose material comforts he had effectually promoted. His had proved the most brilliant administra- tion of Spain. At his accession to power, Spain was almost in a state of barbarism, lacking every public convenience — roads, internal navigation, water, and sanitary regula- tions. With the firm support of his master, Charles III., the last of the Bourbon kings good for anything, new roads were opened, old ones enlarged or repaired, canals made, bridges thrown across rivers where needed, aqueducts erected, streets cleansed and made large, and many cities embellished. Moreover, Madrid is indebted to him for an observatory, to which he presented a telescope by Herschel. A letter from the Governor-General of Andalucha pro- cured me the satisfaction of finding myself in the presence of a man of so much and just celebrity. Unfortunately I had no pretension to address such a person on any subject, COUNT FLORIDA BLANCA. 225 young and inexperienced as I was, but on hearing of my recent adventures in the Turkish navy in the Levant, he was pleased to cjuestion me on that subject, and thus putting me at my ease he enabled me to wind up the interview without appearing to be a lackbrain. The count had just come to Seville from his native city, Murcia, 'where lie had lived in exile the victim of Court intrigues, and had selected glorious Seville, as he called it, to end his days in. He was, however, destined to be placed as President at the head of the first Cortes set up by the Eevolution, till the invasion of Madrid by Murat drove him again to Seville, where he died in 1809. Possibly it might have made an immense difference in the history of Spain had the capital of Andalucia been the capital of the entire kingdom. The sea is not much further removed from Seville than is the mouth of the Thames from the metropolis of England. The Guadal- quivir is not exactly like the river Thames, yet it offers a sufficiently free course for vessels of moderate draft to plough its surface ; and engineering art in the course of the first quarter of a century from the day when Ferdi- nand III. added it to his kingdom of Castile, might have made its navigation for larger craft quite easy from Cadiz to Seville. Contrast for a moment the situation of this pretty, cheerful-looking city, and the rich and beautiful country around it, with the position of Madrid, immersed in its dusty and arid lands, with its river sometimes dried up, which means drought, want of drainage, and absence of cleanliness ; who could hesitate in choosing Cadiz, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir Seville as the capital of Spain, thirty miles inland on the same stream, the whole world's commerce would have poured into that lucky region of Western Europe, with the vast opportunity too of esta- blishing manufactories in the plain of Seville, where at one VOL. I. Q AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. time^ not far remote, silk factories employed more than one hundred thousand artisans of both sexes. Such was the impression of the moment as I stood surveying Seville after issuing from its Alcazar, which had presented to me almost a replica of the Alhambra in its Arab-Mauresque mosaic ornamentation and the distribution of its apartments. There are not so many courts in the former exquisite example of Moorish art, but it has a beau- tiful patio paved with marble, in the centre of which is a fountain planted round with myrtle and flowers, besides a gallery along the four sides supported by a series of twin pillars of white marble, with slender trefoil arches. As in the case of the Alhambra, so in the Alcazar of Seville, I was pained at the unmistakable signs of degradation I beheld, of which both monuments exhibited the effects, not so much due to' lapse of time as to neglect, and a want of love for art among the inhabitants of Seville ; a remarkable deflciency in the native city of Murillo, Velasquez, Zurbaran, and Herrera.^ For its singularity of design and execution the cathedral of Seville may be considered as the most wonderful church of the Catholic world. It is not easy to define the style of its architecture. Let me at once note down that on casting my eyes on the tower, rising to the height of two hundred and thirty feet, which is a separate structure, my admi- ration was all but confined to it alone, for it is unquestion- ably the finest portion of the entire group. La Giralda, for such is its name, is one of the most graceful structures of its kind in Western Europe, if one can apply such an adjective to an imposing square tower having the appear- ance of great solidity, built of pale red bricks, and covered ^ From books of travels and private information I am glad to learn that in both the Alhambra of Granada and the Alcazar of Seville, reparations to a great extent, and with more or less taste as well as solidity, have been executed in the course of the many years that have elapsed since my visit. EVILLE, m with many fanciful designs, some of them gilt, symmetrically distributed over its four faces. This tower, designed for an observatory by order of Kalif Yacoub-el-Mansour, was converted into the bell-tower of the cathedral by the super- addition of a smaller square tower surmounted by a round pinnacle, not in harmony with the rest of the building, yet still pleasing for its form and ornaments. The whole is a remarkable structure of its class, and well merits the com- mendations bestowed on it by architects of all eras and all nations. I will not attempt a description of the interior of the cathedral. I found it beyond my graphic power, and so I enclosed to my fair correspondent at Malaga a printed account of the church and of all its paintings and riches : this I procured from the sacristan who exhibited the relics and acted as cicerone in pointing out and explaining the several monuments and mausoleums of the many Alphonsos in the Capilla de los Eeyes. Going through the gorgeous Louvre many years after my visit to Seville and Madrid, it was an additional enjoyment to recognize in the salle reserved for the Ecole des Peintres Espagnoles many of the best pictures that had been pointed out to me, and that I had so much admired in the cathedral and the museum at Seville fifty years before. My other impressions of this lively and joyous city are of a mixed kind — of satisfaction, of disappointment. Satis- faction at the appearance of bustle without confusion among a numerous population in the common thorough- fares ; at the striking national physiognomy of its varied population ; and, above all, at the comeliness and stylish simplicity of the costume of the women. Disappointment at the foulness of the streets, many of them narrow, crooked, and scarcely safe for a pedestrian. Yet there are not wanting parts of the city, the spacious streets of which. 228 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE, GEANVILLE, paved with large flagstones like Florence, are flanked by the residences of the aristocrats and the wealthy merchants ; or plazas, like that of San Francisco or San Salvador, and others, some planted with orange trees, and having seats for a halt to enjoy the perfume of the blossoms. Seville rejoices in the reputation of exhibiting the most showy Fiesta de Toros of any city in Spain. During my short stay in that city no such spectacle took place, and I was glad at having been spared the temptation of wit- nessing it. With a visit to the Columbiana, a small public library in connection Avith the cathedral, founded by a son of the great and ill-requited navigator, I terminated my acquaint- ance Avith the metropolis of Andalucia. These several excursions had brought me to the middle of October, 1805, so that about six months had passed since my arrival from the Levant, and it Avas time to think about making arrangements for my projected visit to Madrid, .Avhere I hoped to remain a couple of months longer, though not with any vicAV to a settlement in it as a professional man, for to such a step no consideration of pecuniary resource in the least compelled me. But before quitting a city so near to Gibraltar, of Avhich I had heard so much, it AAms decided, even by the recommendation of my friends in the Alameda, that I should ride over to San Roque and afteiuvards to Algesiras, crossing thence to Gibraltar. Sehor Miiller had given me a consular pass as an Austrian subject, to enable me to land at Gibraltar from the Spanish main as a neutral, Spain being then at war with England. It Avas known at Malaga that the French fleet had joined the Spanish men-of-war in and before Cadiz, Avith the intention of sallying forth some day to attack the English fleet under Admiral Nelson. TEAFxiLaAK CAPTUREB. 229 1 crossed from Algesiras on the 15th, and was subjected to a quarantine of five days on account of a few cases of yellow fever that had occurred in that little maritime place during the summer. On the morning of the 21st, a day since become his- torical, I was released from quarantine and suffered to pro- ceed to the house of a friend (Sehor Schotto), a merchant, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction from Senor Carl Muller. On that day a distant booming was heard in the west till late in the afternoon, mingled pre- sently with a fierce tempest that had raged in the air, in perfect accordance with the terrible event that was then taking place in the direction of Cadiz. The first evidence of that event was seen in Gibraltar, when the shattered San Idelfonso^ 74-gun ship, and two other Spanish vessels of equal force — their respective captains standing without side-arms on the poop, in their blue and scarlet uniforms richly braided with gold lace— -were being towed as pri- soners into the harbour, followed by the Bahama and the Sioiftsurey French vessels of a like number of guns, and equally prisoners. They were escorted by an English frigate, Phoebe. As soon as the vessels were moored inside the Mole, a few of us were allowed on board to view the havoc com- mitted by the English guns. Curious coincidence ! On the very quarter-deck of the last-mentioned captured French man-of-war, the name of which I well remember puzzled me, and which I was never able to pronounce correctly — on that very quarter-deck, the captain com- mander of which I beheld pacing it mournfully and de- jected, I was myself destined at no great distance of time to strut in the trappings of an English medical officer. My host, Seilor Schotto, offered me a paper published twenty-four hours afterwards — -the Gibraltar Chronicle ' AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. —eontainmg an acconnt of tliat memorable rencontre^ in which the navies of two great nations were at one blow annihilated. But that acconnt was written in a language the sound of which had been strange to my ears since my kind travelling companion in Greece had tried to teach me a short vocabulary of English words^ in hopes of my being, able to mould my lips and voice to their pronunciation. However^ it was all in vain^ for even with the aid of dictionary and . grammar^ I was not able for two years at lea.st to become fully acquainted with the details of that greatest example of valour and naval tactics of modern times, which cost the life of the commander, but which made the names of Nelson and Trafalgar imperishable. After a cursory examination of the fortifications of Gib- raltar, and having mounted to the loftiest monkey's hill, whence a marvellous eastern view of the Mediterranean is enjoyed, I returned to San Eoque, engaged a mule for myself and a second for a guide or postilion, and slowly rode back to Malaga. Once more, December 1st, 1805, in my wandering life the painful necessity came round to bid adieu, probably a long adieu, to many kind friends, with not a few among whom I had formed a sincere attachment and had lived a life of happiness. Most of them have since passed away, but the memory of the happy days I spent amongst them can never be forgotten. It was fortunate that my expe- rience of the Spanish people commenced with some who left so favourable an impression on me, steeling the heart against the very opposite impressions I was about to receive in the midst of a dissipated capital. The question now was, how to reach the next resting- place in my peregrinations. At that time the ferrocarriles, as the Spaniards call the railways, were not dreamt of, and with the exception of the camininos reales, the inter-com- QUIT MALAGA. 281 munication throughout Spain was in a deplorable con- dition ; and not only so, but in a state of insecurity also, on account of the many disbanded militia-men, brigands, and contrabandistas wandering about the country. The mountain ridge of the Sierra Morena whieh I should have to cross was infested with all sorts of vagabonds. Eemembering what I had suffered from the Coches de Colleras, slow, dirty, and expensive, employed in my pre- vious excursions to Seville, Cordova, Granada, &c. (alter- nated with horse-riding), I declined that mode of travelling to Madrid. It was at length decided that I should join a caravan of regular muleteers or common carriers, called arrieros, trusty men, constituting a useful as well as formid- able body of robust, agile, and good-natured fellows in whom one could trust. Always gay, laughing and singing, they are on the best terms with the bands of contra- bandistas one is apt to encounter in the mountain passes on the Castilian roads that lead to the metropolis. To the care of the chief conductor of these people, therefore, I was recommended through the kind offices of a Malaga mer- chant who employed the arrieros extensively in his com- mercial transactions. The choice of conveyance for my own use was the next question to be debated and settled. Posting, whether by horse or mule, entailed the necessity of many changes of the hacks, unless I purchased one of those animals for my own sole use — a rather expensive investment in such a place as Malaga, where every good mule or horse was bought up by the hidalgos or wealthy merchants for their carriages or for riding. It was decided at length, by the advice of friends, that I should purchase a strong and good-sized mule, with which I should set out escorted by a guard as far as Antequera, the dreaded pass of the Sierra, where I should be consigned to the conductor of the caravan of arrieros already mentioned, 232 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. under a regular contract for board, but not for lodgings ; for at night I had to sleep, like many of my fellow- travellers, stretched on my face over the back of my docile animal, occasionally embracing its stiff neck and suffering my legs to dangle behind. I had no saddle, but a thick square pillow (basto) stuffed with hay, fastened by two broad bellybands, and an ordinary bridle, such as the beast had been wont to wear. It was most important that I sliould take good care of the animal and treat it well, as on my arrival at Madrid, where good Andalucian mules fetched high prices, my intention was to sell mine, in accordance Avith the advice of my Malaga friends. I took care to suspend in front of my extemporized basto a pair of alforjas or saddle-bags, Avhich Donn’ Anna had gaily em- broidered for me as a keepsake, in which Avere deposited all the requisite appliances for securing tolerable comforts, incdusive of a rota or leathern flask containing Xeres for my journey ; and I had provided against the chilly air of the night by taking a manta or travelling cloak, Avhich covered ine all over while travelling. The journey occupied three Aveeks, in the course of Avhich, and at eA^ery important halting-place, information on local subjects or objects Avas daily collected and re- corded in the Spanish language for transmission to my lady correspondent at Malaga. While travelling, halts were made on the road during the hottest hours of the day, and on three different occasions at night also, Avhen Ave passed through a circle of contrabandistas who seemed to fra- V ternize Avith our escort. But, as hucksters and salesmen, their route, far from being in a direct line as , it was expected to be, deviated from one to another until we reached La Carolina (a comparatwely neAvly-established inland colony, principally of aliens), Avhence the straight road to Madrid was steadily pursued, passing Val d.e Penas, ARRIVE AT MADRID. 233 not without making free with that Vino de Cabezza (vin capiteux) which the farmers of Castilla la Yiej a have vainly endeavoured (as I was told some years after) to persuade good-natured J ohn Bull to substitute for his favourite port. At length, after traversing Manzanares, Ocaha, and Aran- juez, the cavalcade was admitted into the capital, and I was landed at the posada at which the arrieros were in the habit of stopping. CHAPTER XVI 1806. Madrid — Don Miguel Godo’i— The medical profession in Madrid— State of society — Poverty of the public buildings — The Spanish language — The Countess Villaviciosa- — El Hospital General — Lawlessness of the popu- lace — Attacked by robbers — Visit the Plaza de Toros — Public and private picture galleries — The Correggios in the National Gallery — Bonellbs impositions— Sad news from home — Adopt the surname of my maternal ancestors — Joseph Bonaparte — A millionaire ! — Leave Madrid for Lisbon — Appointed to the Beal Introduction to Captain McKinlay — Design my Portuguese appointment. Peovided as I was with letters of introduction to many families of distinction among tlie upper classes of society, added to a previous acquaintance formed at Malaga with Professor Arejula, filling the position of a leading physician in the metropolis, I was not likely io remain long unknown or solitary in Madrid. Invitations to take up my abode flowed in, some of them in earnest, many more simply com- plimentary. All of these I declined, as I was determined to enjoy perfect independence, and with this view I selected a convenient suite of apartments in one of the streets by the Puerta del Sol. My sojourn in Madrid commenced with a round of pleasure and amusement. Once more my taste for music led me away from more serious occupations and profitable engagements, either in a pecuniary or in an intellectual sense. Madrid in rny time was a perpetual revel, and more, vitium exemplo principis inolescit,” un- questionably the queenly example made vice fashionable ! Don Miguel Godoi, the lucky dragoon, and now Principe de la Paz, was the absolute ruler, and the star to which all bowed in adoration and submission. She by whom he had risen to his highest dignities still lived. Panderers to a DON MIGUKL GODO'i. ^35 depraved nature were not wanting who found it to their in- terest to throw temptations in her way during her daily walks through the trellised avenue of that delicious garden and the favourite boschetti which distinguished the royal residence of Aranjuez. Of concealment and mystery there was hardly a need, for society was rotten to the core, and needed not to be ashamed of witnessing or partaking in the general dissipation. This was apparent in the occupation of the leaders of fashion who thronged the levees of Don Miguel, or disported themselves in the alleys of El Prado after sunset. Elevated through immoral, not less than political intrigues, this quasi regent had recently been named generalissimo of the Spanish army on the declaration of war against England, and when I was presented to Su Altessa Real, as he was then styled, Don Miguel was in possession of un- limited power over the whole monarchy. The ostensible ground for that presentation to the prince was the desire he had expressed to hear from an eye-witness a truthful report of the Pestalozzian system of education recently established in Italy, and which the prince had just introduced and was patronizing in Spain, especially in the capital. El Duque del Infantado, who was equally a patron of the system, and to whom I had brought a letter of intro- duction from the old minister Florida Blanca, had explained to the prince that I had received part of my early gram- matical schooling at Milan in that system, and accordingly our conversation for some minutes became interesting. Doctor Arejula, who was his physician, had mentioned to the prince the part I had taken in the Malaga Commission on the yellow fever imported from Cadiz, respecting which his royal highness expressed his sense of the service I had rendered, at the conclusion of which he was pleased to say that every facility would be accorded to me to visit the various 236 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. literary, scientific, and medical institutions I might desire to examine in Madrid. It is due to truth to avow that all those branches of knowledge were patronized by the prince, who, besides his ostentatious levees, held a special one at mid-day every Monday and Saturday, for the reception of distinguished literary characters, among whom were the political economist Jovellanos, Milendez, Josef Conde, the great oriental scholar, and my Malaga colleague, Professor Arejula, with a few more eminent men. Spanish literature and the literary institutions owed to the prince their continued existence in the midst of the disordered state of the country, for in proportion as Don Miguel himself had from his youth being unprovided by Nature or education with the love of learning — and he must have felt often the disadvantage of the want of mental culture — so did he strive to make up for his own deficiencies by coming in contact with his superiors in intellect and learning. He was above all desirous of receiving well all foreigners who might impart knowledge he did not possess. I found at Madrid the practice of medicine placed under the strictest and most precise regulations, dating from 1795, just ten years old, issued under Carlos IV., the same king who had issued a “Real Cedula para el Gubierno y Direccion del Real Collegio de Medicina ” at Madrid. Europe had not then, nor has it since, observed any wonderful result from such a corporate body, which was kept very distinct from the Real Collegio de Chirurgia, founded by Carlos HI., his predecessor. One of the prescribed regulations common to both colleges referred to the publication of their acade- mical memoirs, as well as to that of any single work written by any of the members, and it is thus emphatically headed by that sovereign, who always insisted on interfering personally in such matters : — “ In regard to the publication of works on medicine or surgery, Quiero y es mi voluntacl A SrANISH MEDICO. 2:37 tliat the MS. copy be submitted to the authorities of the college to which the writer may belong, for the examination and revision of its contents, and for determining whether it be fit for publication.” It may be questioned wbetlier such a proviso has not had the effect of retarding for threescore years the progress of medical literature in Spain. In modern times it might have proved a wholesome and useful provision, even in more advanced countries. In our own days a more enlightened government, by a Reglamento General issued at Madrid in 1859 , has established a code of laws concerning public instruction which makes us forget the obsolete gagging regulations of olden days, and may be quoted as an example worthy of imitation. Studious to avoid all possible chance of finding myself in antagonism with the medical authorities of the Collegio Real, I tendered myself for examination. This took place in the Latin language, and was conducted with much urbanity and consideration. The result was a permission to exercise my profession in any part of Spain I might choose to settle in. But I had already engaged myself in the investigation of other matters, including the study of the state of pictorial art in Spain, for which probably no opportunity so favourable would again occur to me. In such a large city as Madrid, it was not likely that I should find employment as a physician as readily as I had done in a smaller city like Malaga, where one becomes known individually in a short time. I was far from being pressed by want of means ; hence my zeal in securing profitable employment was not great. Inconsiderate, like most young men of my age, I preferred to leave the future to take care of itself After a few introductions into the privileged circles, I found the constitution of society in Madrid to be a subject well worthy of reflection. So strange indeed did the con- 238 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. duct of all the higher classes appear to me, who did not alfect prudery, as to convince me that unless a more vigorous form of government was established in the country, and better and more stringent municipal laws adopted for the protection of life and property in the metropolis, the nation must inevitably lapse into a complete state of disorganiza- tion. The dissolute days of the fifteenth Louis of France were brought vividly to my recollection, as if the Paris vices of that era were about to take root in Madrid. But the practices of la Du Barry and Mademoiselle Le Due were strangely reversed in this latter capital ; for instead of women of that conspicuous character, or others who re- sembled them, being the intrigued, they had here become the intriguing sinners ; and in lieu of a Petit Trianon with a dissolute master, we had here a Retiro with a Messalina mistress. What wonder that by and by the highest ladies of the court themselves should follow their sovereign’s example ? They did so, and the names of not a few, more conspicuous than the rest of their class, were publicly known. Incredible as it may seem, its reality was too palpable to be gainsaid ; nor was any attempt made to deny it, so general was the practice. But the parallel between the dissolute years of 1770 and those succeeding in Paris, and the equally dissolute years (thirty years later) in Spain, offered a divergence. In the “ most Christian capital,” amidst the grief experienced and expressed by many writers, a contemporary poet could give the hope of a return of holier days in a stanza such as the following : — Frangais, ne perdez pas I’esperance, Tout va bien : tout encore mieux ira. La liberte, le credit, babondance, La candeur, les J esuits, Tinnocence : Cela reviendra.’^ * * Collet, “ Journal, &c. MADRID. 289 Alas ! such promising and cheering vaticinations were not uttered either by poet or philosopher in the capital of the most Catholic country. I cannot at this distance of time account for the intense desire I experienced to visit the capital of Spain from the moment I set foot on its shores. I find less difficulty in explaining the reasons of the great disappointment I ex- perienced when I had been a few months in Madrid. The annals of Spain we had read as part of our early training in European history were so replete with romance, that the impression left after perusal was apt to create a blind enthusiasm for the country. This, however, soon dwindled into a sort of commiseration for the very altered condition of its inhabitants when compared with that of their chival- rous forefathers. A general view of Madrid, its civic state and regime ; the experience one soon acquires of its society ; the show of submission, without a protest, in the capital to the most bare-faced dissoluteness in the highest places, and withal superficial religious convictions — ^these, and many other deficiencies in what constitutes the well-being of a nation, are more than sufficient to produce in a stranger the most painful disappointment. Applied to the metropolis these observations are indisputable. Fortunately in most of the chief provincial towns the case is different. As regards the metropolis, it may be said that a nation does not lose her sentiments of morality when thus attacked by vice ; but she does so when vice ceases to be an object of abhor- rence, and the passions so blind the judgment as to make her miss the right path in life, and induce her through innumerable sophistries to justify vice by substituting it for virtue itself. Madrid is a disappointing city to a stranger. In it he finds none of those superb monuments which the wonderful Moors of the twelfth century planted here and there during 240 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. their occupation of the country, as at Seville, Segovia, Valladolid, Granada, Cordova, and other cities. Again, its few modern and showy public edifices are none of them examples of a lofty architectural genius. Contrast the Palazzo Pitti at Florence with the Palacio Real at Madrid ; place the Pinacoteca or the Glyptoteca of Munich by the side of the Museo Real ; or compare Our Lady of Atocha, or any other of the Madrid churches, with the magnificent edifices scattered over the east and south of the peninsula, once mosques and now Roman Catholic churches — on which side is the evidence of skill and art, or of the appreciation of the beautiful ? Madrid is wanting even in character as a Spanish city ; and I feel certain that should the costume of the saya, or hasqidna y mantilla of the women, which serves so admirably to give the city its picturesqueness, be thrown aside — as I am told is now the case — for the un- meaning devices of Parisian milliners, the dulness and monotony of Madrid must become intolerable. When recommended to see the Palacio Real, I expected to have to admire some choice specimen of architectural genius. I found a huge structure, twice as big as any royal palace in Europe, the most striking features of which are the great staircase and la sola de los Embajadores, seldom enlivened in my time by any royal A visit to its interior is an undertaking one goes through only once. A promenade of one mile through innumerable salles, boudoirs, and galleries, showy and yet shabby at the same time, exhibiting, as some one remarked, “ et misere” does not impress one with ideas of royal grandeur. Madrid’s redeeming features are its public paseos, and some of the streets flanked with palatial buildings belonging to the grandees or to the wealthy hidalgos. La Calle de Alcala is an example of them. It leads from the Puerta del Sol to a gate of the same name — a pretty edifice, by- SOCIETY IN MADRID. 341 the-by; and thence to a semi-circular wide promenade or paseo of considerable length, narded generally El Prado, but having three distinct divisions with different names. Here also we find the gardens of the Buen Retiro and the Botanic Gardens. The whole of the suburban district outside the Puerta de Alcala is the focus, so to speak, of whatever the good Madrilenos can boast of : equipages drawn by two or four mules in rich harness, that scarcely redeems the natural ugliness of the animals, wending their way to the last- named puerta, and the crowd of foot passengers who encumber both sides of the wide street, walking in the same direction from seven till ten o’clock. As the best theatrical performances are in the afternoon, and everyone drives usually two hours before the theatres open, the heau monde and the idle have a daily prospect of many hours’ continuous enjoyment. Besides these there are the tertulias, which commence after the paseo al Prado — of course I am referring to the summer season and part of the autumn, the period in which I resided in Madrid, and during which I readily accommodated myself to the domestic as well as to the out-of-door habits of the Spaniards, whose language I had now completely mastered. The means I enjoyed of acquiring Spanish by continuous intercourse with men of letters and members of the polished classes of society, together with the perusal of the best writers in prose and verse, will justify me in declaring that the Spanish language is one of the most majestic, sonorous, and emphatic, and yet one susceptible of the softest and most endearing turns of phrase. Such was my enthusiasm on this point, that I was almost ready to turn apostate from the bella lingua del Boccaccio e del Tasso. Could I have heard the splendid oration of Castelar in the Spanish Cortes of 1869, the apostacy might have been completed. VOL I. E 24£ AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. I agree Avith the humorous French poet Manage, who pretends that the language and characters of nations bear an affinity. He says, “ Ecrire en Italien ; se vanter en Espagnol ; tromper en Grec certainly for boasting com- mend us to Don Quixote in the language of Cervantes. With the full possession of their vernacular language there was no difficulty in getting into society for a young man who had strange tales to tell of his adventures in the East, and who could take part in a niusical entertain- ment, or join the younger members of the family in inter- changing cards with slight sketches of some humorous or quizzical subject of the day as a means for desultory relaxa- tion. These acquirements secured popularity, and one ac- quaintance led to another. An introduction into a family like that of the Conde de Villaviciosa, a relative of the Grand Inquisitor (for that no-longer-dreaded tribunal existed still nominally in Madrid), brought about other introductions of the same kind, and opened the door of many more tertulias than I cared to frequent. I selected the house of the nobleman above named for its sterner character and the people I met there assembled, and that house I never left without carrying aAvay with me a greater degree of information than if I had spent an equal number of hours at any of the most popular tertulias. The countess was an almost solitary example in Madrid of a letrada — a lady of letters. I often listened in admiration to her con- troversial arguments with the Grand Inquisitor — a constant visitor — who liked to bring out the witty sallies of his handsome relative. It was probably owing to this earnest attention on my part that I became somewhat of a favourite with the fair disputant. Her antagonist, a handsome-looking prelate of about fifty, with gentle and courtly manners, never appeared to be in the least mortified at, or indeed to care for, the frequent defeats he sustained. COUNTESS VILLAVICIOSA. 243 In the midst of the general apathy (may I call it sus- pended animation?) of the nation, there were Spaniards whose writings found attention among the better classes, and such was the case with the countess. She had been the friend of Gaspar Melchior Jovellanos, once a favourite of the Principe de la Paz, though then an exile in Majorca ; also of Gampomanes, the eminent writer who preceded most of the modern economists in enlightened views on public education, especially among artizans. His writings were numerous, and all in advance of the age he wrote in, for he had actually broached the doctrine of free trade in grain before its Manchester champion had broken a lance for it. Cean Bermudez likewise frequented her house, a most expert judge of pictures, and who had written a valuable treatise on the art of recognizing original from spurious paintings of the Spanish school. The Huque del Infantado was another visitor, who became better known during his short sojourn in London as Spanish minister, when I had the satisfaction of meeting him and putting him in mind of the handsome hostess we used to visit in Madrid. Although I had evidently arrived in Spain at that point of national decline which marked the close of the eighteenth century, the almost imminent extinction of national greatness, like that of a lamp lacking nutriment after a splendid illumina- tion, was preceded by that kind of sudden and brief corrusca- tion which denotes its final extinction. For during the latter half of that century Spain exhibited a sort of intellectual renaissance which attracted the attention of the rest of Europe. Observatories were established at Cadiz, Seville, and elsewhere ; cabinets of metallurgy and laboratories for the working of metals brought from the American mines ; canals, and the irrigation of the arid plains of Castilla Vieja ; the discovery of platinum and of artificial electricity 244 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. and magnetism ; tlie perfecting of copper engraving and the press ; the construction of geographic maps ; distant naval expeditions and founding of colonies ; the observation of a solar eclipse on the high sea — tempore Antonio Ulloa — and perhaps other remarkable facts that escape my recollection — all of them together gave a sort of life to that falling national character in the manner of the sudden corriiscation that precedes total darkness. There was in Madrid at the time I am speaking of, a brilliant salon antagonistic to that of Don Miguel Godoi — that of the young Prince of the Asturias, who at the age of eighteen had wedded a young Neapolitan princess, whose feeble constitution and health soon removed her from a scene she could neither comprehend nor in which she was calculated to take a part. But this house of reunion was more a foyer of political intrigues than an assembly of dis- tinguished and gifted men. The Duque de San Carlos, the Duque del Infantado, and Escoiquiz, the prince’s former instructor, were the principal counsellors of the youthful heir to the throne, and at their meetings political intrigues were carried on which it was the study of his rival, Godoi, to thwart. A set of young noblemen who had travelled and mixed in society in Paris were to be met with at the Prince of the Asturias’, especially when in disgrace with his father’s or his mother’s favourite, and living away from the court. From such an intercourse a sort of Gallic sympathy arose that occasioned scenes which formed the evening subjects of conversation at our own tertulia. Strange as it may appear, there certainly existed a disposition to favour French politics on the part of the younger classes of the nobility. At the close of the year 1806, experienced people more conversant with European politics than I could pretend to be, might possibly have anticipated the strange revolution which had its origin in this very capital not many months LAWLESSNESS OF THE PEOPLE. 245 after, wlien the elder brother of the fortunate general who had recently encircled his brows with the imperial diadem of France, made his sudden appearance in Madrid, preceded and accompanied by French troops. Medical men in my time were not held in much con- sideration in the society of Madrid. Often was I disgusted at the supercilious manner in which I saw them treated — a fact which prevented me from pursuing my profession seriously. Nevertheless, from the circumstance I suppose of my being considered as a sort of polyglot phenomenon from eastern lands, not a few serious cases were committed to my care, either singly or in consultation with some of the leading physicians in the capital, all very learned men, and specially punctilious in the observance of the ceremonies of such consultative meetings in those times. It must not be supposed that my days at Madrid were all wasted in frivolous and desultory occupations incon- sistent with my professional character. As intercourse with the educated or fashionable society was principally in the evening, my more serious occupations by day were never interrupted by what are called visits of ceremony. A certain number of hours each day were devoted to medical inquiries at the great hospital. In this institution, called El Hospital General, I had an opportunity of ascer- taining practically how the disrupted condition of society in Madrid had brought about a want of safety to life and property, productive of course of crime, the results of wFich we witnessed in the number of wounded people that were brought to the surgical wards. Not only was the want of security of person great by night, but in the open day would street robberies from the person be perpetrated with impunity. A foot passenger would be followed by three or four individuals wrapped in their capas^ when suddenly he would be surrounded by the spreading of the 246 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, said wide capas. Poignards would be produced, the sharp points directed to the stomach, the purse demanded and as instantly surrendered. The group would then disperse without the smallest fuss or resistance, nor would any notice be taken by the people accidentally passing, unaware of what was being enacted at their side. A word of remonstrance implying resistance would instantly dissolve the group of assailants, but one of the blades would be found stuck in the abdomen of the assaulted, while the former were walking away unconcerned with their brown tabardos drawn up to their chins. Is it necessary to state that few people would be found to resist at such costs ? This disgraceful state of insecurity in the most fashionable thoroughfare, the Calle de Alcala, the Contrada major, and that of La Montera, all leading to the Puerta del Sol, the centre of Madrid, was notorious, an example of which was soon to be exhibited in my own person. At an early hour in a summer evening, with daylight sufficient, one would have thought, to render improbable a personal attack or robbery in the public streets, I was returning from the Teatro del Principe, when I was stealthily followed by a set of four ruffians as far as the gateway of the house in which I lived, the Calle de las Carretas, which house, common to several lodgers, stood open all day according to the usages of the country, having a vestibule lighted only from the street door in the day- time, and b}'’ a single lamp on the stairs at night. Arrived at my threshold, the ruffians pushed me through the dark vestibule as far as the foot of the principal staircase, where they stopped me. Two or three of them had drawn long cucMllos from their breeches-pockets, the points of which they held towards the lower part of my body, with a half- whispered threat of instant death if I made a noise. Two ATTACKED BY BOBBERS. U1 others in the mean time took a purse from my pockets and a pair of gold spectacles from my nose, and insisted on stripping me of my coat and waistcoat, as well as of my hat. With this booty three of the band departed, leaving the fourth, who peremptorily bade me walk upstairs, follow- ing me closely, gugIiUIo in hand, and threatening to murder me if I attempted to make the smallest noise before I was admitted inside my apartments — an act not readily accom- plished, as the criada whom my summons had brought to the small wicket, seemed not inclined to admit a person without coat or hat. The sound of my voice, however, obtained me admission. “Buena noche, caballero,” cried the rascal on hearing the door open ; after which I heard him running precipitately downstairs. The servant was for making a great hubbub. This, however, I prevented, and as soon as I cbuld recover from the fright into which the shining knives had thrown me, I related to the landlady what had taken place at the foot of her staircase. When X on the following morning I saw the head of my Casa de Huespedes, he comforted me by an assurance that such adventures had become pretty common in Madrid since His Highness the Principe de la Paz was governor-general. He added, as a bit of advice, that I ought to make my complaint of the affair to the Alcalde del quartel, and that I had better carry a sword-cane by day as well as by night in future, plenty of which defensive weapons would be found in Madrid, and pretty ones too, they being just then quite the fashion. I adopted the latter course, and from that day forward I never went out without such a cane by day or night, in the latter case carrying it naked in my hand under my capa. Luckily, fencing had been one of my youthful amusements, in accordance with the general practice among the young men of the day. My landlord proved correct as to the other part of his 248 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. advice, tliat I should report ray adventure to the proper authorities, for in a few days I found myself summoned before the magisterial Dons de La Residencia (as they are pleased to call the capital), charged with having omitted to report a great public crime within my knowledge, and con- sequently I was condemned to pay a fine of trenta duros by way of punishment ! It is a phenomenon in physiology that great power of association of ideas which exposes one to have recalled to his imagination the most detested as well as the most detestable scenes in his life, those of which he might have hoped that the distance of sixty-five years from the event might have cancelled the remembrance ; but such has been the case with me since the unlucky day on which I was prevailed upon to accompany some friends to the Ring, or Plaza de Toros, outside the Puerta de Alcala. Most unfortunately I was so hemmed in on the Estradas, on which my friends had secured conspicuous seats, that I could not withdraw from that disgusting scene until the whole spectacle was at an end. The moral disgust at the sight of such degradation of human nature towards the brute creation, produced in me an indisposition which required all my resolution to check. But even to this day the mere sight of a bull driven through the streets, urged on by a brutal drover,'’brings suddenly back the whole scene in the Plaza de Toros in Madrid, in all its vivid, hideous features and colours, not omitting its garish surroundings. It required such a resource as the proximity of the Paseo del Prado readily afforded me to restore my moral and physical faculties. Of this I availed myself the moment I could get clear of the Plaza de Toros, leaving my friends to rejoin me in that promenade. Although its beauties never before struck me except in the Buen Retiro, I fancied the paseo just then in every way magnificent, the fair THE PICTUEE GALLERIES OF MADRID. 249 Madrilefias more smartly dressed and of gayer humour as with their Caballeros they poured in from the Ring. My own friends came at last to the rendezvous we had fixed, and we passed a couple of hours pleasantly al fresco^ making cigarets and smoking them, glad to drink iced water, ad libitum^ for the heat in the Ring had dried up all human moisture. A warm discussion followed on the cruelty or the reverse of the spectacle we had witnessed. As a matter of course I was much laughed at for my squeamish- ness and want of courage, and my misappreciation del Sublime, Poor benighted creatures ! I let them have the triumph of the dispute, and readily accepted the petacca or cigar-case, which the conqueror offered me in token of reconciliation. One of my profitable occupations was the examination of the picture gallery, so rich in chef s-d^ oeuvre of the best Spanish masters. Two or three private galleries were also open to my inspection, and I may say that no subse- quent opportunity of examining royal collections of paintings in most of the principal countries I have since dwelt in has afforded more exquisite pleasure. I do not blush to avow, that on the fall of the Spanish government, under a wanton military invasion, I trembled more for the fate of the public and < conventual collections of paintings than 1 cared for the loss of the Spanish independence and self-esteem of the nation, occasioned by that long series of military occurrences which, whether through French bayonets or through improvised reactionary soldiers aided by conquering British forces, left Spain in a desolate and exhausted condition. Among the private galleries I had access to was that of the Principe de la Paz. Visiting some years later the National Gallery in London, I at once remembered the Correggios exhibited under No. 10, an account of which is 250 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. given by Mr. Wornum in his very useful and elaborate catalogue of that collection. It represents Mercury in- structing Cupid in the presence of Venus, one of the finest specimens of the nude figure, and nearly of the natural size. Mr. Wornum commits a mistake in the chronology of the fate of this picture. Murat was already king, and at Naples, when the French took possession of the city of Madrid, and Joseph Bonaparte was at Madrid the declared King of Spain during the invasion, and became possessed of this besides many other pictures, which fell afterwards into the hands of Lieutenant-General Charles Vane Stewart, by whom it was brought to London and sold in 1834, when he had become Marquis of Londonderry. I had likewise seen in the Godoi gallery the picture No. 23, brought to England by a Mr. Buchanan in 1813, and sold by a dealer to the National Gallery. With regard to another so-called Correggio in the National Gallery, No. 76, Christ’s Agony in the Garden — the original of which is in the Duke of Wellington’s collection, a pre- sent from Ferdinand VII. — I can personally testify to its being a spurious painting, manufactured by a poor painter named Manfredi, a professed picture restorer. The notorious Signor Bonelli (a well-known picture dealer) employed him to restore, metamorphose, and imkate more than one Italian painting by old masters, principally on wood, especially where the back of the board showed any signs of age, in default of which Manfredi was a capital hand at supplying them. This identical picture I distinctly remember to have seen for weeks on Manfredi’s easel at his lodgings at the corner of Sherrard Street, Soho, over a shop kept by a German named Koeler. I used to watch from day to day the progress the artist made in his restoration, he in the mean time telling me the history of his engagements rvith Bonelli. The present picture was professedly to be sold to / SAD NEWS FROM HOME. 251 Mr. Angerstein, with whose collection it found its way into the National Glallery. In the midst of my serious occupations, and while study- ing with interest the singular state of society, there came the first letter I had received from home since I left Con- stantinople, bearing the mournful intelligence of the death of my mother, to whom I had always been most warmly attached, and whose early instructions, while repeating to her my Latin task of the day, I remember with gratitude. The same letter again reiterated a wish she had expressed in a letter which reached me at Constantinople, in reply to one I had sent from Athens, requesting that in case I should accompany the English gentleman I was travelling with to England, and should finally settle in that country, I would add to my paternal name that of her own maternal ancestors, natives of England. This wish I proceeded to carry out at once by presenting myself with both letters at the French Chancellerie, where I communicated with the Marquis de Beauharnais, French ambassador at that time in Madrid, and representing equally the Italian Republic. Asa subject of the latter it was considered perfectly regular that a record should be made of the letters, the wish to which they referred, and my resolution to act upon it of my own free will, there existing no legal impediment in the Italian code which prevented any citizen assuming the name of a relative in connection with his own. This was almost the last important business I had to transact before leaving Madiid after taking a most affectionate leave of the Countess de Villaviciosa, her husband, and clerical relative, with all of whom I afterwards kept up a correspondence until the Peninsular war interrupted all communication. I was now about to turn my back on Madrid without the smallest inkling of any plan of proceeding, impelled simply by an inward monitor “Forward.” I was quitting a 252 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. capital into which an individual, Joseph Bonaparte, would soon enter in a regal capacity, which, with a short interrup- tion, he was to sustain for some years. Of him I had not the smallest knowledge, neither had I ever seen him. I was about to take a direction on earth the most certain to sunder me from his path and his career ; yet after twenty-six years, passed by him partly in Europe, partly in the United States, it was destined that we should meet in the characters of patient and physician, in which capacity, after nine years’ attendance, I was fortunate enough to save his life from the effects of a severe attack of apoplexy. He it was too who, at a subsequent period, was to acquaint me with the fact that the blood of my paternal ancestors had mingled with that of his own family in Corsica. On leaving Madrid I had likewise to remove my money deposit lying in the hands of the correspondent of Sefior Muller, where it had continued until the gentleman made it over to me again in a letter of credit on a mercantile house in Lisbon. For that capital I was about to set off in company with a young tertulian I had become acquainted with at the countess’, and who was returning to his official post as an attache to the Swedish Embassy. When one of the clerks of my banker brought me a long slip, or letter of exchange at three days’ sight, I was per- fectly startled and thrown aback on reading Pay three millions ” I involuntarily stopped to take breath. Surely they are amusing themselves at my expense a little ! I a millionaire ! when all I possess in the world is the total sum of three thousand duros^ or fifteen thousand francs ! But my new companion. Count Gritnewald, explained quickly the puzzle. A duTo is subdivided into one thousand imaginary coins, called reis^ so that a duro and a mil-reis are one and the same thing, the accounts in fact being kept in mil-reis. Thus do we go on acquiring wisdom as we progress JOURNEY TO LISBON. 253 blundering through the world. Our journey to Lisbon Avas to be performed on mules, Avith an extra beast for a guide who had the care of our valises. To lessen the irksomeness of the journey, each proAuded himself with a gun and ammunition, not from any apprehension of danger from robbers on the road, but rather to secui’e some better means of living than the inns to be met Avith along our intended line of march Avere likely to supply, and a Avise precaution it proved in the end. For in most places, except where we halted for a night in an hotel in such cities as Talavera, Trujillo, Merida, Badajoz, or Elvas, our more ordinary dealings Avith the Avretched innkeepers ended Avith a colloquy which showed the bareness, of the larder. Sometimes we happened to fall in with a Mesa Rotonda (table d’hote) Avhen the 'puchero (a species of hodge-podge) Avas just served up quite hot, and that did very Avell for a time. It happened very rarely that an opportunity presented itself to shoot a rabbit, or hare, or a wild pigeon, but Avhen it did Ave made up for our disappointments and shortcom- ings at the inns. The young count Avas a good shot : not so myself, who found spectacles much in the Avay of the gun. However, somehow we arrived safely on the banks of the Tagus at Aldea Gallega, crossed over to Lisbon, where at the end of the first week the young count presented me at the house of the Swedish minister. Monsieur de KantzoAv. This Avas then the rendezvous of the elite in Lisbon, especially of strangers, including English naval officers and a sprink- ling of officers of the Russian fleet lying in the Tagus. Among the latter I found some old acquaintances made Avhen Admiral Siniavine had his fleet at Corfu in 1803. Ten days’ residence in Lisbon sufficed to give me an idea of Portuguese society, especially among the young men of fashion. The difference of language did not impede my 254 . AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. intercourse with the families to whom I was introduced. One of them was that of the minister of marine, at whose office I made application for the appointrrient of chief sur- geon of the Real Carlotta^ a frigate of the Portuguese navy, which was being fitted out in the most ostentatious style, supposed to be destined to convey some great personage to the Brazils. But the real object was kept a mystery, to be divulged some months later. The officials were in a great bustle, but I ascertained that if I chose to offer myself to the Examining Board of the Navy, my appointment would be made out on application. I find it recorded in my diary that on receiving this assurance I at once fell into a state of complete dejection of spirits, and the sweet memories of home came quick and strong to darken my mind with deep and unavailing regrets, accompanied by a despondency from which no effort of my acquaintances, no amusement or diversion of any kind, could rouse me. I reasoned with myself on the folly of so thoroughly dissevering my identity from all direct connection with Europe, and throwing to the winds any chance I might have of returning to my father’s roof And then, why abandon the prospect I had always kept in my mind of again meeting with my kind friend and travelling companion in Greece ? His cordial words, inviting me to visit him in his native country, which had been represented as most likely to afford me suitable resoui’ces, were still vibrating in my ears. Here, at the mouth of the Tagus, a large fleet of war vessels belonging to that country is lying. Possibly one of those same vessels which fought on that terrible day of October, seventeen months before, may be with this fleet and in want of a surgeon ? How preferable in my case to go and take shelter with so glorious a nation, to win a position among medical associates whose names my professional reading had taught me to esteem and hold in high considera- PEESENTED TO CAPTAIN MoKINLAY. 255 tion ! I was perplexed, unsettled, and doubtless the most wretched being possible on earth at that moment. The following morning I sought the counsel of my travel- ling companion from Madrid, who suggested an interview with Monsieur de Kantzow. Nothing could be more cour- teous or affable than the reception. The minister considered it natural that I should feel discouraged. He himself, with his experience of the Portuguese court and officials, and his knowledge of the condition of the Brazilian colonies, ap- peared to shrink from giving me more cheering expectations than my own present low spirits had inspired me with. He could not understand why I hesitated to apply for some medical appointment in the English fleet. “ They are not very apt, I know, to admit foreigners into their service except as seamen, but still there have been instances.” It was at last' settled that I should withdraw my applica- tion to the Minister of the Marine, and that Monsieur de Kantzow should present me to Captain McKinlay, at that moment senior officer in the Tagus, commanding His Ma- jesty’s frigate Lively^ to whom I might explain my desire to enter the English naval medical service. That officer received my application very courteously, and explained to me that he could only give me a temporary appointment, or what was called in the service an acting order, so long as I remained under his command, and that I should be informed in a few days of the result. At this interview I took care to dwell on the connection that had existed during some rnonths between an English diplomatist, whose name I mentioned, and myself, a fact which seemed to produce a favourable impression on Captain McKinlay, as well as on Monsieur de Kantzow, to whose additional recommendation I owe it that I found my way to England. We wei'e just then in the middle of the New Year’s festivities, when no public business of any kind was being 260 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. transacted, and I had thus ample opportunity of studying the state of society in the Portuguese capital ; for, although the inhabitants speak the corrupt Spanish language they have retained from the primitive dwellers of Lusitania, \ having only substituted a harsh for a soft pronunciation, a person acquainted with Spanish can enter readily into conversation with a Portuguese. The impressions received were but little more favourable than those of my Madrid experience : nay, I even fancied that in my intercourse with the younger sons of the better classes of people, in- cluding the higher mercantile families, I had noticed more laxity of morals. CHAPTER XVII. 180Y-9. Appointed to H.M.S. Raven — Capture a prize — ^Arrive at Portsmouth — Medical examinations — Join the Millbrooh — A foray in a sheep-fold — Wrecked off the Berlengas — A court-martial — Keturn to Portsmouth in La Venus — Appointed to the Cordelia — Attacked by rheumatism — The English liturgy — Appointed to the Dover — Study of the English language — ■ Confession of faith. At length an official communication was sent to me, acquainting me that Captain McKinlay, senior officer in command, &c., had appointed me acting assistant-surgeon to His Majesty’s ship Baven, an 18-gun sloop of war commanded by Captain Grant, which was about to return to Portsmouth, where it would be my duty to report myself to the Admiral commanding, and abide his orders. My appointment was dated March 8, 1807. Such was my initiation into the great community of England, with which my destiny for a period of sixty-five years became indissolubly entwined, my bond of union being sealed by my marriage with an English lady and the birth of seven British-born children. ^ Of five sons, the eldest died in infancy, the second entered the army, the third took holy orders, the fourth gave himself up to the fine arts, and the fifth became an engineer. Of my two daughters, the youngest alone survives as the constant and devoted companion of my old age. The Baven had scarcely parted company with the rest of the fleet when, at some distance from the coast of 258 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Portugal, sire captured a large merchant vessel under Danish colours. England being then at war with Denmark, the vessel was detained, and a communication sent to the senior officer of the fleet at Cascaes that a French family was on board. With the aid of the assistant-surgeon of the Baven as interpreter, it was ascertained that the family consisted of General Solignac, who for his distinguished services had obtained the colonial appointment to which he was now proceeding. He was accompanied by his wife and his little girl, with an aide-de-camp and two servants, and was on his way to take a command at Pondicherry. A prize party and a sergeant^s guard of marines was placed on board the merchant ship, with directions to keep com- pany with our own vessels. Captain Grant, with the concurrence of our surgeon, decided that I should form one of the prize party — an incident that made the passage to England appear very short to me, however sad and irksome to my unfortunate new acquaintances. How suddenly and sadly had the general's prospects altered ! He had accepted a lucrative appointment in another hemisphere as a reward for wounds received in the achievement of glorious services in the army. He had broken up his establishment in his native land, and bidden adieu to kindred and friends with a flattering prospect of a rich governorship which would ensure him wealth and honour ; and now what would be his fate ? He was about to be conveyed to a dbpot of war prisoners, with a possible chance of a future exchange on a general peace. During the rare occasions I conversed with him, or happened to be asked for medical advice by his wife, whose bad state of health had partly induced the general to accept the far- distant command, my personal feelings of sympathy in their fate, I need scarcely state, were deeply engaged, especially when it transpired that the general had formed ARRIVE AT PORTSMOUTH. 259 part of the French army which under Bonaparte had driven the Austrians out of Milan ten years before. The remembrance of that epoch, brought back to my imagination by his references to those happy days, took away much of the satisfaction I had experienced a few days before on receiving the charter of my new nationality. What happened to our captive general after he was made over to the authorities in England, or how long his de- tention in the prison depot near Gosport lasted, I never learned. I trust he was not detained so long as the prize court took to condemn the Badger (our Danish prize), my share of which I received about four years after. Still, it was something to commence my naval career with a prize, however slender. On our arrival at Portsmouth, the sight of it as we entered Spithead between the Isle of Wight and the larger island, struck me as something huge for a port, although neither the town over the ramparts nor the surrounding flats offered anything remarkable. Admiral Robert Mon- tagu directed the medical officers of Haslar Hospital to examine me as to my being qualified to serve as assistant- surgeon, which operation accomplished, and a certificate of m.y fitness obtained, the admiral confirmed Captain McKinlay’s nomination to the same vessel, dated May 25, 1807, the day after the examination. The medical officers at Haslar were Dr. Hope, Dr. Magennis, and Mr. Vance. The latter gentleman became in after years well known in the metropolis, where he settled as a physician, acquiring great reputation as a successful practitioner in complaints of the stomach, for which he used to prescribe certain famous pills, known under the name of Vance’s pills. It was my lot when it came to my turn to practise in London to meet him in consultation, and later to com- miserate in common with the rest of the profession the sad 260 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. and singular fate lie met at the hands of an insane patient he had just visited in the upper floor of a house in Sack- ville Street, who threw the doctor over the bannisters to the bottom, killing him on the spot. At my examination at Haslar none of the gentlemen spoke any other European language than their own. Of that language I was then, if not completely ignorant, at all events little able to understand more than a few words or an expression or two picked up during the very short time I had been on board the Baven^ the surgeon of which ship, a Mr. Francis Johnstone, a Scotchman, spoke Latin with a certain facility and a pronunciation analogous to that of the Italians. Indeed, our own official intercourse on board had been carried on in that language, as the only possible means of communication. And so it was the case at the Haslar examination, to which Mr. Johnstone had accompanied me, suggesting that it should be conducted in that language, a task which Doctors Hope and Magennis undertook, Mr. Vance interpolating now and then a few practical surgical questions, which were translated to me into Latin by the other two examiners, Mr. Vance possibly not feeling himself competent to employ the more learned language. Whilst noticing here the first difficulty I encountered on English ground, and which was thus overcome, I must not omit to add that it was followed by more than one of the same sort during the first twelve months of my professional experience in this country. I allude to the number of times I was subjected officially to medical examinations, for having been not long after transferred from the Baven to the Mill- hrooh^ a war schooner with a sliding keel invented by Sir Samuel Benth am, , carrying sixteen sixty-four pound carron- ades on a flush deck, commanded by a Lieutenant Leach and a sub Jieutenant, with an assistant-surgeon only, I felt naturally anxious to make my appointment a permanent MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS. 261 instead of a temporary one. To attain this object it was imperatively necessary that I should appear before the London naval authorities to prove my fitness for the office. Presuming myself sufficiently acquainted with the English tongue, to which I had applied myself in the mean time, I obtained leave to go up to London to present myself before the Transport Board, by whom I was directed to the Royal College of Surgeons, to be examined for the rank of a per- manent assistant-surgeon in the navy. This examination was followed by another before Dr. Weir, Medical Com- missioner of the Transport Board, on which occasion I obtained my first parchment warrant (now called, I believe, a commission) as a regular assistant-surgeon in the Royal Navy, dated November 21, 1807. Then again in less than ten months I was examined before the same two public bodies for the attainment of my full rank of surgeon, which was conferred on me not long after on my appoint- ment to Llis Majesty ^s sloop of war Cordelia^ Captain Kennedy. All these examinations, except that at the Haslar Hospital, had been carried on in the language of the country, which I had by this time mastered sufficiently to submit myself to another more searching examination before the College of Surgeons in 1809 ; one I spontaneously un- derwent with the object of obtaining the diploma of member of that royal college, a distinction I have enjoyed ever since. Lest these were not sufficient attestations of iiiy professional capabilities, I soon exhibited more by presenting myself on three different nights in the autumn of 1817 before the Royal College of Physicians in Warwick Lane, and sub- mitting to be examined in Latin before the president and four censors, on anatom}q physiology, pathology, chemistry, and materia medica ; making in all nine distinct occasions on which my professional knowledge was publicly tested in 262 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP HR. GRANTILLE. England before I attempted to settle finally in the metro- polis, where I now stand the senior of the five hundred and seventy members of that college. The v/as one of the vessels of war appointed to convoy a large fleet of transports which were carrying to Portugal part of the army that helped Sir Arthur Wellesley to defeat Junot at Vimeira, Tempestuous weather had compelled the English contingent to put into Falmouth, where the Millhrooh likewise anchored and remained until the whole fleet resumed their voyage. Nothing could exceed the glorious spectacle that presented itself to my view when more than two hundred vessels, most of them three-masted, under full sail, deployed over a calm sea, coming out of Falmouth harbour on a brilliant early sun- shiny morning, and took the direction out of the channel steering towards the Bay of Biscay, where many attempts were made on some stray troop-ships by French privateers sallying out of every nook on their well-fringed coast. But convoying ships were on the alert to protect the fleet, and especially useful for such a duty were such ships as the Millhrooh. The transports reached their destination in good time, and landed their troops with their staffs, there to initiate that splendid series of military triumphs which raised the glory of England to a high pinnacle, and her illustrious chief captain to the most exalted honours a grateful country could bestow on him. As I had when a mere boy beheld Bonaparte entering Milan in 1796, a simple general at the head of twelve thousand soldiers, so in 1808 was I to see Sir Arthur Wellesley, a lieutenant-general, leaving England with the like number of men, both generals destined to meet after a fe^v more years on the same battle-field, the one an emperor, the other a duke, to contend for the championship of Europe. A NIGHT EXPEDITION, 263 Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, commanding the English fleet in the Tagus, sent the Millhrook on a detached service suited to her peculiar construction, by stationing her off Oporto, where we ^YeTe to cruize or lie at anchor between the coast and a cluster of rocky islets at no great distance, called the Berlengas. Here the Portuguese had a small fort, with a sergeant and half a dozen soldiers. The anchor- age had been reported to the admiral as a safe one, although very rocky, and the depth considerable. English sailors when at anchor cannot bear to lie idle in the face of an enemy’s coast, and accordingly many volun- teering expeditions by night were suggested, and some put into execution, with the object of capturing one or more of the gunboats the French had posted in several nooks on the coast, ready to proceed against any solitary British sail that might pass inland. One such expedition was considered so important (there being a chance of recapturing a French prize) that all the boats of the schooner were pressed into the service. . The commander. Lieutenant Leach, was to remain on board. The sub-lieutenant and the assistant- master, Mr. MacMichael, the only two other superior com- batant officers of the schooner, were to take the command of the barge and the pinnace, and as there were no midshipmen on board above the age of mere boys, I offered my services, and was put in command of the jolly-boat with a crew of six A B’s armed with cutlasses, ship pistols, and ammunition. I ought to remark that I had accustomed myself to rowing and steering since I had joined the navy, and had made myself acquainted wuth all the technical terms employed as to rowing or sailing. In fact I had resumed the study of navigation I commenced in the Archipelago under Cavaliere Adorni. On the present occasion it was arranged that no one was to speak if challenged but myself, as I alone could reply to the challenge, whether in French or Portu- 264 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. guese. For this reason my boat led the van; oars were muffled, our strokes long and few. The little flotilla at once proceeded, and getting inside the cove, not only was neither the gunboat nor her prize to be seen, but not a vestige even of any other boat. The enemy had probably taken advantage of the darkness of the night to escape, apprehen- sive of so near a neighbour as an English man-oFwar. The night was indeed very dark, and the intending invaders were unperceived as well as disappointed. Three other small coves were looked into, the sea being perfectly calm, with no better result. To the occasional Qui vive?’’ of some French sentinel, the commanding officer of the jolly- boat answered France,"’ while to the “ Quern vive ? ” of a Portuguese sentry, ^^La Junta "" was the reply. Thus defeated and ashamed to return empty-handed, I proposed to the subJieutenant to land at the foot of a sloping rock, where a narrov/ zigzag path had been observed from the schooner to lead up to some fields in which was a large flock of sheep, known to be for the supply of Junot’s army at Lisbon. These I remarked would furnish us with fresh meat, which we had not tasted for many days. No sooner said than done. A dozen of the invaders climbed the heights, accompanied by their officers. Three of the woolly innocents were seized, each held by four men to preclude all struggles, and away scampered the whole party with their prey down the hill to their boats. A barking of dogs and a running fire of musketry followed us just as our three boats had pulled off out of the cove. Little did we, poor extem- pore pirates (sham imitations after my experience in Greece) foresee how soon the proceeds -of this razzia would become the only support of our lives in the way of food, or that it would be the last we were destined to have for some time. But so it was. The stolen quadrupeds were soon converted into a repast under a permanent tent set up on the principal WEECK op the MtLLBEOOE. 265 of tlie Berlengas, by tlie side of a lovely perennial spring from wliich water was obtained for the fleet at Lisbon. One of the duties performed by the Millbrook was to pro« vide that fleet with fresh water from time to time. For this purpose she had to fetch from the fleet the empty casks^ which were lashed upon her deck, to be returned full and properly stowed in the hold. This service had been per*- formed on two different occasions, and the Millbrook^ just returned from Lisbon with the empty casks for a third supply, had anchored on the 25th of March, 1808, when at sunset one of those terrific gales which often visit the western coasts of Portugal commenced, and by the middle of the night had risen to a perfect hurricame, accompanied by thunder and lightning. First one cable snapped, and the second followed just as the third anchor had been cast into the sea, to drag the moment it reached the bottom — the schooner all the time driven towards the rocky part of the island by each gigantic wave that rolled in from the south-western Atlantic. Yards and topmasts were struck, a jib and a deep-reefed mainsail being kept to steady the vessel, which Lieutenant-Commander Leach thought could only be saved by the last or sheet anchor. Thus for an hour or so it was, during which time the officers determined, for the anchor kept coming home, to endeavour to run the schooner into the watering sandy cove, should the last hope from the sheet anchor be baffied. But that anchor kept dragging, evidently over the rocky bottom ; it never appeared to bite, and in half an hour the schooner struck on her starboard side with a tremendous crash against the lofty rocks, when rebounding for a moment, in the next she sank. I remember having gone to lie down dressed in my starboard berth in the ward- room, and, when the crash awoke me, I beheld a piece of the rock which had pierced the side of the cabin, through which 266 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. opening, on the vessel rebounding, the sea rushed in, while I quickly made my way on deck. There the officers and crew, sixty in all, had assembled, one cabin boy alone being missed. Of the boats, the barge and pinnace had all that day been on shore with their crew to fill casks ; the gig was swamped, and the jolly-boat was crammed by those who had first got into her. Such as could swim took to the water at once, and swam to the sandy cove ; those who could not swim stuck to spars and some to the empty casks, which the terrible concussion and breaking up of the upper deck had set loose from their fastenings. To one of these I hooked myself by putting my right hand into the bunghole, while with the left hand extended I strove to direct my lumbering life-preserver into the same haven, which with the rest of the crew I reached in safety. The small party of Marines that had all along been on shore to protect the watering-party in the day were directed to fire off their muskets as a signal to the Portuguese garrison. We our- selves at the commencement of the storm sent up blue- lights and rockets for that purpose. But all in vain ; the distance and position of the fort on the opposite shore took away all chance of our signals being noticed. One of our sailors (all of whom had on more than one occasion com- municated with the garrison), who knew the way to the fort, set off for help, wTich was not long in reaching the ship- wrecked mariners. The sandy cove being under the lee of the island, the sea within was almost unruffled. More than one fire was lighted with the dry and rotten sticks gathered from the brow of the hill, and our clothes were soon dried. Fortu- nately the temperature of the air was almost like summer, and before break of day the heavy clouds had dispersed. The moon now threw its pale light on the wreck, when it was ascertained that the schooner had sunk close to the A SHIPWRECKED CREW. 267 perpendicular rock against wliick sire iiad struck, only a small portion of lier remaining visible. There lie buried some of my vrorldly goods. Fortunately my boxes contain- ing books and papers of consequence had been left with a friend at Portsmouth, a Doctor Porter, an Italian by birth, but long settled in England, and a prosperous practitioner, to whom I consigned my property when I was transferred from the Raven to the Millhrooh. But my surgical instru- ments of value, which naval surgeons are bound to provide at their own cost, as well as the larger part of my wearing apparel, all perished, nor did I obtain any compensation for their loss until many years after, and then only by dint of repeated applications at head-quarters. In days unblessed with the great boon of marine tele- graphy, an occurrence like the one described in such an insulated situation bespoke an inevitable and indefinite con- finement of the crew. Any hope of delivery from it would rest only on the chance of some passing vessel in the offing noticing a flag of distress stuck on the Portuguese flagstaff over the little fort, with an occasional discharge of one of the pieces of ordnance mounted on its walls. In the mean time commander, officers, and crew bivouacked by day and by night, lying on the floor in the interior of a large one- aisled chapel attached to the fort, cleaned out for our use. Some of us took to rambling over the rocks, passing from the centre group to the other smaller ones around and con- nected. A few, borrowing muskets from the Marines who had been in the cove from the first, tried to shoot some seagulls, and even aimed at some screeching vultures winging their way to the western seas. I cannot adequately express, as I felt it on the occasion, the vivid satisfaction, nay more, the delightful feelings ex- perienced when, on a sunny morning, and better still on the declining of the sun, with a round and blue canopy over 268 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. my head, 1 stood erect on one of the loftiest pinnacles of this curious group of rocks, surveying the immense Atlantic, as smooth as the Lago Maggiore and as blue as the lake of Geneva, without one token of life but my own breathing. But the end came at last. A vessel from the north, passing down south-east, was attracted by the flag, and lay- to, when we sent our jolly boat with a letter to Sir G. Cotton. A sloop of war was despatched the second day to fetch the wrecked crew to the fleet, where on our arrival both officers and crew were nominally confined as prisoners on board a ship of the line, the Elizabeth. A court-martial was held in accordance with the usage of the navy, when we were honourably acquitted, "our swords being returned to us officers and liberty to the seamen. The latter were soon distributed among the different vessels of the fleet, while I was maintained in the rank of assistant-surgeon in the Elizabeth^ in which I continued until the convention ot Cintra — the 30th of August for the army, and the 3rd of September for the navy— had placed the Russian fleet at that time in the Tagus at the disposal of Sir C. Cotton, who proceeded forthwith to despatch the surrendered vessels to England, placing prize officers and crews in each. In one of these, a frigate called La Venus^ I was appointed by order of the admiral to perform the functions of acting surgeon, and with the rest of the Russian ships of war we sailed for Portsmouth. Here was I escorting, in one of his own ships, as prisoner of war to England, the identical Russian Admiral Siniavine whom I had met five years before in the brilliant saloons of his imperial master’s representative at Corfu, Count Mocenigo, who was then sharing with England the pro- tectorate of the Ionian Islands, for supporting which Senia- vine had under his command in the Greek waters the APPOINTED TO THE CORDELIA. 269 identical fleet now surrendered to an English admiral, and on its way to a temporary captivity in England ! No sooner had I reported the state of the sick on board, both English and Russians, and taken some of the worse cases amongst them to Haslar Hospital, where I was cordially recognized by my old examiners, than I asked and obtained leave to proceed to London, to present myself before the Transport Board for examination. After some delay a warrant of full surgeon in the Royal Navy was granted to me, appointing me at the same time to His Majesty’s sloop the Cordelia, Captain Kennedy com- mander, under date the 6th of November, 1808. The Cordelia was one of the recently-invented famous ten-gun brigs yclept water-coffins, as they were in reality both in life and death. She belonged to the Channel fleet, and her duty was to cruize about between the French and English coast, especially in stormy and dark nights, between the South Foreland and Boulogne, the rendezvous being Deal. That narrow part of the Channel being infested with privateers, the service was looked upon as good fun, for when these could not be got hold of there was a chance of running them down, as happened to the Cordelia during one of the most tempestuous nights that had been known in the Channel that winter. On that memorable night Cap- tain Kennedy and his surgeon, between whom the best harmony existed, had been invited to dine at Admiral Foley’s table, and were enjoying his hospitality when a signal of “ Privateer in the offing ” was made from the Cordelia at anchor in the Downs. Instantly the captain, and of course his surgeon, started for the shore, where no boat could be had, as the first lieutenant had not deemed it safe to send any of the ship’s boats. Offers were made by the brave and gallant Deal boatmen to convey the two officers on board for a consideration, to which Captain 270 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Kennedy acceded at once, and into one of the largest Deal boats hauled up on the beach they got, to be covered over with a tarpaulin, and launched by fifty hands into the surf, which rose in gigantic waves around them. The boys pulled hard and strong, until the brave boat fairly emerged beyond that threatening barrier, and in an hour reached the Cordelia. The brig, slipping her single anchor, sailed at once, and on that terrible night a French privateer was run down off Dungeness. As may be supposed, such sea service to one just come from southern climes could not be sustained during three entire winter months without injury to the health even of a surgeon ; and so it was that by this time I had become a perfect cripple from rheumatism. Was this illness provi- dential 1 The events that almost immediately followed in my life would point to such an inference. With Admiral Foley’s leave I had taken up my residence at Deal on account of my ilhhealth. Captain Kennedy, from the com- mencement of his being stationed in the Downs, had also settled his wife and child in the town, going on board his command the best part of the day, and ever ready, as just stated, to fulfil the special duty to which he had been appointed. Being myself on sick leave, an assistant had been appointed to act in my absence. I can never forget the extreme kindness I experienced from every one I had to depend upon. Evidently an inherent generous disposition in my superior officers towards an afflicted fellow-creature, and pity for a young stranger from a distant land, now stricken with a painful disease and deprived of all family ties, suggested their noble behaviour towards me throughout the period of my illness and convalescence. Both Lady Foley and Mrs. Kennedy were what people now-a^days call pious ladies. I knew too little of English society at the time to be able to judge whether any or what particular difference was dis- THE ENGLISH LITUEGY. 271 cernible between their behaviour and that of other ladies I met, wives or relatives of naval officers, and of many civilians as well. All I can say is, that they impressed me with very different notions of female character and propriety from what had fallen under my observation in the countries I had so recently visited. Mrs. Kennedy, whom I used to consult respecting my study of the English language, suggested that I should read both an English Common Prayer-Book and the New Testa- ment, as containing a great number of vernacular expressions that would be of use. The subject-matter truly was not new to me, although I had not looked into the Sacred Volume for a long’ time, and then only in Latin ; but in the language in which I now perused the contents they seemed to acquire a more impressive importance, an impres- sion I have ever retained. I thankfully admit that the perusal in English of the Scriptures of the newer dispensa- tion did facilitate my acquisition of that language ; and that in proportion as I became better master of it, the subjects themselves in each chapter grew more really interesting than when I used to peruse them in Latin, familiar almost as Italian as was that idiom to me. But to the lady of my superior officer I had soon to became more greatly indebted, for being able to go out on my recovery, she invited me to accompany her to her own parish church, where, from her example and some previous instructions she had given me how to use the Prayer Book, in which she had marked the proper places, I was enabled to follow the service. Its simplicity, the absence of every showy ceremonial, of lights, of incense, crosses, images of saints, the consecration of wafers, and the elevation of the Host, the absence of all these did not shock me, for I had long ceased to occupy myself with church matters. The English mode of worship struck me 272 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. forcibly as much more natural than that of the Church in which I had been born, and this feeling was heightened at beholding around me a vast congregation of clean, well- clad people, quietly seated, or kneeling or standing according to the nature of the prayers, instead of a crowd of persons idly wandering about a large church, with scanty accommo- dation for either kneeling or sitting, disturbing rather than following the sacred service. We here beheld instead the whole mass of Christians present intent and earnest in but one object, all joining in the same fervent prayers, and attentively listening to a written sermon deficient perhaps in fire and rhetoric, but sober, terse, and cogent. My state of convalescence continued so long that I almost despaired of again being able to resume duty in the same vessel, when a circular notice reached all the medical officers on the Deal and Portsmouth stations, inviting volun- teers for the Indian service, to be appointed to vessels in that part of the British dominions. It seemed that a dearth of medical officers existed after an epidemic of cholera in the country. Volunteers 'would be accepted and entered ad interim on the books of the Boyal William flagship as supernumerary surgeons on full pay, there to wait for an opportunity of sailing to the East in some of the king’s ships. Permission would at the same time be granted to such volunteer medical officers to reside on shore should they prefer it. Of this invitation and permission I availed myself instantly, and thus improved my actual position in the world, having only to regret my separation from my good friends at Deal, which place I was about to leave for a residence at Portsmouth. It happened that when the first opportunity for sailing occurred, by an appointment to H.M. frigate Dower, the superintendent medical officer of Plaslar Hospital did not consider me yet sufficiently restored to resume active STUDY OF ENGLISH. 273 service, and thus I escaped the doom of the officers and crew of that ill-fated vessel, which struck upon the Black Rock on the coast of Ireland, and sunk with all hands. Another opportunity for embarking to repair to my destination in India did not occur for months, and life might have passed in comparative idleness had I not assiduously applied myself to the study of the English language. My brother officers recommended Smollett’s “ Roderick Ran- dom,” from which I learned much of the vernacular and more of English naval life than I had experienced myself. To the actual generation of sailors my own account of that life at the commencement of the present century may appear quite as singular, though not so witty or so ably depicted as in the pages which created Lieutenant Bowling and his nephew. One or two of Fielding’s humorous novels were added to the list of my ordinary readings, which gave me great facility of speaking. I felt that from both writers I had collected not only vast stores of English words and colloquial expressions, but of English manners and peculi- arities, the knowledge of which converted me almost into an Englishman at once. At the same time I knew from experience that there were other classes of people with manners differing from those described therein, and widely- diffused through society, by which the genuine character of the nation and its institutions were to be estimated. I tried English poetry a little, and was of course de- lighted with Falconer’s “ Shipwreck.” But it was not until after I had entered upon more serious studies, and had perused some of the classic prose writers, chiefly of history, forming my small library on board' ship, that I ventured to open the pages of the great and inimitable poet of whom England is so justly proud, and in whose pages we find all that a moral, psychological, religious, learned, and poetical philosopher could assemble in one volume to describe VOL. I, T 274 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. truly tlie heart and mind of man, and to guide them both through life to a prosperous end. Shakspeare is the Bible of Parnassus, as the New Testament is the Bible of Calvary. With my present advanced acquaintance with both these books, to the last-named precious volume in its English version I do not hesitate to declare that I gained greater mastei’y of the English language than from any other book, whilst reaping, I trust, far different profit. I confess it was not a wise discrimination, or a mature and practical judgment, that led me to a bookseller’s shop to select my English authors as long as I continued a wanderer on many seas. That was left for a much later period in life, when finally settled in London, as the late Sir Henry Halford used waggishly to say. “ at the receipt of custom.” For the present I was compelled to be satis- fied with purchasing such valuable authors as I could pick up at second-hand bookstalls. In this way I became possessed of two delightful companions — Isaac Watts’ “ Essay on the Improvement of the Mind,” and his “ Treatise on Logic.” To their contents I took such a liking, that I never moved anywhere without carrying one of them with me. Obsolete as they may now be, I still say, happy is he who shall master their contents and shape his conduct through life in accordance with them. I may possibly raise a smile by the expression of this last senti- ment, considering the many superior, or at all events more ponderous, tomes from much more recent philosophers and logicians, whether Scotch or from the banks of the Cam and the Isis, that have since appeared. But everything in its own time. On first entering as a perfect stranger into the career of English letters, the key which those two tiny volumes placed in my hands sufficed to acquaint me with the nature of the English mind, as the humorous volumes of Smollett and Fielding had shown me the English habits. STUDY OF ENGLISH. 275 For a simple introduction, tlierefore, my simple key sufficed. Ulterior experience and a wider acquaintance with the nation brought more important information and weightier authorities to enforce it, and I accepted them. It was thus that, later in life, two other works proved attractive to me. These were Hervey’s “ Meditations among the Tombs” and Cobbett’s “English Grammar,” works trifling in bulk, but most effective in shaping my education ; while one was tending to expand and enrich my imagination with impressive and attractive phrases, the other tended to tone it down to sober terms of the strictest accuracy. My conviction of the soundness of Cobbett’s principles in this branch of literature led me to the “ Weekly Register,” the clear, un-rhetorical style of which, with his lucid epistles to the Hampshire farmers on political and fiscal subjects, so riveted my attention (from feeling that I understood him better than any contemporary writer) that I never omitted reading it, but collected it in all its many volumes as the best example of the English language by which I could possibly be guided. Bringing together all this disjecta membra of English knowledge, I considered myself in a position to attend the theatre, one of which Portsmouth could boast, always crowded with petty officers and vociferous sailors from the fleet. But it was during my occasional visits to the metropolis that I derived more profit from that source of information. Unfortunately the principal of the two national theatres was destroyed by fire in one single night, 24th February, 1809, when I witnessed the rapid progress of the devouring flames ; Avhile the other, or second national theatre, which had passed through the like fate only twelve months before, and was now reopened. Sept. 17, 1809 — the year of my long vacation — had become a dangerous place of amusement owing to a tremendous row every 276 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HE. GRANVILLE. night, occasioned by excessive prices. But- the aid to know- ledge which I was prevented deriving from the drama I amply made up for by seeking from the Church, which I attended with greater fervour, like all neophytes, as I ad- vanced in my knowledge of the liturgy and the language of the Bible, accompanying thither one or other of the few friendly families I was acquainted with in London, and truly enjoying in so doing feelings of inward gratification I did not remember to have experienced in going through the more gorgeous ceremonial of my former Church. Yes ; I am a seceder from the Church of my fathers ! yet hardly so. What my religious creed once was, and what it has been since, will be best judged, and the change more justly appreciated, if I reproduce here my Declaration of Faith, written spontaneously for the cognizance of my children on the 4th of July of the present year, 1870, sixty-one years after the conversion, during which I have been daily and hourly thankful for the very great comfort it has proved to me ; — “ I am a convert, not from Roman Catho- licism, but from Atheism. With the tenets and practice of the former system of religion ever before my eyes during my early years, I sank as I grew older unconsciously into the hollow tenets of the latter system, the result of the political convulsions in my native land. ‘Dixit insipiens in corde suo non est Deus.’ Its effect on a youth with none but worldly thoughts and aspirations was to leave me with- out any appeal for superhuman aid in affliction. This dreadful isolation of my soul in life, and the idea of its annihilation after death, caused perpetual unhappiness in the midst of the gaieties of the world, to such a degree that I was on the point of falling again into Theism, Mariolatry, and the worship of saints, which had been to me sources of serenity of mind in my boyish days under the instruction of a pious mother, when the natural CONFESSION OF FAITH» 277 course of an adventurous life brought me to England, where my conversion was self-elfected. At the age at which I am arrived I need not be intimidated by nor shrink from the cynical denunciations of critics at this announcement, nor do I hesitate to declare that most certainly neither the superstitions of the creed in which I was reared until I was twenty years of age, nor the unhap- piness which the subsequent want of every inward religious conviction had engendered, led me to embrace the creed I am happy at present to profess. No, but the sight of a great people with whom I have happily identified myself for upwards of sixty years, governed by laws enacted by themselves, administered for their own benefit by able ministers whose authority depends on the popular will, such was the spectacle which first impressed me with and has ever since maintained me in the conviction that the religious creed which keeps the governors and the governed in such a happy, harmonious, and comfort- producing system of polity must be the really true one. Nor do I deny that the satisfaction of beholding a whole happy nation prostrate at the feet of the Omnipotent, imploring them in their own beautiful and simple language on* every Sabbath morn, in every corner of the land and at the same hour, for the safety of their own immortal souls, for the prosperity of their sovereign, for the blessing of their own children and the happiness of their fellow^ creatures throughout the world, has added a spiritual and paramount attraction to the inward sentiments by which I have been led into my present state of happy belief. CHAPTER XVin. 1809—11. Marriage-Become a Freemason — Appointed to tlie Araclme — Attacked hj yellow fever in the W est Indies-^Topical treatment— San Domingo — Barhadoes — -Suffer from acute rheumatism — Join the Gloire - — Bolivar y Ponte— Bearer of despatches to the Colonial Office — Again meet Mr, Hamilton — John Dalton— First literary efforts in England^ Looking back to the period of my naval service, it must not be supposed that while I remained on shore, vibrating between Portsmouth and London, the time passed in nugis aut ineptiis, or that nothing occurred of importance to mark the year I was waiting to proceed to the Indian station. The contrary was the case, for not fewer than three events, all important to me through life, took place in that year 1809. First, I took a young wife, daughter of Joseph Kerr, Esq., of Blackheath, whose only son some years after was Assistant-Commissary-General at the battle of Waterloo, and subsequently British Consul at Prevesa, in Greece. Secondly, I obtained my permanent degree of Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, since “ of England and, thirdly, my initiation into the frater- nity of free and accepted Masons took place, in which I have risen to the rank of a grand officer, and am now pretty nearly the father of the Grand Lodge. If I refer with pride to this initiation, it is not so much as regards myself individually, but rather because I am reminded of the galaxy of future heroes of the Peninsular War who were at that time congregating in Portsmouth, to form part of the forces with which Sir Arthur Wellesley would land at APPOINTED TO THE ARACHNE. 279 Lisbon on the 12th of April of that year. The Phoenix Lodge at Portsmouth, my mother lodge, was so pressed with applications from military officers in that expedition for initiation into masonry, that frequent lodges of emer- gency were held to satisfy the demand. I well remember its able master. Brother Rankin, by profession a very skilful optician, living in High Street, whose elegant and scientific shop was the general rendezvous of the day for all species of gossip, but no scandal. In the mean time a fresh appointment came down from the Transport Board, not later than two months after my marriage, directing me to join H.M.’s ship Aracline^ a large and handsome 18-gun sloop-of-vyar just then fitting out at Deptford, destined to proceed to the West Indies. She was commanded by Captain Chambers, who received me with great courtesy. The vessel not having her guns in, and lying outside Deptford Dock, with only working parties of her intended crew, I was allowed to pass each night on shore with my wife’s family at Blackheath previous to our departure. Unluckily the atmosphere of Deptford (for at that time the Thames’ banks were notorious for ague), combined with my imprudence in continuing on board for many hours till sunset every day, to superintend the iitting-up of my cabin and ward- room (as I was appointed caterer of the mess), caused me to be attacked with a tertian fever, which compelled me to ask leave to remain at Blackheath until I recovered. In these days of quinine the complaint would have been wiped off* quickly ; not so in former days. With my powdered cinchona I did not shake off my illness in less than a fortnight. By that time I had recovered sufficiently to enable me to return to my ship, which had taken in her guns, and dropped down to Portsmouth, to complete her crew and wait for orders. There I joined, and was regu= 280 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DK. GRANVILLE. larly mustered by the Clerk of the Check from the dock- yard as an A B Surgeon.” Further on in my narrative it will be seen why I dwell so particularly on those two first letters of the alphabet. Our first lieutenant (Boys) was an officer to whom a certain eclat belonged, from his having recently made his escape from a French prison at Verdun, a fact which v/as made the subject of a romantic and interesting narrative published by Lieutenant Boys himself, and much read by naval men of the time. With the gallant author, who in due course attained the rank of post-captain, a most friendly intercourse was kept up till the time of his decease, which took place in 1866, fifty-six years after our first acquaintance. The climate to which I was proceeding, with the pros- pect of having to remain some time under its malignant influence, offered no cheering prospect to a young naval officer just married. But there was no shirking the appointment : any attempt of the kind might have proved fatal to the success of that career I had with so much exertion, and good fortune withal, succeeding in securing for myself. The apprehension for my safety arose from the fact that the plague of the West India islands, namely, the yellow fever, was said to be jusl then particularly rife in Jamaica, whither our vessel was bound from Portsmouth. My experience of what I had witnessed at Malaga, on my arrival there from the East, was not calculated to cheer my spirits while in the act of putting my signature to certain testamentary dispositions I placed in the hands of my distressed wife^ who was to continue to reside with her parents at Blackheath. I endeavoured to impart to her that courage which I lacked myself, and assured her that with temperate living there was every chance of my escaping the dreaded fever. These words made our parting less bitter. ATTACK OF YELLOW FEVER. 281 Vessels did not in those days fly across the broad Atlantic with the aid of steam, and reach the Antilles in eight or nine days, but required weeks to get to their destination. On New Years^ D^y, 1810, after three weeks’ sailing, the Arachne entered Port Koyal, in Jamaica. To behold the myriads of crabs that were crawling among the half-buried remains of the victims of yellow fever, and to be seized with the well-known and unmistakable symptoms of that dreadful malady, was but the work of a few hours, for upon waking on the morning of the 2nd of January I was found to be delirious, and to have been seized with the fever. During the outward passage I had been attentively studying Doctor Currie’s work on fever, .and the efficacy of cold effusion in the treatment. I had, therefore, in antici- pation of the probability of an attack in my own case, given instructions to the sick-bay attendant of the ship, to pour cold sea-water in a continuous stream over my head on the first appearance of delirium accompanied with red- ness of the face, after giving me a powder I had prepared from the commencement of the voyage, namely, ten grains of jalap, five grains of calomel, and five grains of James’s powder. These instructions were strictly complied with, and the body being at the same time kept well covered with blankets (the thermometer in the cabin 90° Fah.), a profuse perspiration followed, in which I was suffered to remain immersed undisturbed for forty-eight hours, my head being flooded with cold water poured from a jug whenever it was found dry and burning at the same time. Warm tea was also freely administered at the expiration of sixty hours, and the remedies having had a prodigious effect in the mean time, the febrile symptoms subsided and ultimately disappeared. Calm sleep followed, and in a few more days the medical officer of the ship was convalescent. Captain Boys, in one of the latest interviews he had 282 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLEo with his old messmate, reminded him of the joke that had passed between the doctor and his commander, at the door of whose state cabin was the snrgeonh berth on the port side. Captain Chambers had summoned Lieutenant Boys into his cabin, and was discoursing with him as to how the doctor’s remains were to be disposed of in case of death,” when a tolerably strong voice from the doctor’s berth sung out, ‘‘ I’m not dead yet, and don’t intend to die ! ” and so it turned out. To every one his due ! Thankful for the happy result of the cold effusion, I ascribed to Doctor Currie’s volume the salutary effects of that system ; but long before him the suggestion of plunging in cold water in every case of fever in hot climates [fievre ardent^ was thrown out by the Comte de Segur, as we read in the first volume of his ^‘Memoires et Souvenirs,” p. 407. The count was with the principal division of the French fleet and troops on their way from the United States to France, and was stationed for a time at Puerto Cabello, in the gulf of Tinto, when the fever of the country began to sweep off many soldiers and sailors, and not a fev/ of the officers, among whom were some of his dearest friends. Seized with the fever himself, and relying little on the skill of the naval surgeons, who seemed ‘‘ deconcerffis dans leur doctrine d’Europe,” in the treatment of such a disease of the torrid zone, ‘‘Je tentais,” the count says, ‘Me me guerir moi- meme. Je me suis mis jusqu’au con dans un tonneau rempli d’eau fraiche, et j’y suis reste vingt-quatre heures. Cette tdmffidte me reussit : ma fibvre chaude disparut.” ^ In the course of two years in the West Indies, commenced so unfavourably, the two ships in which I successively served * I attempted to cure myself. I got up to my neck into a kntt of cold water, and remained there twenty -four hours. This rashness succeeded : my fever dis- appeared. SAN DOMINGO. 283 visited nearly all the principal windward and leeward islands, stopping at some of them more or less time according to the requirements of the service, the orders of Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, commander-in-chief, or to suit a passing curiosity of the captain. A visit to Port-au-Prince, in San Domingo, the residence of a swarthy emperor and his imperial court, was of that nature. Those of the officers who landed were well received, and had the honour of conversing with dukes of sweet and refreshing titles, such as the “Due de la Mai’melade,” and the “Due de la Limonade,” admiring at the same time young sable princesses at court and in splendid salons, who, though not over niggard in the display of personal charms slightly veiled with muslin, could not compete with the exquisite semi-nude statuesque figures which the crew and officers of the Arachne had had presented to them in the public market on their first landing at Curajao, where all domestics appeared in public encumbered only with k loin-cloth. How mysterious must appear to us at this moment, Sep- tember 29, 1870, the will of the Omnipotent in having permitted that long knotted chain of political events in France, which, commenced nearly three-quarters of a century ago with a showy imperial regime, to be aped by an insig- nificant tribe of revolted negroes, we behold now ending suddenly and completely disrupted under the same regime, cursed and inveighed against by a dozen nameless natives whose turn it is to ape the Patres conscripti of a republican regime ! While cruizing among the islands our ships were not idle. Gruadaloupe was taken on the 5th of February, 1810. Mar- tinique had been seized in the same month of the previous year, and the whole western ocean had been swept clean of French vessels of war. At Barbadoes, which up to that time had never been visited by that scourge of the other 284 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. islands, the yellow fever, a general rendezvous of the English men-of-war had been insensibly formed and finally established. No better station could have been chosen, for it was the gayest as well as the healthiest, and was regarded as (and indeed called) a ^‘little England.” The officers of the Amchne had ample reasons to be pleased with their occupations, and the manner in which they were received and entertained by the principal inhabitants of Bridgetown. The residence of the navy agent, a grand seigneur in the place, was the daily resort of all such officers as had leave to go ashore, and there they were always sumptuously treated. The collector of customs again, a gentleman in every sense bf the word, whose wife was not less con- spicuous for her personal charms than esteemed for her amiable qualities, used to receive us with equal cordiality. The lady was the daughter of that eminent scholar. Dr. Valpy, of Reading, at that time re-editing the complete collection of the Delphin classics. This most kind-hearted couple studied to render the temporary visit of their naval guests in every way agreeable. They largely contributed to the convivialities and amenities of the place, kept open house during the day, provided dancing in the evening, and often proposed equestrian excursions to the different villas scattered at various distances from the town. My own time, however, was not always spent in such a way, for independently of my daily duty on board, I com- menced a series of meteorological observations, such as the philosophical instruments I had brought with me enabled me to make. I collected plants and insects peculiar to the localities, drawing and colouring from nature most of those I considered either as the rarest or the choicest, or by way of contrast the most common and objectionable. Amongst the latter was the cockroach {Blatta orientalis)^ with which my cabin was so infested that on waking in the WEST INDIAN PARASITES. 285 morning I generally found the outside surface of the mosquito curtain surrounding inj bed positively studded with the disgusting insects. To this odious creature I consigned a conspicuous place in my album. To the natural as well as the pathological history of another- peculiarly West Indian insect, the jigger {Pulex pene- trans), and to the so called guinea worm, I paid particular attention. I had on more than one occasion to draw one of the latter worms several feet long out of the legs of the seamen after many days of a tedious operation ; and of the former insect I had been myself a victim, one of them having destroyed the half end phalanx of the third toe of my right foot. My observations and experience lead me to the conclusion that these singular parasites have been treated too considerately, in dread of creating mischief ; whereas, on the contrary, the destructive process, by the application of the strongest ammonia to the jigger, and of the knife to the guinea worm, would at once ensure recovery. I found both these intruders into human flesh very common among the negroes on the various plantations which I was permitted, and indeed requested, to visit, not only in Barbadoes, but in Antigua also, and Jamaica, in all which places (I remember with great satisfaction) I found the slaves treated with much kindness and consideration, their quarters generally very clean, and their health well cared for ; medicines, even the most costly, being provided from England. A sudden attack of acute rheumatism compelled me to leave the Araehne, to which an assistant surgeon on pro- motion was appointed, and I took up my residence in the “ officers’ sick quarters ” of the naval hospital at Barbadoes (March, 1810), a convenient and creditable establishment, for which the navy was indebted to Sir Alexander Cochrane. My attack was brought on by exposure during 286 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. my several visits to different plantations. It proved severe, but lasted only three weeks. Much reduced in strength, by special invitation I passed the period of my convalescence in the house of Captain Pickford, R.N., captain superinten- dent, the delicate attention of whose kind and most amiable lady I have never forgotten. During this period I offered my professional aid to Dr. Mortimer (surgeon of the hospital, who was afterwards promoted to the same post at Haslar Hospital) in any operation to be performed, an offer which was accepted in two important cases. At length an order came, on the 4th of May, 1810, enjoining me to repair forthwith on board H.M.’s frigate Gloire, of forty guns, which had just come into Barbadoes with her crew, or what remained of it, in a most deplorable state of health. She had lost eighty-two of her men, and all her officers with the exception of Captain Carthew, first Lieutenant Church, and one or tvro juniors. Some of her sick had been landed at the Saintes, near Guadaloupe, whither she was ordered to return with her newly appointed surgeon, and to follow his instructions. On arrival off that island I directed all that remained of the crew to be landed, together with their bedding and mess utensils, but to be kept apart from the first batch of the sick crew. All the ship’s guns were by my direction drawn in, and the port- holes closed. I then proceeded to place in various parts of the frigate, from the hold up to the waist, every cabin included, earthen pipkins’ filled with Guyton de Morveau’s chlorine fumigating mixture. The hatchways were not removed till after the third day. That done, it became possible after a few hours to get at the main deck, and by opening the portholes of both sides a thorough ventilation was established of that and of the lower deck, including the cabins. The whole crew in a restored state of health, though ■ST. JOHN, ANTIGUA. 287 decimated in number, being not long after re-embarked, I suggested to Captain Carthew that the Gloire should sail to windward for a short cruize. This was done, and after- wards we proceeded to St. John, Antigua, to lay the frigate down for some essential repairs. The crew being put on board a large hulk, the officers and marines were landed, and we lived in tents erected for the purpose, a larger one being somewhat decorated as a general meeting-room, the most conspicuous feature of which was a long table con- stantly decked from breakfast time till the dinner hour with all sorts of refreshments, cold meat, fruits of the place, sangarees, and the eternal Madeira, which had not then been supplanted by the equally enduring sherry. The presence of the York Rangers, forming the garrison of St. John, and occupying their barracks on the top of the adjoining hill, soon converted what might have been an exile for us of the Gloire into a scene of perpetual jollity and banqueting. In vain did I caution the younger officers against the inevit- able result of such a mode of living ; in vain, as caterer of the wardroom mess, did I keep a fast hand on the key of the “ quarter cask.” No arrangement, not even the loss of two of the junior lieutenants from a rapidly fatal fever, had any effect in checking the disorderly mode of living. These two young officers it would seem had been absent with leave a whole night at some great ball at St. John (that sort of attraction being very great in the chief city of the island). They had started off home at daylight on the horses that had brought them, so as to arrive in time for morning muster. Heated, and in a state of the most violent perspiration, they stripped and jumped into the sea for a bathe. One of them was seized with cramp almost immediately, which ended in fever and death; the other had a simple attack of fever the day after the plunge, and in a week followed his friend to the grave. 288 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. The necessary repairs being at length completed, the frigate again rigged, the crew and officers and guns re- embarked, adieu was bidden to the belles of St. John who had graced the balls on board the Gloire, as well as to the officers of the York Rangers, who had shared in promoting all the past festivities. Once on blue water again, every- thing fell as if by magic into the state of discipline and order which had previously distinguished the officers and crew of the vessel. Captain Carthew had received his instructions from the admiral, in consequence of which, after visiting certain other islands, the Gloire anchored once more in Carlisle Bay. Here we learned that accounts had reached the admiral of a great insurrection having broken out in Caracas, headed by Generals Bolivar and Mendez. Bolivar himself, surnamed “ El Liberador, ” was not long in appear- ing in person in an insurgent vessel among us, and was received with due honour on board the admiral’s ship. He had come in the name of the Junta, composed of members of the most prominent families of Caracas, who had deter- mined to shake off the Spanish yoke and proclaim the in- dependence of Columbia. They now solicited the aid of Great Britain in their patriotic efforts, and addressed them- selves for that object to the British admiral commanding at the nearest station. Bolivar knew English, as well as some other European languages ; but the important documents he had brought with him were written in the Spanish language, with which neither the admiral nor any of his officers were conversant. These R was requested to translate into English, all among them at least which seemed important. This easy and agreeable occupation afforded me frequent opportunities of meeting and convers- ing in his own vernacular tongue with the founder of the Republic of Columbia, whom I discovered to be possessed of more varied information and sound knowledge than I had BOLIVAR Y PONTE. found among the class of people equal to his own in his mother country. By accident he learnt I was an Italian by birth, and at our next meeting he addressed me in that language. Knowing me to have so recently resided in Spain, he became very pressing and anxious in his inquiries respecting the apparent condition of the people, the esti- mation in which the ‘‘Principe de la Paz ” was held, and what were the chances that Spain would have to succumb to Bonaparte. It came out in the course of more desultory conversations that we were of the same age, he having been born in July, 1783. Bolivar y Ponte v/as a great name in the years of mj cruizing in the Antilles and Caribbean Islands, near the scene of his momentary triumphs, which were to expand farther in a short time. He became at last as widely known as Kossuth and Garibaldi, though, unlike them, he died in the receipt of substantial proofs of the great esteem his fellow-citizens entertained for him, they having assigned to him a perpetual annuity of thirty thousand dollars (£7,500). Bolivar had a resolute air that well suited his martial person, yet in his conversation, tone of voice, and gentle address, one would hardly imagine oneself in the presence of the founder of the Independence of Spanish South America. His mission to our chief resulted in a courteous assurance that his propositions would be referred to the home govern- ment in England ; and as in the mean time I had gone through the process of an official medical examination to enable me to leave the West Indian station, which had been declared totally un suited to my constitutional tendency to attacks of blood to the head, Sir Alexander Cochrane, with the concurrence of Sir George Beckwith, commander of the forces, intrusted me Avith Bolivar’s papers Avhich I had been employed to translate, and which I undertook VOL, I. U 290 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. to deliver into the hands of the Colonial Secretary on my arrival in London. I took leave of my captain and messmates, and embarked on board a merchant vessel bound for Bristol. The voyage proved a tedious one and the weather tempestuous. I had, moreover, undertaken the care of two invalid ladies, wives of officers in AVest India regiments, who were returning to their homes, one of whom throughout the passage exhibited day by day, nay hourly, an example of the most distressing effects that sea-sickness can produce and human nature support. During twenty-twm days of incessant suffering I expected every moment would be her last, an apprehension fortunately not realized, and the almost extinct patient was consigned to the hands of her friends on our arrival at Bristol. For my part I hastened to London to fulfil the object of my mission. According to instructions I drove directly to the Colonial Office in Downing Street, where I had the honour of presenting to Mr. Peel, recently appointed Under- secretary by Mr. Percival, the despatches whth which I had been intrusted. Mr. Peel made a few inquiries relating to the object of the despatches and the personal appearance and bearing of General Bolivar, and after a courteous expression of thanks, dismissed me with a written order for the repayment of my travelling expenses. I experienced great surprise on my introduction into the official room at the youthful appearance of the quasi- minister, of whom public report had already said much and prophesied more, that was to be fully verified at no great distance of time. This official interview, and the locality in which it had taken place, brought to my recol- lection old events associated with the latter, and I therefore sought there and then an interview with another under- secretary, Mr. William Hamilton, at the Foreign Office, KETUEN TO ENGLAND. 291 with whom I was happy to renew our acquaintance for the first time since we parted at Athens in 1803. This truly good man most Avarmly congratulated me at having finally reached England under, such flattering circumstances, thus realizing our former mutual wishes for such an event. To render this the more acceptable, he offered me the assistance of his oavii official interest to forv/ard me in my naval career, an assistance which for the moment I declined, as the requirements of my health, and the wish for some home repose and medical care, precluded all idea of immediate employment. Doriiig the six v/eeks on half-pay that followed, some family affairs of my vdfe’s took me to Manchester, a time I shall ever gladly remember, for it brought me into communication with, and gained me the personal friend^ ship of, one of the greatest philosophers of the day, John Dalton, he who first brought mathematics and its numeral precision to the aid and development of chemical science. Seldom had so much intellectual sagacity, quickness of perception, practical application of principles to facts, appreciation and solution of the most difficult phenomena in chemistry and general knowledge, met in one indk vidual, united with such simplicity of heart, so much modesty, and that kind of honliomie which was in this great man an irresistible attraction for every one around him^. If there ever has been a literary distinction I have valued above all those I obtained in England during my long career, it is the one which was conferred on me first in order as member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester in 1812, under the presidency of the illustrious Dalton. Memorable on this account as my temporary residence in Manchester is, it is a reminiscence no less gratifying which it supplies me of the frequent intercourse I there enjoyed with the eminent physicians 292 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. and surgeons of the day officiating at the Manchester Infirmary, an institution which stood high in estimation : I mean Doctors Percival, Holme, Gerald, Henry, Ramsden, and others. There was another circumstance connected with my stay in the great cotton metropolis, the cradle of sound legisla- tion on financial questions, namely, my first venture in print in the English language, by the publication of five critical essays on the. principal performances of John Kemble, who had been starring on the boards of the Manchester Theatre Royal. Much as I had witnessed of histrionic excellence on the Italian and the Spanish stage, the scenic represen- tation of Macbeth, Othello, and, above all, of Hamlet, by John Kemble, who had recently added to the interest of a true and impassioned portraiture the prestige of historical costume in each character, compels me to admit that in no country had I seen such striking delineation of persons and events. But the critical remarks I allude to, and which were written after each night’s performance, collected together and published at the termination of the theatrical period, were not solely directed to the manner and style of personification by the actor ; they referred equally to the verbal interpretations of the text as adopted by Kemble. They were literary more than dramatic criticisms ; and, considering that only five years before the writer had been under the necessity of using the Latin language to make himself understood while learned English physicians were testing his fitness for the medical profession, I know not which of the two the public will condone, the presumption of the undertaking, or the manner in which the author performed his task. Yet the performance was received with favour. CHAPTER XIX. 1812. Appointed to the Maidstone — A bewildered captain — Edward Parry — Arrive at Quiberon Bay-Escape of the French squadron — Bombardment of Cadiz — Gibraltar — Port Mahon — The Duchess of Orleans — Transferred to the Swiftsure — Monotony of a blockading life — The cat-o’-nine tails — Edmund Lyons — Palermo — Louis Philippe, My long interval of home life was disturbed by a recall to active service in the form of an appointment as surgeon to the Redpole^ in which small vessel however, thanks to my friend of the Foreign Office, I remained but a short time, the appointment having been changed for a superior one to H.M. frigate the Maidstone^ of thirty-six guns, a perfectly new ship, the command of which was intrusted to Captain Burdett, an Irish officer who for the space of twenty years had never seen the sea. The Maidstone was hurried off before she was completely equipped, to cruise off the coasts of the United States, with whose govern- ment war was imminent. Captain Burdett, coming from Dublin, had not been on board six-and-thirty hours when we weighed anchor from the Downs, January 9th, 1812, and 1 still bear in mind, in all its humiliating particulars, the state of confusion and dismay into which the officers and crew of the Maidstone were thrown at our very first starting while sailing down Channel in a foggy night. Suddenly we found ourselves alongside a strange sail, slowly coming up Channel on our larboard tack, and so near that her lights between deck were plainly visible through a long range of port-holes, which showed the class of vessel she belonged to. Captain Burdett, a stranger to the sea for 294 AUTOBIOGI^APHY OP DR. GRANVILLP. SO many years, was bewildered. The first lieutenant, Mr. McMeekan, at once suggested the propriety of using private signals, but the key of the box which contained them, received from the Admiralty the day before sailing, was nowhere to be found. In the mean while the first lieutenant had ordered the boatswain to pipe to quarters, but no seaman yet knew his quarters nor his gun. Finally, a short parley through a speaking trumpet from the c|uarter-deck of the two vessels, declaring aloud the names of the two ships, informed the Maidstone’s crew that their phantom neigh- bour, imperfectly discernible, was the Constitution, This ship, one of the largest frigates of the United States, was conveying a special messenger on the same errand on which the Maidstone was sailing, namely, the question of war, which, as is well known, was not long after declared and fiercely carried on. This identical Constitution captured the English ship Guerriere,^ and during this same war the Maidstone herself performed distinguished service, though not until she had changed her commander. Truly this accidental night meeting might have turned out a most disastrous rencontre. We then beat down Channel into Plymouth Sound, where we remained till the 20th, when we were ordered to cruise off the Loire. There were sailing in the Maidstone at that very time, 1812, as my messmates, two individuals who were destined to achieve high renown not long after as Arctic voyagers, namely. Lieutenant Edward Parry and Lieutenant Liddon, the former of whom soon outstripped his younger mess^ mate in Arctic fame, attaining the highest rank in that category of seamanship, until he reached at last the greatest distinction a grateful country could bestow on him in rank and appointments. Edward Parry was a most amiable as well as a great man, for whom his medical messmate enter- tained the sincerest and most cordial friendship. QUIBERON BAY« 295 Captain Burdett on leaving England had received as one of his instructions to call in Quiberon Bay on his way out, and communicate with Sir Harry Neale, of H.M. ship Boyne ^ commanding an English squadron on that station, in case that officer had ulterior orders to give us. Sir Harry directed us to look after H.M. frigate Laurel for a couple of days, and so gave us time to get things to rights, of which no ship of war ever stood more in need than did the Maidstone, The weather had been most tempestuous since we left the Downs, and water was coming in at every part of the vessel, in my own cabin especially. We dropped anchor on the 18th of January in Quiberon Bay, between the islands Houat and Heddie, It came on to blow harder than ever soon after, and we received orders to be ready for sea in the morning, although the wind threatened to baffle such an intention. The news spread that we were likely to join other ships in search of three of the enemy's frigates said to be in the offing, but from the behaviour of our captain, and the unprepared state of our seamen, I doubted whether our frigate would be con- sidered in fit trim to co-operate in the intended pursuit. On the 28th of January, however, the Maidstone,^ the Laurel^ the RMne^ and the Rola frigates sailed in spite of the stormy weather. Three French vessels of the same force had sailed some time before. We were all on the qui vwe^ and sure of our prizes. At 11 o'clock some guns were fireil to leeward of us, and soon after a signal was made that the Laurel^ a fine thirty-eight-gun frigate, and one of those that had sailed in the morning, had struck on the rocks before Quiberon Bay, lost her masts, and at- tempted in vain to get off, the French batteries raking her, the Rliine^ the Eola^ and other vessels. At sunset a signal announced that the ship was not tenable. The Rhine saved 296 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRAISYILLE. the crew, except seventy who had made for the shore, fired on the while with grape-shot. Most of the officers were of the number, and were made prisoners. Their fate weighed heavily on our minds, for only the night before they had dined with us and passed a merry time in our wardroom. The weather, which had continued tempestuous for three weeks, changed to a most terrific south-western gale, during which the less valorous paled before it. Not so the old British tar. He is verily a strange being. Courageous from custom, a stoic without philosophy, and a philosopher without sagacity, he lives a life of pleasure and suffering, of vexation and felicity, of trouble and repose, of privations and joys; truly sensitive in many matters, yet a mere automaton in many others. We lost one man from an accident, and he was consigned to the deep according to sea rites. Is it a prejudice from early habits, or does Nature really look for a more decorous burial than such a one ? I never could witness it without a feeling of horror.' Would it ever be my lot to be so buried ? On again meeting with Sir Harry Neale, it turned out that while looking as usual that morning into the Port of 1’ Orient, it was discovered that the French squadron under command of Admiral Lallemand had effected its escape in the night during the severe gale, immediately upon which discovery Sir Harry Neale shaped his course to the west with his squadron, releasing the Maidstone from her cruise, and directing her to proceed to her original destination in the Mediterranean, in search of Sir Edward Pellew, commanding the English fleet off Toulon, and apprise him of the escape of the French squadron. On that same day, March 4th, we were informed of the sudden death of our commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, whose memory is associated in my mind with iny BOMBARDMENT OF CADIZ. 0 97 first appointment as a medical officer in tlie British navy. Intelligence was received at the same time of the resigna- tion of the Foreign Office, by the Marquis of Wellesley, at which news I quaked not a little, fancying it might involve the resignation of my friend the Under Secretary. On the 5th, signals were made from Quiberon Bay to weigh anchor, as the escape of the TOrient squadron was an undoubted fact. The news caused immense excitement, and we considered that such an event might make a change in our destination. At daybreak we got under weigh, but were ordered again to anchor alongside the Gonquestadoi% Lord W. Stuart, who had just joined. Captain Burdett went on board to remonstrate with his lordship, who allowed us to proceed. Water was instantly ordered on board our ship from other vessels in the squadron, and on the 10th of March we were on our way to Cadiz with the intelligence of the escape of the enemy. On the 16th of March, 1812, we had the town in sight, and anchored in the bay at 9 p.m. I copy the following note from my diary : — The mode of warfare carried on just now in this place has afforded us some moments of enjoyment.’’ Wretched creatures that we are ! While shots and bolts whizzed anross the streets right and left, many of them penetrating into houses, while fiery rockets and shells flew through the air to carry destruction to more than one unfortunate dwelling, death appearing everywhere, we, spec- tators of so much desolation, could hardly experience and express from our place of safety any other than feelings of horror and pity ! But no ! There were the crew on the gangway, on the fore, on the crosstrees, and on the yards ; there were the officers and the captain on the quarter deck and on the poop, all, all intent on enjoying the fiery spectacle of the bombardment of Cadiz ! The city of Cadiz presented a striking point in the general AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DE, GEANVILLE, landscape around us as we lay at anchor at a short distance from its walls, having entered its port between some rocks called the Porpoises and a sunken rock called the Diamond. Another entrance is that between the latter rock and the shore, forming the bay, upon which several forts and batteries were erected, and being occupied by the French, proved of no little annoyance to vessels beating in or out of the bay. From St Catherine’s Fort they threw bombs to nearly the distance of the town. There were some large and stately edifices decorating the exterior panorama of Cadiz and its surroundings, which in peaceful times must exhibit a warm, rich, and picturesque scenery. The firing of shells continued during the whole night. I boarded H.M. ship the Eevenge^ Admiral Legge, where 1 met two old acquaintances of the Bepulse^ Lieutenants Wey- mouth and St, John, Two days later we had a capital run from Cadiz to Gibraltar, wind, weather, and sky favouring us. First proud Trafalgar’s Cape appeared in view. Above it soared a verdant hill covered with heather, bearing Medina Sidonia, the Spanish Montpellier. Thus far the African mountains were distinguished, and on our left stood humble Tarifa. The Maidstone then passed between the two tower- ing shores of Europe and Africa, wafted through by the rapid current towards the Herculean Pillars, Presently the square-capped mount appeared, with famous Gibraltar spread on its lower and mid- way flanks. We anchored in the bay at 6 p.m. on the 18th of March, seven years since I first visited the place, but in how different a capacity ! I landed to see an old acquaintance, and to intrust to his care letters for my old friends the Mullers at Malaga, and one for my wife in England. After this we sailed for Port Mahon with a delicious Favonian breeze, such as one meets only in the Mediterranean, Port Mahon we reached next day but one, March 22nd, entering its eastern deep and PORT MAHON. £99 tortuous harbour, capable of holding in security the largest fleet of vessels of war. On the left shore we passed St. George’s Forh and further up, about a mile, we came to Mahon, a neat though small town. Its houses are con- structed of freestone, which constitutes part of the soil of the island, and are all whitewashed, a few tinted yellow and others of a light blue. We remained six days, from the 23rd to the 29th of March, in Port Mahon, having forwarded to the Commander-imChief, by H.M. ship Bodney^ which was just leaving Port Mahon to rejoin the fleet off Toulon, the intelligence we had brought with us. On landing, March 23rd, I found no difficulty in making acquaintances. One of the keenest gratifications a traveller enjoys is that of being able to enter into colloquial intercourse with people in their own tongue. On the countenance of the persons you address you perceive the satisfaction they experience at this mark of consideration on your part for their national importance. At the Cafe de San Fernando I found myself in the midst of a number of superior offi.cers, who were warmly discussing the recent surrender of Valencia to General Suchet, declaring in the same breath that Blake was an arrant traitor, and had been bribed by the French. There were those among the accusers of the Spanish general who asserted that they had given timely warning at the Anglo-Spanish head-quarters, that no other result but what actually happened could be expected. Senor Soler, the Comandante de la Marina, was present at the discussion, and politely, by way of diversion, proposed that I should adjourn to his offlcial residence close by, and there spend the evening with cafe- y-aqua jelado^ In the morning of that day I had availed myself of the introduction of Captain Bullock, R.N., to Don Antonio Brione, an advocate of great celebrity in the island, whose warm attachment to the English had cost him much ^00 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DK. GKANVILLE. suffering at the hands of the late insular government, he having indeed been only recently released from a long and unjust detention in a prison called el Lazareto, thanks to the intervention of our commander-in-chief. His house was much frequented by officers of the higher ranks, glad to converse with his highly talented and accomplished daughter, not much gifted, however, with her nation's beauty. In the Calle del Castel good fortune again bi'ought me acquainted with the family of the Cavaliere Motta, Sardinian and Sicilian Consul, consisting of three young ladies rich in the qualities wanting in the Senorita Brione, but lacking those she excelled in ; still a most agreeable family to visit, and whose acquaintance I cultivated. On my return to my hotel from the last morning call, I found a laconic message from Monsieur TAbbd de Talmont, the almoner of the Dowager Duchess of Orleans, requesting me to visit her royal highness at two o’clock the same day. M. de Talmont introduced me simply as Mr. Granville as we entered together a spacious and well-appointed salon^ in which we found the duchess standing near a large open window overlooking what appeared to be an extensive garden. As I advanced towards her, making my oheissances de rigueur^ she moved towards another smaller apartment, the door of which stood wide open, saying, ‘Me vous prie de passer dans ce boudoir ; nous y serons plus a notre aise ” (Be good enough to pass into this room, we shall be more at our ease.) I did so. The abbd did not follow. What her highness had to complain of was no very serious matter. I wrote a prescription, the execution of which I asked per- mission to undertake myself, as I was anxious to ascertain whether at the principal chemist’s in Mahon they were acquainted with the name of our drugs, and knew the corresponding weights and measures. The medicine should DOWAGER DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 301 be sent immediately, and I would do myself the honour of calling to inquire about her health again on the following day. “ In which case,” observed her highness in Italian, “ dome the pleasure of dining with me. You will meet one or two other officers of the English fleet.” Her royal highness, who had learned my native place in the course of our medical conversation, spoke Italian with toler- able fluency. I found it was her custom to invite every day to dine with her one or two officers of our fleet from ships that happened to be in harbour. On the present occasion Rear- Admiral Hallowell, commanding a division of the Toulon ■fleet, and Lieutenant Parry, second of the Mcddstcme, were present. My own invitation extended to all the time our frigate might remain in the port, and I did not fail to avail myself of it, since the subjects of conversation I there heard treated were of a greater interest to me than to the other guests. The dinner was invariably at three o’clock in the afternoon, served d la Parisienne by a cordon hleu^ and with as much of princely etiquette as the number of domestics in her retinue permitted, which was ample. One or two ladies, wives of some of the superior civil authorities of Mahon, or military commanders, graced the table. The repast, which seldom lasted more than forty minutes, was terminated abruptly to adjourn to coffee and cura§oa in the great saloon, where, after half an hour of desultory conversation and one or two more special personal introductions, the company separated, each of the guests making his respectful bow or reverence to the royal hostess as he left. My communication with this ill-starred princess during the six clays w^e remained in Port Mahon had been daily, and on each occasion in private, as became a professional visit. Naturally our conversation, as is often the case when medical men are treating chronic cases of slight 302 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. importance, diverged at times into other subjects than those concerning health. We happened to be still too near to those awful epochs which had marked the closing of the last and the opening of the present century, not to be often tempted to refer in our conversations to the events of those times. Exactly nineteen years before, it had fallen to my lot to read the news of Louis Capet’s head having fallen under the knife of the guillotine. Just the same number of years before, the duchess had been informed that Louis Philippe Egalitd had within a few months from that deed met the same fate. In knowledge of political facts we were almost coetaneous. Unfortunately she had herself been one of the suffering actors in that dreadful drama, which though not tragically concluded in her case, as in that of her husband, had been wretchedly preluded by that most iniquitous and scandalous treatment on his part, which compelled her to abandon his roof and take shelter under that of her brother, after twenty-one years of a most unhappy marriage. Yet this meek and angelic creature had borne it all patiently without a murmur or retaliation. Advancing age (for she was now approaching her sixtieth year) had not made her more garrulous ; nor did she find courage enough to look back and regret the days of her own infatuation for the dashing and attractive Due de Chartres, when she herself was still in her teens. On the black ingratitude of Madame de Genlis she dwelt with bitterness, as well as on her scandalous conduct, attributing to her outrageous immodesty, as vaunted by her own paramour, the personal alienation which took its origin then, and ever continued between her husband and herself On that delicate subject she reluctantly used to add, that the duke would often exculpate himself by citing the examples he had witnessed among the surroundings of George, Prince of Wales, in the course of his two visits in A STBETCH OF AUTHORITY. 1784 and 1786 to that intimate of his who became after- w'ards King George IV. Unlucky princess, whose union with the son of a selfish, scheming Duke of Orleans, onl}^ eager to secure the unbounded wealth of the bride’s father, commenced with unprecedented splendour at Versailles, and terminated with the decapitation of the husband, leaving for a time his much injured wife and children beggars and outcasts ! The comparatively happy days spent in friendly inter- course with many excellent people, due to the unexpected and unforeseen expedition of the Maidstone into the Medi- terranean, were destined to be of a long duration, for as soon as the frigate was considered to be in a fit state to proceed to her original destination, and having reported herself on the 29th of March, an order came from Sir Edward Pellew, directing the transfer of the surgeon of the Maidstone to H.M. ship of the line the Sioiftsure, vice Osborne, surgeon of that vessel, who was appointed to the Maidstone. Against so unusual an act on the part of an admiral interfering with the appointment of an officer who did not belong to the fleet under his com- mand, I respectfully protested, and appealed for support to Captain Burdett, in which appeal I was most strenuously backed by all my good messmates, McMeekan, Parry, Liddon, and Captain Rae of the Marines, all of whom considered my removal as an unfair stretch of authority. They were aware, these kind friends, that the station which the personal influence of my friend at the Foreign Office had procured for me, v/as one likely to yield what sailors look for in war — a good share of prize money to each ofiicer (as it turned out to be the case in good earnest on that occasion, and which the medical ofiicer had richly shared) ; and they considered as unjust the stretch of authority which at once cut me off from that prospect, to benefit another 804 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. medical officer not originally appointed to the Maidstone^ but simply claiming the advantage of being a Scotch cousiu of the commander-in-chief. No appeal, however urgent, seemed to have any effect on our captain, timorous and inexperienced, who could not venture to expostulate with the admiral,” and so the doctor was left in the lurch — that is, in the Sioiftsure^ while his more fortunate m.essmates gaily turned their prow to the west under prosperous gales, arriving in time to distinguish themselves in Transatlantic waters. Engaged in one of the most irksome services an English fleet can be employed in, blockading, or rather watching, off Cape Sicie a hostile fleet of equal force but not of sufficient pluck to sally forth to confront her enemy and jailer, I saw myself compelled to remain in the Medi- terranean till towards the end of the year— that is, nine months. ‘‘Turbamnon habet otiosoriam,” wrote a Latin author, speaking of Roman legions encamped around a beleaguered city. So used frequently to be my own ex- clamation when I reflected on my present profitless post ; for the fleet was generally healthy, and so was the Swiftsure^ except our good commander. Captain Hardy, who was indisposed. There was a superior medical officer, entitled Physician of the Fleet,” who to remedy the dulness and depression of spirits generally prevalent, bethought himself of the ingenious mode of starting a subject of fussy interest, by announcing the publication of a Treatise on a Pernicious Mediterranean Fever ; ” but of such a fever neither I nor any of my confreres in the fleet whom I interrogated ever met with a single example, so no one felt alarmed at the dismal announcement, and the attempt to enliven our dulness failed. Dr. Burnett made a luckier hit while in the service, when he patented his kyanizing process. Immersed in the gloomiest tcedium vitce I had ever been A BLOCKADING LIFE. 305 afflicted with, I turned to my books— not those of a pro-- fessional character, for I had enough of that in the practice of daily bandaging sore legs, setting dislocated shoulders, and distributing alterative powders and peptic pills, but to books of a more enlivening and encouraging type in classical lore. I sought comfort from the stoic epistles of the philosopher of Cordova — my favourite classic, and cheerful- ness as well as learning from those of Cicero and the younger Pliny. I know not wlietlier to other people under circumstances of absence from home, and of being con- demned to a very dull sort of life, the perusal of an animated, interesting, and well-written correspondence be- tween two distinguished characters of ancient times, on domestic as well as on more general subjects, would exercise the influence it had on me, that of arousing, quickening, and giving a fillip to the faculties of the mind, while it gratifies the affections of the heart. Such were the effects on myself. But as in reading I had always before me the desideratum of advancing my acquaintance with the English language, I not only turned to works in that language recommended by our reverend chaplain, but I selected an edition of Pliny’s Letters with Lord Orrery’s English version, which helped me immensely in retaining the one and in acquiring the other of the two languages embraced in that work. Nevertheless that toeclium vitce would still maintain its ascendency, even to the effect of making me drowsy in the middle of the day. L’oisivete la plus pesante (justly observes Madame de Girardin) est I’oisivete d’un esprit labo - rieux.” Entries such as I give below appear frequently in my diary of April and May, and even June, 1812 . I was then in a seventy-four-gun ship, in which my special duties were despatched in a couple of hours in the morning with the aid of two assistant surgeons ; after which I had the VOL. I. 806 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. whole long summer clay to myself and my meditations. The quotations will serve to show what progress I was making in the English language de die in diem. “ 19th April. — It is in vain I strive to conquer that spirit of indolence which almost overpowers me. It is evident that the kind of life I now lead is not congenial with my feelings ; and to pretend to I’eform it in my present situation would be as vain as to clamour for a similar change in the body of our representatives.” Bear in mind, I was habitually reading Cobbett’s Register. “ 24th April. — I seldom can muster spirits enough to write or study in the morning, though I rise with the full determination of doing so. I am overpowered by head oppression.” “ 28 April. — I am so oppressed by indolence, I cannot apply to anything useful.” “15 May. — I feel this morning a kind of heavy gloom pressing heavily on my brain,” — and so on as regards many more similar entries. The monotony which produced so uncomfortable a state of the mind was at times broken by occurrences incidental to the sort of life we were leading. There were the occa- sional encounters with the outside Toulon squadron when- ever their advanced ships chose to venture, however little, Avithin our reach. Such occasions were invariably joyful clays for our fleet, and days of “ great bustle,” as I heard them called. Then there were the occasional courts- martial on officers and men on board particular ships to keep us on the alert. Of these, three or four took place in my time, and I regretted to find myself in company Avith one or two cashiered lieutenants, sent on board our vessel till an opportunity occurred to give them a passage to England. No painter could have faithfully portrayed the heart-broken dejection depicted on the face of one of these 307 THE CAT-O’-NTNE TAILS. ruined young officers, who for insubordination had in one day forfeited the lights, privileges, and satisfaction he had earned during several years’ service. A far greater stir and a yet more melancholy sight would take place when an unfortunate sailor, for some unimportant crime having been condemned by a general court-martial to “go through the fleet,” was destined to receive a certain number of lashes alongside of each ship, on which occasion it was my duty to get into the boat with the culprit, and remain present during the infliction of the corporal punishment. This barbarous spectacle, which in a more limited degree it was also my duty to witness whenever the captain of our own ship ordered a sailor to receive from three to four dozen lashes, used to recall to my mind the painful and distressing descriptions of wdiich I Avas made to read in the ponderous folios of Christian martyrology by my reverend instructors while yet a youngster. With equal fortitude and serenity the infliction of agonizing pain was borne by the guilty seaman as it had been submitted to by the sainted martyr ; although the quivering of the lacerated flesh I witnessed in one case, and the deep gashes left on the muscular shoulders of Jack Tar by the cat-o’-nine tails of the boatsAvain’s mate, must be deemed to have been comparatively venial when contrasted with the horrors Ave find recorded by Baronins in his “ Martyrologus Roinanus,” to which Pope Sixtus V. accorded his holy approbation. I have complained of the dulness of our life in the Mediterranean, and yet, looking back to my diary, which I may call my log-book, for the period during which I remained connected Avith the Toulon fleet, namely, from the middle of March to the end of September, 1812, I read of so many movements, manoeuvrings, hostile expeditions on both French and Catalonian coasts, some successful, others the contrary, of arrivals of fresh men-of-war to join the 308 AUTOBlOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. fleet, and of others parting company to return home, of promotions and changes of commanders, &c., that one would think we must have been for ever on the alert, and merry instead of dull and ennuyes. But there was one redeeming advantage in the constant companionship with men-of-war, many of whose officers, persons of birth, education, and whose higher qualities were in course of further develop- ment, would probably form friendly relations with one another that might last through life. To such opportunities I have myself been indebted for more than one acquaintance which has ripened into cordial and neighbourly intimacy. At the genial table of the Duchess of Orleans such accidental connections were fre- quent, and reciprocal introductions under such auspices were not likely to be soon forgotten. One young naval officer I there met, whose success in life has been marvellous. He had already the reputation of a distinguished officer, although he had been only eleven years in the service. Our casual introduction soon ripened into something like intimacy, owing to our having exchanged some dictionaries, — a Eegia Parnassi he had purchased in Sicily being handed over to me for an Italian and also a Greco-Romaic dictionary which I presented to him, both which languages he was earnestly studying at the time, and the knowledge of which proved to be his first step to political success. Little did we in our frequent and friendly walks in Port Mahon, or when we met at the cheerful board of the royal exile, think what was in store for one of us, Avho, though ambitious by nature, was not presumptuous, and was satisfied if his superior officers recognized in proper terms the various dashing acts of naval skill and courage he had performed. Little, I repeat, did we imagine that the same individual, a post captain two years later (1814), would in fifty years more be an admiral commanding in chief a fleet in the very waters in PALERMO. 309 whicli lie was then sailing as a simple lieutenant. Still less dreamt that same lieutenant that he was destined to become Sir Edmund Lyons, then a peer of the realm, and that his daughter would be the wife of the premier duke of England, and the mother of a numerous line of Howards. A large fleet of men-of-war could not exist in a distant sea, with a whole line of coasts on the north and east in hostile array against them, without securing for themselves some friendly corner of land whence to draw timely supplies of meat and water. Both these the British commanders off Toulon found in Sicily and the Balearic Islands. An excursion to the first for provisions, and partly for political purposes, enabled my brother officers and me to view Palermo, then the seat of the lax court of Ferdinand IV. and his queen, Maria Carolina, whose Messalinic looks at once brought to my recollection the immodest consort of the fourth Charles whom I had so lately encountered in Madrid. Palermo at the time of our visit was probably one of the gayest capitals in the south of Europe, to which thousands of aristocratic and wealthy Italians and other refugees had resorted, to flee from persecution and insecurity of life. The sight also of British officers and soldiers promenading along the splendid Marina, with crowds of idle citizens and their fair black-eyed partners thronging the Jardin des Plantes and the orangeries that perfumed the air, added to the glorious sight the harbour and the city presented. An attempt had been made not long before to assimilate to that of England the constitution of Sicily under an English general. Lord William Bentinck, as captain-general. But the ill success of a somewhat similar recent endeavour on the part of the English to give a British turn to the consti- tution of the Ionian Islands, left only slender hopes of a better result in the present case, and accordingly both schemes proved signal failures, as history has recorded. 310 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. At our present visit to Palermo, among the various dis- tinguished foreigners whom curiosity attracted on board our vessel there was one particularly pointed out to my notice, who, though not more than twenty-seven years of age, was not very long after to play a conspicuous part in the revolu- tion of 1830, Avhich his ill-starred father had cast away in the revolution of 1789-93. He appeared as an exile just returned from Switzerland, where he had supported his bachelor existence by giving lessons in mathematics. But on the present occasion the son of Egalite had found not only a flattering reception from the royal family of Sicily, but also a devoted and faithful consort in the young Princess Marie Amelie, whom he had married two years before, and by whom he had had a son. It would not be easy to describe faithfully the expression of feelings Louis Philippe (for it was he who was visiting the vessel) exhibited on being told that the principal medical officer of the ship was well versed in the south continental turmoils of Europe, and had recently had the honour of many inter- views with his royal mother. The duke addressed me at once, and entered into a variety of subjects, first in reference to her health, and the people I had met at her table ; next, concerning my experience of the society I had frequented in Madrid, on all which points it appeared that I gave him satisfaction. On taking leave I ventured to express the pleasure I should have on our return to Port Mahon in reporting favourably of the state of his health to his royal mother, to which he assented. Three months longer of this irksome and tedious life succeeded this visit to Palermo, the Swiftsure cruizing in and out of Sicie Bay, exchanging signals, the officers visiting one another on board during some of the calms so frequent in these seas, and even ven- turing on some private theatricals — all this pour tuer^ not pour passer le temps. Nor were the French loth to afford OBTAIN LEAVE TO RETURN HOME, 311 US some occupation in tlie exchange of shots between our advanced squadrons, which ended in noise and a great expenditure of powder, though never in such profusion as on the 15th of August, in honour of the saint who it is to be presumed will now be removed from the calendar. In the dearth of more serious occupations I was indebted to one of my new friends. Lieutenant Roberts, of H.M. ship Bombay, now Admiral Roberts Gowan, and a staunch shipmate, for what I considered an intellectual treat in the loan of Blair’s Lectures, in addition to which our own kind chief. Captain Hardy, had presented me with the “Spectator.” With this much more wholesome and intellectual fare than I had lately enjoyed, I found the hours more usefully as well as agreeably spent, and my knowledge of the English language progressing satisfactorily. Still, “ grata domus optima semper,” and such a feeling induced me twice to seek an interview with Sir Edward Pellew, in which I urged the injustice of my longer detention on a station to which I had not been officially appointed by the home authorities. It was ultimately arranged, that as I was to be a principal witness in the intended court-martial on Lieutenant Donnellan, late of the Maidstone, and nephew to the well-known Captain Macnamara, who shot his opponent in a duel for insulting his dog, I might be sent home with him in the Impregnable, which was under orders to return to England. CHAPTER XX. 1812. ^Departure from Port Mahon — The voyage home — Arrive at Plymouth — Pros- pects of a seafaring life — Obtain leave to go to Liverpool — Move to Manchester with my wife and infant daughter — A member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society — John Dalton and his theory-— Arrange to enter a new phase in my career — The Pev. Legh Pichmond — A clap of thunder. A DiNEP d’ ADIEU ” wliich the Duchess of Orleans gra- ciously offered to a few of her habitual visitors, including her own medical adviser, marked the eve of our departure from Port Mahon and from the Mediterranean. Several of the English guests I found assembled at dinner. Captain and Mrs. Hardy, for example, I again met the next day on board H.M. ship Impregnable^ which ship was to convey us to England, and which sailed the following day, the 25th of August. The weather was intensely hot, but the idea that we were to sail first westward and next north- ward in such a state of the atmosphere tended to cheer us up a little, as we hoped to catch the breeze from those quarters, though it would not help us except negatively in our voyage, which we quite expected would last at least a month. The prospect of an agreeable life on board was encouraging. Besides the usual number of officers belonging to a 74-gun ship, there were, several supernumerary officers as passengers, some per force^ others by favour, among the latter of whom, at all events, we might hope to pass many pleasant hours. Of the former number we could hardly expect much good humour. A post-captain who had lost ALGEEINE PIRATES. 313 a fine frigate, a lieutenant wlio was going home to be tried by court-martial, another officer of equal rank who was re- turning home reprimanded, with a fourth who had forfeited two years of his time of service ; these were not passen- gers likely to add cheerfulness to the rest, although they might win and be certain to obtain sympathy and en- couraging companionship. I happened to find an old acquaintance in First Lieutenant Donaldson. To him, an able officer as well as a pleasant companion, I am indebted for having enjoyed every possible comfort compatible with the difficulty of finding s]3ace and accommodation for double the number of officers, claiming all of them their privileges in virtue , of their rank, or from the courtesy which is never wanting on such occasions on the part of the officers properly belonging to the ship. One annoyance we had to bear for a time until we got out of the Straits, and that was the convoying of the store-ship Prevoyante^ which, besides being a great drawback on account of her slow sailing power, had committed the blunder of allowing herself to be boarded by an Algerine frigate, in conse- quence of which she would have to perform quarantine. These Algerine pirates had become so insolent that the Dey’s power had to be curbed, else the whole Mediterra- nean would have been infested with pirates. Only a few years before, a povero diavolo of a teacher of Italian named Pananti — well-known as a satirical poet of merit,' who had lived thirty jmars in London, and could never succeed in pronouncing (so as to be understood) his own address of ^‘Berwick Street, Soho,” but had succeeded nevertheless in realizing a little fortune by his calling — while returning to his native land in a Livornese brigantine, was snapt up ^vhen in the latitude of Algiers, imprisoned, stripped of every penny he possessed, and suffered to continue in slavery (an interesting account of which he published after 314 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. liis liberation) until the English expedition under Sir Edward Pellew caused a general gaol delivery.” But it was left to the French to destroy the abominable dens, to the influence of whose ruffian chief we submitted even during our sovereignty in the Mediterranean. As regards myself, I commenced the voyage homewards inauspiciously, having had an attack of fever in the night, which prevented my accepting the invitation to dine with the captain of the ship, who had politely requested my company on the first day of sailing. My fever had an aguish type, a reminder of my Deptford fever, caught while fitting out the Maidstone. It was worse at night, and left me during the best part of the day, which I generally passed in some part of the poop under an awning in the society of my late Captain (Hardy) and his lady, with whom I read Thalaba,” that wild and wondrous tale,” and ventured on some critical observations on the style, the machinery, and composition of the poem. Mrs. Hardy differed with me in opinion as to the spirit and style of the composition, but was pleased to say that she could not gainsay the merit and genius of the metre in which the poem was written. Is it not surprising that, novice as I was in a language so difficult as English is to an Italian, I should have taken so sudden and so great a liking to Southey's poetry — so wild, so expressive, so oriental ? Our sea progress was provokingly slow, and it was not until the evening of the 31st of August that we anchored at Gibraltar, where we were put in quarantine, owing to the suspicion of yellow fever being at Carthagena. This oc- casioned a detention of ten days to enable us to obtain a clean bill of health. Notwithstanding our ship had the yellow flag flying while we remained at Gibraltar, the passengers were not precluded from business intercourse with the shore, and I availed myself of the occasion to VOYAGE TO ENGLAND. 315 dispose of some of the duros I had brought with me from the East, purchasing articles which contraband collectors bring to this emporium of prohibited merchandise. But during all this time we were losing the favourable south- east breeze that had accompanied us. At length, on the 10th of September, we left Gibraltar, standing over to Tangiers to take some oxen, but when near the place the dread of another quarantine made us tack and shape our course for Cadiz with variable winds. Having no official occupation in the Impregnable^ I found the time pass heavily. I resumed my study of Blaihs Lectures, and to this day, with my more extensive acquaintance with English literature, I consider him still as one of the most perspicuous didactic writers I have perused. Many vessels following the same course were in sight, and we watched the sky-scrapers of those farthest to wind- ward for some sign of a breeze springing up, it being still dead calm all around us. In this state there was only one regret possible for us in those times. Should the same standstill occur in these days, we should have two regrets, being in an ordinary man-of-war. We should regret the absence of steam as well as of wind. We were therefore only half unhappy then. My fever lingered, and I could not apply myself to any serious occupation. There were my medical journals and reports for the period I was on board the Swiftsure to be got ready, to be forwarded to the Board on my arrival at Plymouth, and to this task I applied m}^self from time to time. Towards sunset, and for a hour or two after, I passed the hours in walking a measured distance on the quarter-deck a certain number of times, so as to make up about three miles on the whole. The officer of the watch generally, or one of the officers of the Marines, was my companion. With a young officer of the first men- tioned class, Lieutenant Chapel, I liked much to consort, as 316 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. he was a nephew of Dr. Clarke, the professor of mine- ralogy in the University of Cambridge, and author of travels in Greece and the Levant, where he followed Mr. Hamilton and Colonel Leake’s route, whence I had re- cently returned. Captain English of the Marines was also one of my walking companions. He likewise made one of a small club we had formed, at which subjects of all sorts were discussed. I remember that one evening the subject of keeping a private journal was introduced, and underwent some strange disquisitions. Captain English, while speaking of my practice, which was well known on board, seemed not to be pleased with the idea of the possi- bility of his own speeches and opinions being recorded in my pages. In the course of conversation I was sorry to discover that the reciprocal bearing of the captain com- manding and the officers was not of the most friendly sort, though they were perfectly courteous to one another. We sighted the rock of Lisbon on the 15th of September. A slight improvement in the wind had pushed us forward, but it soon changed again. Between the 19th and 20th it became set fair,’^ and we all enjoyed on deck the fine weather, observing in the day-time the clear horizontal lines, with now and then a tiny sail passing over the field of our spy-glass, too distant for a chase ; and at night contemplating a star-spangled sky, such as the zenith in the Atlantic so frequently exhibits. Under such talismans at length we found ourselves safely anchored in Cawsand Bay, Plymouth, on the 26th, and placed in quarantine. On my reporting myself on the 1st of October to Sir Eobert Calder, the admiral in command, I learned that the intended court- martial was postponed indefinitely, on hearing which I applied to the Admiralty in London for permission to spend whatever time I should have to wait on full pay at home with my family, instead of idling it in Plymouth A SEAFAEING LIFE. 817 harbour until the court-martial should assemble. The Admiralty having signified their assent in the course of three or four days, I wasted not another day before joining my wife and the dear infant I had not yet seen, who were then living with my wife’s father and mother. I imme- diately removed them to my old quarters in Manchester, where friendship, science, and literature offered me a better prospect of passing the period of Admiralty leave with benefit as well as satisfaction to myself. Looking back to the last five years of my sailor’s life, and passing under review the very long list of naval officers of many ranks and various merits with whom I had become acquainted more or less intimately, not only on board the ship to which I belonged, but in the many other ships of war with which we had consorted in the Channel, in the West Indies, and the Mediterranean waters, the names of all of whom I find regularly Inustered in my private log-book up to the period of my leaving the last ship (October, 1812), and as it proved my sea life alto- gether, I tremble to inquire at the present time (October, 1871) how many of them are like myself surviving that bustling, half-joyous, and half-melancholy period of life. For the sake of bearing a naval title with the hope of attaining soon a higher one ; for the honour of wearing the King’s uniform, and for the scanty guerdon of a few shil- lings daily pay, with the chance of increasing it by legiti- mately getting what pirates and privateers catch unlawfully — I mean prize money ; for the sake of all these, how many consented to a daily and hourly privation of home blessings, to a scanty fare, and the absence of every domestic comfort, to the chance at last of a stray shot, a shipwreck, or a watery grave ! For such in reality is the nature and such are the expectations of a Royal Navy sea life. The satisfaction I experienced at finding myself once 318 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. more at home, and embracing an infant daughter who had come into the world three months after my last departure from England in a smart new frigate, and in which I ex- pected to make my fortune, can he easily imagined. The failing of part of that expectation did not lessen the pleasure of finding myself again with those I loved. The choosing once more Manchester for my temporary residence while waiting for orders from my superiors, being still on full pay and active service, was not the effect of chance or caprice, but a deliberate selection, knowing from former experience the many advantages the metropolis of com- mercial and industrial England offered to a stranger, and one happy to profit by the opportunities that city afforded him if desirous to become acquainted with the many re- markable institutions with which England is endowed. For any professional improvement, what better than the English hospitals, and in my present case, the Manchester Infir- mary ? For chemistry and its agnate sciences, what more promising than to live in propinquity and in almost daily communing with such a genius as Dalton ? At my first visit to the Literary and Philosophical Society, 1 found that in my absence I had been honoured with a nomination to a membership of the society, and that a diploma as such lay ready for me at the secretary’s office. My admission took place that same evening — John Dalton in the chair. It was the first academical body into which I was admitted since my first coming to England ; and considering under whose auspices I received that distinction, and how fortunate I was from the very commencement in making the personal acquaintance of some of its most able, zealous, and dis- tinguished members, no surprise will be expressed if I declare that among the many academical distinctions I have received in subsequent years, both in England and in foreign countries, my membership of the Manchester DR. JOHN DALTON. 319 Literary and Pliilosoplaical Society is that which most flatters my vanity. By adopting Higgins’ theory, and developing it as a doctrine of equivalents, under which he accounts for the composition of bodies, Dalton had established a philoso- phical system of his own, the principles and elements of which he had published to the world a year or two before my present or second visit to Manchester in 1812. I was therefore at the very fountain-head of the most recent discoveries in science, added to which fact, that good old conventual Manchester College offered me abundant sources of literary enjoyment. But in the midst of this intellectual gratification, I did not forget that my future was still un- defined as well as undecided, and that I must not suffer opportunities to escape of establishing myself honourably and advantageously in society somewhere on terra firma^ being pretty well tired and disgusted with active sea life such as I had lived lately, for which purpose a correspon- dence was kept up with my friend at the F oreign Office. In November, 1812, a new era- in my life commenced. Mr. Hamilton offered me, by a letter dated the 2nd of that month, the means of putting an end to the nautical part of my career, and initiating me into a fresh path, more consonant with the bent of my judgment, with the know- ledge I already possessed and hoped steadily to augment, and, lastly, with the desire I entertained of distinguishing myself in a profession held in so high esteem in the country of my adoption. The proposal was accepted at once, and I felt a much happier man. I then sought my friends, and prepared them for our separation ; but, during the few days left, I still attended the infirmary to witness some important operations, and the College library, to terminate certain literary investigations I had commenced from the very beginning of my former residence in Manchester. 320 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Ere I left tliat city again I consigned to my day-book two incidents of my life while resident in it, which I wished to be able to remember in later times, as having greatly interested me. The town had been for some days on the stir at the doctrine of the Rev. Legh Richmond, a gentleman of about forty years of age, who had been preaching at St. James’s church. His pulpit eloquence was much extolled by all parties. I heard that he was to preach in the evening of the 12th, and I secured a seat to hear him. Although much had been said in his praise, I was in no wise disappointed in the high expec- tations I had formed of his abilities in consequence. Far from it, and I once more regretted my inability to follow him by stenography. He appeared before the Manchester audiences as a travelling apostle, having a particular mission to fulfil and to support by his eloquence, namely, the con- version of the Jews. The character of his oratory seemed to me well suited for the purpose. It was that simple, smooth, soft, gliding sort of eloquence which pleases, commands, and rivets attention to the subject, and must carry conviction to the hearer. Some strange propositions, however, he now and then advanced in support of his peculiar opinions as regards the interpretation of parts of the Gospel, which demanded much more attention and greater consideration ere they can be accepted as truths. Mr. Richmond maintained that the Jew and the believing Gentile (as he called the Christian) differ only in the interpretation of the Gospel. In some parts of his dis- course we thought he committed both logical and historical errors. If there was a defect in his style of preaching, it was his synonymic repetition of the same idea. For oratory, such a figure is certainly allowable, but its use should not be too frequent, or when so the repetition of the same idea in different phrases ought to be either in an ascending or REV. LEGH RICHMOND. 321 a descending proportion, to heighten or to diminish the interest we desire to attach to the thing spoken of. In this Mr. Richmond certainly erred, for his employment of the rhetorical figure in question was a mere succession of pleonasms that added nothing to the force of the expres- sion ; as for example, ‘Mf I am in the wrong,” . . . ‘Mf I stray from the right path,” . . . ‘Mf I err,” &c. This too frequent use of such a figure of speech becomes at last tedious and irksome to the hearers. It weakens rather than supplies additional vigour to a discourse. The spirit of moderation with which Mr. Richmond endeavoured to instil Christian faith into the Jewish mind, deserved the warmest praise from every religious man, from the general worshipper of the one only God as well as from him who considers himself as one of the vast family whom Provi- dence has sent to people and inhabit the world, and who owes to the Deity suit and service. The evening after this speculative sermon was spent at the house of the very able surgeon of the Infirmary, Mr. Ransome, a member of the Society of Friends, whom I learned to value truly, with such others of their distin- guished members as flourish in Manchester, Dalton one of them par excellence. When I rose on the morning of the 15th of November, a letter of a gloomy purport was handed to me, directed On Her Majesty’s Service, to A. B. Granville, Surgeon, R.N.,” coming from the Admiralty. It would be easier to conceive what a sudden clap of thunder in a sunny day would be to a man situated as I was at this moment, than to judge of the effect this official missive produced on me : — (Immediate.) Admiralty Office, 11th November, 1812. “ Sir, “ I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners VOL. I. 322 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. of the Admiralty to signify their directions to you to proceed, 'without a moment’s loss of time, to Plymouth, applying to Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton on your arrival for a passage to join Admiral Sir Borlase Warren. “ Yours, &c., “ John Barrow, Secretary.” In undertaking to draw up that part of the narrative of my life which relates to the period (by far the longest) which I passed in Engkmd, I firmly determined not to allow a single expression to escape my pen which would imply dissatisfaction, complaint, or resentment at what might have appeared to me to be acts evidencing dislike, envy, or hostility against me on account of my not having had the good fortune of being born in England. Were I to follow a different course, often should I have occasion to point out deeds of injustice, spite, and enmity committed against me from no other motives than feelings of national antipathy. But into such a field of distasteful investi- gation I shall abstain from entering, saving and except when any question arises to make it necessary for me to vindicate my character as a professional man, or my rights as an author. On the present occasion, which has elicited these general remarks, I could have told immediately the worthless motive, and point out the man to whom I owed so unexpected and inexorable a blow ; but as it was frustrated in the space of twice twenty-four hours, I am satisfied to let it pass as an extinct hrutum fidmen. CHAPTER XXL 1813—14. Installed in London — Instinct Mr. Hamilton’s children in Latin, mathematics, and chemistry — A pnpil at Westminster Hospital — Mr. Carlisle : his eccentricities — Sir J oseph Banks’s Sunday evenings — Colonel Leake and Mr. Salt — Blanco White and John Morier — Aspasia’s lyre — The duties of an Under-Secretary of State — Letters of Yetus — A fete at Yauxhall — The Lancastrian system of education — Birth of a son — The Italico ” — Enrolled a member of the Eoyal College of Surgeons — Admitted a member of the Eoyal Institution — The Society of Arts — Honorary physician to the Italian Opera House, New Year’s Day, 1813, found me installed in London, in a neat and comfortable lodging in the immediate vicinity of my good friend and Meceenas, as I may now call him, having through his intercession, and some concessions on my part, obtained the withdrawal of the Admiralty order to proceed to North America, with the payment of my full pay up to the day of that withdrawal, and the consent of the authorities to my being placed on the half-pay list. Mr. Hamilton’s main object was to enlist me to instruct his two eldest sons, William and Alexander, in the Latin lan- guage, and to teach them to speak it fluently, as he had heard me do, he said, whenever I had occasion during our travels together to converse in his presence with people who did not know any other language by which we might carry on a con- tinuous discourse. We had frequently discussed together this proposition : why should we not learn a dead language like the Latin as we learn its corrupt and living offspring— the Italian language, for instance— by rote and use, instead of wasting years in learning it by first committing to memory a vast number of what are called “ rules of 324 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OP DE. GRANYILLP::. grammar,” wliicli, wlreu impressed on the memory, after all cannot be made available if we understand not the meaning of the mass of words to which these rules are intended to be applied ? * Why not rather employ the same time in learning the signification of a certain number of Latin words, from the collected mass of which (a vocabulary of our own making, in fact) we may proceed to the formation of single phrases, and by-and-by to that of whole periods, precisely as a growing child proceeds under a natural instinct with respect to its mother tongue ? On the general proposition we both agreed perfectly ; the question was as to the best method to be adopted for carrying out the idea in the case of our two pupils, who were of the age of six and seven years. It Avas manifest that to learn by heart a long list of dry Latin words and their English interpretations every day would be a tedious, irksome, and uninteresting operation ; nor would such a process give the learner the smallest inkling of how to combine some of those words so learned into phrases. Now if, instead of such purely mechanical process, we adopt that of learning by heart the meaning of a succes- sive number of Avords out of a knoAvn classical theme or composition, be it history, oratory, epistles, poems, or plays, the learner as he proceeds through his task Avould naturally feel and take an interest in the subject, progress Avith greater zeal, and find it easier to remember, not only all the words, but many of their minor com- binations, alias phrases, from an association Avith the plot, plan, or scheme of the work from Avhich the words Avere taken. This view struck my friend’s intelligence so immediately that he at once said, “ Recte, Magister ! Ecce * We do amiss to spend seven or eight years in scraping together so innch niiserahle Latin and Greek as may he learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year.^^ — Milton. A TEACHEE OF LATIN. 325 Terentiiis.^^ He had understood me, and forthwith from his library he produced two well-printed copies of that de- lightful Roman dramatist, with which it was settled that we should proceed with our work without any further delay. Teacher and pupils commenced reading the Andria,’^ the former interpreting every word, showing how they were combined together to signify particular ideas, while the pupils committed to memory, by frequent repetition, not only the single words, but many short phrases of general use, which the teacher and the taught were expected to employ among themselves in their daily intercourse. This method soon found high favour with both my young friends. They felt quite proud from the very commencement of their task that they were able not only to read and under- stand a Latin play, but could address a number of Latin phrases in colloquial intercourse to their father and teacher, the latter of whom, on his part, felt happy to revive his old acquaintance with the most terse, elegant, and per- spicuous Latinist of the Augustan age. Matters being so settled, we proceeded to the enacting of our domestic drama and all the expected consequences, and by the end of three weeks all the ordinary interlocutory communications between teacher and pupils and the head of the family became exclusively and almost naturally Terentian. As Mr. Hamilton had not’ of his own accord made any stipulation with regard to the extent of instruction I should impart to my two pupils in return for the very liberal nature of the arrangement he proposed when he invited me to assume the tutorship, I offered to instruct them in geometry and the practical use of logarithms, and during the summer, when the family removed to Arundel House, Fulham, to give them practical instructions in chemistry, a favourite science of mine, as may be supposed from my antecedents. All this was agreed to and acted upon. The 3£6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. early hours of the day, from seven o’clock (even during the winter) until twelve, exclusive of the breakfast hour, and the post-prandial hours (being from two o’clock till four), were devoted to my task at my friend’s house. The rest of the afternoon and the evenings I reserved to myself, and I tried to make good use of the time. My honorarium, joined to my half-pay, placed me in easy circumstances, independently of which there was the residue of the professional fruit gathered in the Levant. I con- sidered myself therefore a comparatively independent man. My wife agreed to remain with her father and mother in the country for the first few months of my town experience, as it was my determination to devote whatever time I had left to myself after the fulfilment of my daily duty to the prosecution of a practical study of all the branches of the medical and surgical profession as practised in England, knowing the vast difference which existed between it and the mode universally adopted in foreign countries. For this purpose, I set apart a couple of hours in the day, without interfering with the curriculum in Dean Street, Hyde Park, for attendance at a hospital, and I chose the Westminster in preference, entering myself as a pupil, or in reality as an assistant, to the two physicians, Dr. Bradley and Dr. Paris, whose patients I often visited for them, entering the cases and treatment in the hospital books. Dr. Bradley was learned in mathematics and not over-burdened with practice, unfortunately for him, and I obtained the favour of securing lessons from him in algebra for an hour twice a week in the evening. Mr. Carlisle, one of the surgeons of the hospital, having remarked how desirous I was to enter deeply into the theory and practice of anatomy as well as surgery, suggested to me, at the recommendation of Mr. Hamilton, with whom he was acquainted, that I should take up my abode at his MR. CARLISLE. 327 house in Soho Square as a “ house pupil” for six months. I agreed, thinking naturally that in his circle I should have frequent opportunities to become acquainted with some of the best-known practitioners in London, and derive benefit from intercourse with such able professors of the art. An experience of three months proved so unsatisfactory to both of us that we agreed to return to our former status of teacher and pupil at the hospital only. I know not whether there be any hereditary eccentricity in the name of Carlisle or Carlyle (no matter how spelt), as the works of some authors of that name would induce one to suppose, but my Carlisle, afterwards Sir Anthony, unquestionably had a right to that distinction, irrespective of the spelling, whether as regarded his doctrines or some of his acts. One morning, coming down to breakfast, I discovered under my folded napkin a phial, inscribed “a black dose.” I stared at my host and professor with a look of inquiry. “It is the seventh day of the moon,” he said, “ on which everybody who desires to enjoy health and live long should give a scouring to his alimentary canal.” Of course I begged to be excused. He would often come down dressed without a waistcoat, which he had forgotten ; and not unfrequently we would meet him out of doors, or coming into the hospital, with two half-gaiters of different colours, or with both gaiters on the same foot. Those who did not like him pretended that he affected eccentricity for a purpose. To replace the loss of Mr. Carlisle, I entered myself as a hearer of a sound, popular, and truly philosophical lecturer, though very quiet in his manner. Doctor Tuthill, and engaged myself also to follow the instructive practical lectures of a teacher of anatomy and surgery well known in those days, of the name of Taunton, who lived in an out-of-the-way quarter of the town, called Hatton Garden, involving on my part no insignificant trouble AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. OEANYILLE. and fatigue in reaching his dwelling and returning home on foot. At these several lectures I took full notes, all of which I preserve, and look to now and then to remind me of the earnest and laborious life 1 led with the sole intent of qualifying myself for a London practice. As an aggrava- tion, such hard ordeal, which extended to two years, took place chiefly in the winter months, with deep snow on the ground, and who can forget the winter of 1813-14? Nevertheless, a winter in London is an El Dorado for a young scientific man to advance his knowledge and com- mune with men of his caste likely to appreciate him while reciprocating useful and very often novel information. Thus, on the first Sunday after my settling in South Audley Street, the 20th of December, Mr. Hamilton drove me to Sir Joseph Banks’s conversazione^ and introduced me to that venerable patriarch of science, who was pleased to receive me with great courtesy, congratulating me on my intention of establishing myself in England, expressing at the same time his hope that I would be a frequent visitor to his Sunday meetings. I did not then presume to think that a day would arrive when, as President of the Royal Society, it would be part of his duty to receive me as one of its fellows. With such a possible object in view, and the obligation I was under of becoming a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians before I could set up in practice as one of them, I now turned my attention to acquiring and deserving the reputation and character of a man of science. As a matter of course, I became an assiduous frequenter of the evening reunions in Soho Square. The aristocracy of talent, with a not small sprinkling of the aristocracy of blood, were to be met with on those occasions. It was deemed a great distinction to be admitted into such an assembly, from which all ostentation, idle display, or cere- monial stiffness were entirely banished. Sir Joseph’s house SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 3:39 was open every Sunday niglit, without preliminary or formal invitation by cards or notes. Some claim to the distinction was expected to exist in the person who sought admission through personal introduction by some one of the best-known friends of the president. There were no formal lectures, nor discourses, nor set discussions, but general conversation on all scientific, literary, professional, and artistic subjects. The latest news in science was sure to be learned here first. The most recent works in literature, history, voyages, and travels were ushered into the world in these rooms, such works lying on the table. The rooms which composed the valuable library of Sir Joseph were not large, but sufficiently numerous and roomy to admit fifty or sixty choice spirits, who, after receiving the friendly greeting of the host, grouped themselves here and there in twos and threes, intent on conversing on their own special topics, while a few remained near Sir Joseph (himself an inexhaustible source of interesting information), enjoying at the same time the gratification of witnessing in the prin- cipal room the reception of some of the most remarkable characters who visited on such occasions. One such indi- vidual, who made for himself an unrivalled name in anti- podean botany, Eobert Brown, the companion of Captain Flinders in their Australian travels, would be seen every Sunday night standing by the side of Sir Joseph, who had committed to his charge the large collections, both his own and those Sir Joseph himself had collected, together with the splendid specimens of natural history they had brought to their native land from those distant southern climes, and which were finally consigned to the British Museum for the use of the public, thanks to Sir Joseph’s munificence. The library of the venerable president afforded rare and splendid works, exquisitely illustrated, which were, if required, pointed out and shown methodically by a 330 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. learned young German, Dr. Thiarks, who spoke English fluently and acted as under-secretary. From this gentleman I took some lessons in German in return for instruction in Italian, which I imparted to him until he was appointed mathematician to the English commission sent out to trace the boundary lines between British America and the United States. But adventitious temptations were not needed to assemble a sufficient number of savants on each Sunday evening in their rooms, sacred to science and learning, for who would not have desired to behold and become personally ac- quainted with individuals whose names were as well known on the Continent as they were in England, and not a few of whom professed never to absent themselves from Sir J oseph Banks’s Sunday evening conversaziones ? Here Humphry Davy and his brother, Wollaston, Dr. Thomas Young, Thomas Brande, Marcet, Henry Brougham, Lansdowne, Herschel, Whewell, Brewster, Henry Ellis, William Law- rence, Leman Horner, Humboldt, De Candolle, Doctor Baillie, Sir Astley Cooper, Sir Everard Home, Birkbeck, Stewart, Playfair, and other members of that galaxy of talent which in those days shone so pre-eminently in this land, were certain to meet at one or other of these delightful Sunday assemblies. I look back to the history of my life during the eventful year of 1813 with a degree of satisfaction commensurate with the result obtained from incessant study and intellectual occupation, and the approbation I obtained from, the party most interested in the success of all these exertions. It was impossible for a person situated as I was to wish for more encouraging treatment. My two young pupils, tractable and assiduous, were making rapid progress in Latin, not only in Terence, but in Cicero and Livy; also to the great delight of their father, who expressed at the same time the satis- COUETESY OF MR. HAMILTON. 331 faction, indeed the obligation, he said he owed to me for the time I bestowed on the additional instruction in mathematics and botany I gave to his sons ; and especially did he feel thankful for the course of lectures in practical chemistry I gave them through the whole summer months in a well- appointed laboratory I fitted up at the end of the garden of Arundel House, which lectures were illustrated by homely and practical experiments. Nothing could be more encouraging to me as an in- structor in more than one branch of knowledge, than to have the daily supervision, and to know that I was under the immediate eye of a most able and erudite person as well as a statesman and a man of the world, that supervision leading to the expression of an unqualified approbation. Mr. Hamilton’s delicacy in his intercourse with me never shone more conspicuously than when in the presence of distinguished guests at his house. But, in truth, such courteous manner in my good friend was a natural feature of his character, extending to all occasions in which people were obliged to have recourse to him, whether on public or private business. None was more conversant with le grand art de savoir vivre ; few gave better promises to achieve distinction as a high-bred, able, and polished member of the diplomatic service, in which he terminated his public life as a retired minister plenipotentiary at the court of Naples, a post he had occupied in difficult times. My daily, nay hourly, intercourse with one so well quali- fied, and so occupied in directing some of the great public affairs of the day, which necessitated the intervention of individuals of different nations and of various degrees of importance for pre-eminent intellect, military or diplomatic position, or for their social status, tended naturally to ad- vance me in the knowledge of the world and its ways in a country new to me in a shorter time than as a young man 832 AUTOBIOaEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. I could have hoped to accomplish by the mere routine of general observation as a guide. My introduction to the meetings of some of the principal learned and scientific societies was another mode of extending my acquaintance with persons of note. Thus^ on an early day in January of the year to which this portion of my memoirs relate, after dining in Dean Street, our good host drove an old Grecian fellow-traveller. Colonel Leake, and myself to the Koyal Society, and also to the Antiquarian Society in Somerset House. In the first I was present at the admission as ‘Mellows^’ of Sir Charles Brisbane, a distinguished mathe- matician and governor of Saint Vincent, and of Consul- General Salt, the fellow-traveller of Lord Valentia, author of a description of the interior of Abyssinia, with which country he tried to establish friendly relations with England, the rupture of which, a little more than half a century later, was to cost eight millions of pounds sterling to the one nation, and his throne and life to the sovereign of the other. Mr. Salt had also made some successful studies on the phonetic system of hieroglyphics as treated by Doctor Thomas Young and Champollion, and he well deserved the scientific distinction he received on the present occasion, as well as his subsequent appointment of Consul-General in Egypt. At the meeting of the Antiquaries, Avhich was held simultaneously in an adjoining apartment, and of which society Mr. Hamilton was one of the vice-presidents, my good fortune made me acquainted with that well-known as well as esteemed prelate of Saint David’s, Thirlwall, who occupied the chair on the occasion in his character of a learned antiquary. To him was due the foundation of the Royal Society of Literature in a subsequent year. It was about this same period of my life that, on the occasion of his attending one of my private lectures on chemistry aspasia’s lyre. 333 in the laboratory at Arundel House, with the master of which he was intimate, John Morier, the author of “ Hadji Baba,” was added to the number of my acquaintances, and later to the number of those who sought my medical advice. About this same time commenced those friendly relations with Blanco White, which were to last to the end of his days. There was a certain similarity in Blanco White’s early fate and my own which brought us together insensibly, though it is not unlikely that my intimate acquaintance with his native land and language, as well as the similarity of our literary pursuits, were the causes of the continuance of our companionship, as I may observe likewise in regard to my relations before mentioned with John Morier, whose work from the Persian was at that time in everybody’s hands. With this oriental scholar and friend I used to carry on more congenial subjects of conversation respecting the Mahomedan countries we had both visited. I remember when he formed one of a small private committee in Dean Street, to examine an interesting object of Grecian antiquity brought from Athens by the master of the house, and respecting which an early suggestion of my own as to its nature and application was taken into consideration. In a sepulchral bronze urn of a semi-spherical shape, partly destroyed by time and v^erdigris, and which had been found in what was considered to have been the tomb of Aspasia, were discovered several fragments of wood delicately turned, which appeared to have been some slight structure. Attempts to put them together, so as to divine the use they had served, had proved vain, and the matter had been set aside. One day, when at leisure, 1 asked permission to study the fragments. First of all I took di’awings of the natural size in pencil of each fragment separately, and next, as they appeared when arranged so as to bring them in close 334 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. and fitting contact. The appearance the figure assumed by the time one half of the fragments had been put together at once supplied the hint of the form which the other half should make, and the use which the whole of it was intended to represent, namely, an Apollinean lyre, probably the identical one which served the irresistible Athenian beauty to retain captive the son of Xanthippus. My readers will find the restored lyre in one of the halls of the British Museum. The occupations and engagements of a permanent Under- secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Lord Castle- reagh at this particular epoch, constituted a post of incessant labour and vigilance, when all hands were against and all Europe in arms to overthrow a self-made sovereign, Avho had marched over the whole Continent with giant strides, knocking at every capital in turn, leaving his despotic behest behind him at each, until he found not only man, but Nature herself against him. The principal Minister with the second Under-Secretary, Mr. Planta, being absent at a congress abroad, Mr. Hamilton had the entire charge of receiving and replying to despatches from many parts, and I have known him to be roused from his sleep very often twice and three times in the same night to receive expresses from the Continent requiring either immediate reply or consultation with some member of the Cabinet. I resided then in his immediate neighbourhood, 16 , Charles Street, Crosvenor Square, where my wife and child had joined me. The management of the Foreign Office had been made one of anxiety, from hostile feelings that prevailed politically against the previous administration when the Marquis of Wellesley was foreign secretary, and the famous letters of Vetus, as sharp and as ably written as those of Junius, had made the occupants in Downing Street quake, until the discovered writer of them, Edward Sterling, an Irish half-pay officer. THE PENINSULAR WAR. 335 showed a disposition to side with the actual administration (Liverpool’s). About this time the Austrians were marching to the reconquest of their lost provinces in Lombardy. Lieute- nant-General Sir Robert Wilson was appointed military commissioner at the head-quarters in the north of Italy, and Mr. Hamilton, unknown to me, sent him the expression of his private wish that Sir Robert should call on my father at his official residence in Milan, and offer him Sir Robert’s official aid for himself and family if he required it with the Austrian authorities. I did not learn of this kind and friendly act of Mr. Hamilton’s until a year after, when in communication with Sir Robert himself. At this time the English government had determined to disseminate such information as would tend to rouse people under the yoke of a French military rule ; and as regarded Italy, which was wholly in the hands of the French, except such parts as the Austrians occupied in virtue of former treaties, the bulletins from the Peninsular ti'iumphant armies were purposely translated and largely distributed among the Italians, to stimulate them to follow the example of the Spaniards. These bulletins were consequently handed over to me in their original for translation, printed, and distributed through the hands of proper agents through- out the Italian peninsula, appearing also in a journal, entitled “L’ltalico.” During these pressing occupations on my part all studies were suspended in order that I might devote the whole of my time to the needful object, and such bulletins recording the military successes of the British army came sometimes faster than the translator could accomplish his task creditably. One of the bulletins, which recorded the victory of Vittoria (though compared with Sadowa, Sedan, or Metz it was but a skirmish), was translated, printed, and dis- 836 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANYILLE. tribiitecl before tlie preparations at Vauxhall for a grand evening illumination and fete were completed. To tliat fete, admission to wbicli was by select tickets, to be obtained from a number of aristocratic stewards, and wbicb was made memorable by some royal wrangles it gave rise to, my wife and I accompanied Mr. Hamilton and his family. Vast as the western and southern suburbs of London are, the number of carriages that encumbered them on the occasion was such that a line formed in Pall Mall at three o’clock, P.M., did not reach the entrance of the gardens before seven or eight o’clock, to be received by the fashion- able stewards in their evening dress and with their white wands of office at the entrance. Arrivals continued till a much later hour, and those who came too late for music, Madame Sacchis, or the tumbling and pantomimes of the hired theatrical artists, were in time for refreshments and supper. In spite of many rules of exclusiveness, one per- ceived a certain mixture of society, which however did not detract from the grand and decorous manner in which the fete was conducted. Altogether the general sight was im- posing, and the illumination of the whole garden, in which almost every leaf represented a variegated lamp, casting a splendour mimicking sunlight, while over our heads was spread a canopy of the darkest azure twinkling with myriads of splendid stars. To a few who had been in the secret a sort of royal vaudeville which escaped general attention was enacted in the crowd. The Prince and Princess of W ales had attended, each hoping that the other would not be present, but when once aware that such was not the case, a game of hide and seek was kept up for an hour or so to avoid meeting, much to the general amusement, thus adding something to the merriment, but nothing to the credit of the intended display of national rejoicing at a glorious triumph of the British arms against France, THE LANCASTEIAN SYSTEM. 337 I confess that I derived much greater pleasure, and I may add edification, at a visit I paid the day after the fete, in company with Monsieur de Chateauneuf, a friend and travelling associate of Baron Humboldt, with whom I had become acquainted at one of the lectures on geology by Professor Hare. Monsieur de Chateauneuf was in London to inquire into the state of public education, and our joint visit to a great Lancastrian school well suited us both. At that school we were met by Admiral Hamilton — no con- nection of my friend, but so intimate with him that the admiral left him the guardian of his only daughter, a most intelligent and spirituelle young lady, who afterwards married a distinguished officer, Colonel Edward FitZ“ gerald, to whom I am indebted for acts of kindness, while he owes me his life, saved in the very instant of an apoplectic seizure, a fortunate result which prolonged his existence and inaugurated a friendship of more than half a century's duration. Admiral Hamilton being in some degree connected with the managers of the great establishment Monsieur de Cha- teauneuf and myself were visiting, put us in the way of forming a just notion of its object and means. The pupils were made to go through all the parts of the system, which was both simple and logical, albeit in appearance compli- cated. If the results generally, and in all the schools of the same denomination said to be spread over England, corresponded with the limited sample we beheld on this occasion, I should be tempted to rank the system in a humanitarian point of view Avith the one in Avhich I partly received my own earliest instruction in Italy, I mean the Pestalozzian system. Both systems were based on emulation and a method of imparting instruction simultaneously and with great expedition to a large number of scholars by the assistance of other scholars, constituting what may be VOL, L Z 338 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILUIA called the mutual or monitorial education. The good quaker who originated the Lancastrian system was not destined to live to witness the happy result of his bright idea, the bringing which into active operation in many parts of England and Canada had involved him in embarrassments that rendered self-exile compulsory. On the 13th of September, 1813, Earl Clancarty and Mr. Sydenham, formerly a diplomatic agent at Lisbon, dined at Arundel House. His lordship some time after the cloth was withdrawn tendered to Mr. Hamilton a document purporting to be an official protest of several Portuguese officers, who complained that they had been ill treated in certain transactions by some British officers, and now claimed redress and compensation. The paper was a long one, and written wholly in the Portuguese language. Mr. Hamilton handed it across the table to me, when having cast my eyes over it, I was able to state in a few words the nature of the complaint and the compensation expected, at the same time I volunteered to translate the entire docu- ment, an offer which was gladly accepted both by my lord and Mr. Hamilton. I may add that the question was disposed of in a just and honourable manner, to the satis- faction of the aggrieved. These services rendered by me to the Government were always suitably acknowledged, and I thus found myself in the receipt of an additional income to that arising from the tutorship and my half-pay. These increments of income came in very opportunely, for on the 4th of January, 1814, another child, a son, was born to me in Charles Street, Grosvenor Square, Mr. Plamilton’s fifth son, Arthur, being born on the same day and at the same hour. Mr. Hamilton’s son lived to become a commissioner in the West Indies for the suppression of the slave trade, and a useful member of society, whereas I was less fortunate than my friend : the son born in Charles A DIPLOMA OF M.E.C.B. 839 Street, who grew up to become Lieutenant and Adjutant in the 89th Regiment of Foot after a strict education in a German Military College, was snatched suddenly from his devoted parents by a terrible accident Having completed the third volume of my Italian journal, L’ Italico,^’ I dissolved my association with two Italians who had contributed to it, and confined myself to the trans^ lation of diplomatic and official papers from Spain, Italy, and Greece. In the mean time my attendance at all the surgical lectures throughouL the winter, and at the hospital, including a course of dissections in those most practical but insufferable anatomical rooms of Mr. Brooks’s, in Blenheim Passage, Great Marlborough Street, having added all that was needed to my professional knowledge of the art, I tendered myself to the council of the College of Surgeons in Lincoln’s Inn, claiming to be admitted this time a mem- ber of that body corporate. Accordingly a diploma, after a long examination by Blizard, Blick, Everard Home, and other examiners was signed and handed over to me, October, 1813, wdien I found myself enrolled in the list of members of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, at present denominated Royal College of Surgeons of England. But always work, work and no play, was not quite suited to my constitution. I experienced at times an actual yearn- ing for society and the mixture of the utile dulci^ without however wishing to fritter away valuable hours. I there- fore set about gaining admission into the Ro}ml Institution of Great Britain, which had recently been formed on the suggestion of Count Rumford, a distinguished Bavarian nobleman and savant (married to the widow of the guillo- tined Lavoisier), under a powerful and illustrious patronage, and which institution took its rise at the house of my vener- able friend and patron, Sir Joseph Banks, he bringing 310 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILI/E. forward such an association of talent as well as of noble and wealthy patrons of science as must have startled the men of science in every country. As I was fortunate in forming a more intimate connection with this illustrious body of scientific men in the course of time, I abstain now from stating more than the fact of my admission into it, having continued faithful to its Lares for the last fifty-eight years, and being very nearly the senior of its members. Its managers have very judiciously republished the original proposal of Count Rumford in the proceedings of the institution. Two other scientific societies afforded me occasion of spending some of my evenings in an amusing and instruc- tive manner. I allude to the Linnman Society, and to another more enlivening as well as useful one, the Society of Arts. This last became a favourite with me on account of its division into sections, by which active members were afforded good opportunities to work and express their opinions to numerous assemblies of well-qualified hearers. The society was then in a progressive state, and in time took a higher rank among the useful societies of the metro- polis, under the patronage and innate moral sense of that Royal German Prince whose presence in England served to introduce an era distinct from any other of the preceding eras, being marked by superiority of intellect and great sesthetic tendencies. The profitable connection with the Foreign Office, and the benefit it was intended to be to the Italian cause, were not the only advantages I derived from the establishment of “LTtalico,” ostensibly set up as a means to encourage Italian literature in this country. The good will and support of the great Italian artists at the King’s Opera House was another gain of which I most readily availed myself. It was natural that in a periodical professing to MADAME CATALAN!. 841 address itself to a class of society whose knowledge of the inelodions language of Metastasio led them to love music, critical reviews of the opera and its performers should form part of its contents. This share of the editorial office I took upon myself, the result of which was an acquaintance and friendly connection with the elite of the singers engaged at the opera, which was soon to be so extended as to be- come general ; for a gentleman, Mr. Ayrton, himself a most accomplished musician, who had the direction of the Opera House under Mr. Waters, had prevailed on me to accept the office of honorary physician to the Opera. This I did most willingly, first in consideration of my former friendly connection with Mr. Ayrton, to whom the merit is due of having introduced into this country the best works of Mozart, hitherto scarcely known, and secondly because it imposed on me none but light and sympathetic duties. Tramezzani, a gentleman born, and almost a fellow-townsman of mine, a tenor and actor the like of whom we have not since seen in this country, was the lode-star of the day, to whom suc- ceeded the delicious Rubini. Tramezzani held at his house in Gerrard Street a nightly conversazione^ except on opera nights. Madame Catalani had likewise her soirees at Bromptoip at a house called the Hermitage, on the site of the present Ovingtoii Square, where she lived en princesse with her husband, Monsieur de Valobreque, and received the elite of London society during the summer days in her pretty garden, now and then indulging her fair aristocratic visitors with some of her inimitable fioriture^ in which art no soprano capable of imitating her has since appeared at any theatre in Europe. Those of my readers who share with me the privilege of surviving the glorious opera days here alluded to, will agree with me that our contemporaries, and I venture to add their successors, will look in vain for a chance of ever enjoying a similar treat to that which the 842 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANTILLEa two incomparable and inimitable artists I have named afforded to their audiences night after night in their histrionic not less than melodious art, and especially in their respective parts in the last act of the great opera of Semiramide. But I will not dwell farther on this, nor introduce more of my theatrical acquaintances, most of whom I found well- bred, agreeable in conversation, and pleasing companions. Their history has been told in octavo volumes and in the columns of the daily English journals, which have always been distinguished for their feidlletons on the Italian Opera. The privileges attached to my post in that estab- lishment were most pleasant, for they enabled me often to procure for one or two friends the satisfaction of being present on the first night of an opera, by giving them a place in the box assigned to me in virtue of my office. CHAPTER XXII. 1814 . . Domiciled at Brompton — -Mr. Hamilton's book of reference for the Foreign Office — Arrival of Madame de Stael in London — The fair on the Thames — Fire at the Custom House — Great stock-jobbing fraud— Fall of Napoleon I. — An offer to go to Paris and Milan — Keach Paris with Mr. Hamilton — Charles de Lafolie — Mr, J, Bitchie — Start for Milan with despatches — Reception by my father— Mgnshal Bellegarde— Dis° cussions with Sir Robert Wilson — The public mind in Italy-— Carlo Botta— Revisit Pavia— Tour through the chief Italian cities. Eventful of consequences affecting my destiny as was tlie year 1813, the year following, 1814, leaves its ante- cedents behind in more respects than one. I xvas now with my family occupying a small but comfortable house facing a large open space — a green paddock since become sacred ground, being occupied by a new parochial church and an oratory— in Saint Michaeks Place, Brompton, No. 16. I found the situation more convenient for my daily inter- course with my pupils’ family, who had now changed Arundel House, Fulham, for a more showy and convenient residence called Stanley Grove, Chelsea, having an exten- sive garden, in which a Temple,” or laboratory, was erected for chemical lectures and demonstrations on natural history and botany. My services as an interpreter for the Foreign Office, whither I often accompanied Mr, Hamilton, became of suffi- cient importance to be placed sometimes before my other ordinary employments. Although harassed by incessant occupations with the several diplomatic ministers of foreign 844 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANYlLLU. superior, Lord Gastlereagli, absent at liead-quarters, Hamilton about this time coiiceived the idea of collecting all the pieces officielles^ or other creditable and interesting documents, articles of importance in politics, administra- tive science, as well as diplomatic documents drawn from English newspapers of both political parties, and from foreign and American journals having a character for honesty. All such, carefully cut out and pasted on large folio pages, were indexed with the origin whence obtained, their dates, country, and the subject to which they referred, thus supplying the librarian of the Foreign Office with a new and abundant source of useful information for the members of the government, who on many occasions have had reason to be thankful for the advantage they derived from this new scheme of reference. Its execution vras confided to Mr. Hertslet, librarian to the Foreign Office, who during a long and industrious life in that office gave ample proofs of his ability and zeal in the service, by the publication of many useful politico-diplomatic and statistical works that have become important and necessary additions to every statesman's library. I can declare, from a per- sonal intercourse of many years, that few public servants of the Crown more justly deserved the pension which he enjoyed until his death in 1870. I remember the parti- culars as well as the origin of this new branch of his department in our Foreign Office with reasonable satis- faction, having contributed from its very commencement in developing it, by suggesting occasional articles from foreign journals that might have escaped attention, and supplying translations of the same on the occasion.'^ I ought not to have dismissed the year 1813 in my refer- * At this date^ 1870^ 1 deeply regret to learn, semi- officially, that this most nsefnl politico-statistical, as well as literary and encyclopa3dic miscellany, has been for some time discontinued. 345 MADAME DE STAEL, (-liceS to London life, without recording the arrival of a lady with a European name among the aristocratic and intel- lectual circles of the capital, an event to which nearly as iniich importance was attached as to any of those which v/ere related almost daily in the public journals from the head-quarters of the continental allies. Such an event was the arrival of Madame de Stael in London, and her unex- pected presence at one of the fashionable soupers at the Coimtess of Bessborough’s. A select party had previously attended at the King’s Theatre to witness Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Jordan in their inimitable representations, which had made a deep impression on the sensitive daughter of Necker. The same party assembled again, with suitable additions of noble and learned guests, at the countess’s souper. On Madame de Stael entering the salon, and her name being announced, all the gentlemen assembled retired to the farthest end of the room, as if reluctant to approach her. To such a point was this carried, that when supper was announced not a creature could be prevailed upon to go and offer to lead madame into the supper-room, each gentleman excusing himself awkwardly, skulking one be- hind the other, leaving the lady in suspense at the singular appearance she and the company made at that moment. At last Lord Townshend boldly advanced and gave her his arm. At supper matters were rather worse, for on Madame de Stael being seated, the gentlemen drew themselves quietly to the bottom of the table, fearful to be addressed by her, so that Lady Bess borough had to seat herself by her side. Sheridan was present at the supper without knowing that he would meet Madame de Stael, and when his name was mentioned to her by the mistress of the house, and Sheridan pointed out, Madame de Stael exclaimed, turning to him, “M/z, voila le grand Sheridan," who, however. 346 autobiography of DE. GRANVILLE. did not appear inclined to go up to her until Lord Holland actually pushed him toiA^ards her. She then addressed him with several flaitering compliments, to which Sheridan replied by observing that he knew not one word of French. “ Tant mieux,” cried Madame de Stacil, “ car alors j’aurais riionneur d’ entendre la belle langue Anglaise, que je parle tres-mal moi-meme, mais que j’entends tres-bien.” Tavo striking occurrences in the metropolis at the com- mencement of the year 1814 served to ivithdraiv somewhat the public attention from the all-absorbing military events that had converted the Avhole continent of Europe into a field of carna,ge. The river Thames took to freezing on the 17th, and continued frozen until the 24th of February. With my tiAm pupils I visited some of the Avooden booths erected upon it, and there purcha,sed some trifling articles as a reminder of this not very common event. Nineteen days later, the second occurrence alluded to, but in this instance most disastrous, came to add to the general be- Avilderment in Avhich the public Avas perpetuall}^ kept by every day’s tidings through the post from the allied armies. The Custom House of London had taken fire on the 12th of February, and AA^as destroyed, together Avith all the books, bonds, and documents, besides most of the adjoining warehouses. But even this disaster Avas forgotten, or dis- missed from consideration, Avhen one morning a travelling chaise coming from Dover, amd draAAm by four smoking, jaded horses, crossed Westminster Bridge at a rapid pace, and entered DoAvning Street with a foreign-clad inmate as a messenger, bringing the neAvs of the death of Napoleon and the defeat of the French army. It aa'^us one of the most audacious stock-jobbing frauds ever perpetrated. It marred the reputation of a popular and gallant officer, a Lord and M.P., while it caused untold fortunes to change hands among speculative people. FALL OP NAPOLEON. U1 Still real and extraordinary events were transpiring every day with a rapidity as great as their importance, bringing at last the allied armies into Paris, compelling Napoleon’s abdication on the 6th of April, and his depar- ture for his self-chosen place of monarchical exile on the 21st; permitting the entrance into Paris of Louis XVIII. on the 3rd of May, and finally producing the Treaty of Paris on the last day but one of that month. It takes away one’s breath to have to rehearse such a long list of facts and incidents, each in itself the foundation of many more future and much graver transactions. However, in my own case their influence proved as pro- ductive of advantage and joy as it was unexpected. One day Mr. Hamilton requested me to visit him in Downing Street, where, after giving me the latest continental news, he informed me privately that Lord Castlereagh, who as British plenipotentiary had attended the negotiation at Chatillon, which he broke off, had expressed a wish to have him in Parris to, assist during the deliberation of the allied sovereigns. He next referred to my often-expressed desire to have an opportunity of going to see my father and family at Milan, stating that as the British government might possibly require a special messenger to convey ofiicial directions to their military and diplomatic commissioners in Italy, Lord Castlereagh might feel disposed to confide that charge to me. His lordship had been well aware of the part I had taken in the cause of Italian independence, and had accepted my pamphlet just published with the usual complimentary expressions of thanks and a promise to peruse it.^ This pamphlet I also proposed to present in person to * ^^Appello ad Alessandro Imperatore e Autocrate di tutte le Russie. Sul destine dell’ Italia.'’ Londra, 1814. Rees, 62, Pall Mall (written in three langiiages—Italiaii, French, and English). 348 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. His Majesty the Emperor of Russia at the Paris Congress. I was quite aware that Lord Castlereagh’s political views on such a question coincided with those which dictated the pamphlet. I may add, with the experience of subsequent events, as well as in justice to the zeal of the higher autho- rities in the English Foreign Office, that it was not owing to remissness on their part that the independence of Italy was not obtained or even pointedly submitted for deli- beration to the Congress. There was no want of good-will on the part of England. The difficulty was in the para- mount interested views of the Lvo imperial chiefs of Russia and Austria concerning Poland and Italy. If Alexander insists on the title of King of Poland,^’ said Francis of Austria, A I too shall insist on that of King of Italy;” and it was so determined. I had employed the few hours of holiday I had at my disposal at Christmas in preparing my appeal, and I do not regret the step I had taken. I accordingly accompanied Mr. Hamilton to Paris, where he took up his abode at the English Embassy as the guest of Sir Charles Stuart, whilst I went to the house of my eldest sister, Madame de Lafolie (living in the same street), whom I had not seen since my departure from home — the image of our dear mother in appearance as well as in her amiable qualities. Her husband, Charles Jean de Lafolie, occupies a conspicuous niche in the ^^Nouvelle Biographie Gen&ale,” published by Didot Freres, where he is styled ‘‘Polygraphe Frangais, ne a Paris 1780, et mort jeune le 4® Fevrier, 1824.” He fell a victim to a complicated affec- tion of the heart. To an anonymous memoir from his pen, which created a great sensation, it is owing that the famed General Moreau’s trial did not have a tragical end. Lovers of French antiquities are indebted to him for an extended account, in several volumes, of all the monuments of Paris, CHARLES DE LAFOLIE. 849 as well as for a practically artistic description of the design, casting, and erection of the colossal bronze equestrian statue of Henry IV. on the Pont Neuf in Paris. The Italians, whose language was almost natural to him, owe to Lafolie the advantage of an Italian encyclopaedic journal, entitled “ II Poligrafo,” which stood unrivalled for many years, not from the abundance of matter and the interest of its contents so much as for the terseness of language in which it was written. Like many more able men who look to the accumulation of intellectual wealth to the neglect of more substantial resources, Charles de La- folie left his widow and only son ill provided against the wants of this world, which no mere reputation in the departed, however high, suffices to supply. Mr. Hamilton was soon plunged in medias res^ for the political transactions of almost the whole of Europe, I may say, were at that time managed in Paris. A congress ; despatches from the several military commissioners at the allies’ head-quarters ; deputations from minor states claim- ing redress ; cabinet despatches or official notes that called for immediate consideration ; all such were occupation enough for the distinguished statesmen assembled in a vast metropolis at the very instant of casting off a regretted ruler to reaclopt a recalled ancient one long forgotten and little cared for. I was introduced to the gentlemen of the Embassy’s Chancellerie, and next had the honour of being presented to Lord Castlereagh himself, who approved of my “ Appello,” and was pleased to assure me that it should have his support. Among the gentlemen attached to the Embassy was Mr. J. Pdtchie, from whom I had received a short time previous a letter in London on some scientific question in connection with his great desire to travel in Africa. He thought, that having been on the coasts of that part of the world, and also in some of the Spanish provinces 35 0 AIJTOBIOGEAFHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. that had intercourse with Barbary, I might supply him with useful information. This fortuitous acquaintance led little by little to a more intimate connection and correspondence between us, which was carried on with more or less reci- procal useful results, the nature and issue of which may possibly find a record in the course of the present memoirs. What I can acknowledge at present is, that as long as Mr. Ritchie remained at his post in Paris, I owed him a debt of gratitude for the facilities vfhich, with the full sanction of his superiors, he afforded me in carrying on general correspondence with learned foreigners and scientific societies for several years in succession. At length, after a few days’ residence in Paris, I received instructions to hold myself ready to proceed to Itah^ with despatches to several parts of that country, I hired a light but strong travelling carriage, and having received the sealed bag at the Embassy, whence I intended to start with post-horses and the usual passports granted to government messengers, besides my own signed in London and vise on Paris, I set off at eight o’clock at night on the 25th of May, 1814. Naturally T selected the most direct and the easiest route, through Lyons, Chamb5ry, crossing the Simplon to Turin, and thence to Milan (a distance which at that time the post took five days to accomplish), I can hardly express what I felt as I inhaled my native air while . descending into Domo d’ Ossola in my open caleclie early in the morning of the last day of any journey over the magnificent Simplon road, the bright red sun rising on my left and casting a splendid illuminrition over the surrounding scenery, I seemed to welcome every high peak that came in sight, every precipice I met, every torrent and cascade, the noise of which was music to my ears, and I admired as I passed them every village, hamlet, chalet, hunter’s hut, no matter in what state or condition. All was beautiful to KBTURN TO MILAN. my eyes ! Oli ! tlie longing per la Patria ! How it over^ lies every other feeling ! It was late in the evening when I reached Milan, where I found the gates closed, and a body of Austrian soldiers on guard, much as was the case when I left home in 1802. Some delay occurred until my passport and my cliarahter ” were exhibited to the commandant, when he suffered me to pass, accompanied by an orderly to escort me to the resi- dence of the military commissioner to his Majesty the King of England, General Wilson, whom I fortunately found at home, and by whom, as well as by his aide-de-camp, Captain Charles, I was most kindly received. Having delivered up my despatch bag, I got in return for it the next day the following acknowledgment: certify that Dr. Granville has delivered to me the despatches from the Foreign Office, and from the Eight Honourable Lord Viscount Castlereagh, addressed to myself and to Lord William Bentinck, on the 29th instant at 8 o'clock p.m. Milan, May 30th, 1814. Robert Wilson, Major-General.’^ This official ceremony being ended, I was very considerately allowed to withdraw by Sir Robert, who was aware on what other errand I had come to Milan, and knew from a message he had received from my father in the course of the day that I was anxiously expected. We agreed to meet at noon on the following day, and I directed the postilion to drive me home. The moment my caliche drove into the courtyard of my father’s official residence, my eldest brother (he who twelve years before had been my judge at Venice, and was now deleg ato at Como), who had just arrived in Milan to meet me, and with him my second brother, Anthony, and my younger sister, Paulina, carried me upstairs and deposited me in the outstretched arms of my aged father, who stood on the threshold ready to receive and most affectionately 853 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. embrace me. That we both shed tears need hardly be said : tears of joy on the one part at the restoration of a fugitive son, — of mingled pain and joy on the part of that son who found his father bereft of his cherished partner in life, he himself looking around in vain for that beloved mother whom he had left twelve years before to her grief and to her (alas ! never to be gratified) hope of beholding again her favourite son on this earth. Our family circle at home continued around me for a whole week, several other relatives joining us at dinner or in the evening, on all which occasions a reciprocal inter- communication of past and actual events tended to add greater interest to our interviews. I learned then that my third brother, Joseph, who was absent from Milan on important business, was prospering as a stock-broker, and had a large family ; that my sister Paulina’s husband was one of the judges at Como ; that F erdinand, my youngest brother, whom I had left quite a boy, was now employed in the Imperial Chancellerie in Vienna. My dear eldest brother meanwhile had to tell me of the loss of his first wife, a Countess de Spar, and his marriage some years after to his second, a widow, Countess Ragazzoni, while he was left with an only daughter by the first marriage, who after- wards wedded Count Adelasio of Brescia. As to the numerous cousins whom I had left behind me in 1802 , all had grown and prospered ; some were married, some yet single, but all honourably and successfully engaged in various branches of the public service, of art, or of law. War, and the heavy rule of Austria, had proved disastrous to some members. . Two or three younger nephews, forced into the service of that nation as cavalry soldiers, subse- quently rose to the rank of officers, and fell in some of the recent conflicts with the French. One only, Leopold, sur- vives as a captain of lancers quartered in Hungary, SIR ROBERT WILSON. 853 By the end of the week all my younger and active kindred had taken their leave to return to their respective homes, while I remained in my father’s house all the time of my stay at Milan. Sir Robert Wilson judged it neces- sary that I should be presented to Mar^chal Bellegarde, who had entered the ancient Austro-Lombard provinces with his army, under a convention to occupy them until the Congress of Vienna should have determined the ultimate fate of Italy, but who was just then in reality commander- in-chief of the Austrian armies, ruling in the room of Prince Eugene, driven from the vice-royalty of Italy. The presen- tation took place early one morning, when I took the opportunity of adding to its importance by presenting at the same time a letter in my favour from Lieutenant- General Count Nugent of the Austrian service, whom I had known in London. The marhchal was particularly courteous, and promised every facility for my intended tour through central Italy, of which Sir Robert had already apprised him when he applied for a general passport for that object in my behalf. On the following day a note from the secretary of his excellency requested my company to dinner, which I attended in my naval uniform. Sir Robert and I were old acquaintances, as I had known him in London, where he stood godfather to my second child, while I had attended his wife. Lady Wilson, whose health had always been delicate. Sir Robert’s views of Italy and my own coincided entirely. He would frequently converse with me on the subject, on some of which occa- sions he would lay on the floor of the drawing-room a large map of Italy recently published by the defunct Italian government, and with his cane in hand point out the strategical, political, and administrative points which he considered suited to illustrate and support our joint views regarding the realization of the washes expressed by many VOL. T. A A 354 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. of tlie most enlightened liberal Italians spread over the country, who had read the various publications in Italian I had been able, Avith the aid of the British government, to distribute throughout the Italian peninsula. Sir Robert and I, hoAvever, differed on one paramount question, — the form of government under which Italian independence should be proclaimed. It Avas my earnest Avish, as that of the large party to whom I adhered, to see, a constitutional monarchy established in my native country, Avith a king selected from the oldest royal stock of Italian sovereigns ; in other Avords, a prince of the house of Savoy, illustrious from the earliest times for valour, chivalry, firmness of character, and patriotic feeling, as shoAvn in their conduct since that aAvful eruption of 1799 in France. That avalanche they had endeavoured to stem for many months on the heights of the Alps, and Avhen overcome they Avithdrew Avithout yielding to the Gallic giant, preferring to live secluded in a petty insular, independent sovereignty until changes of fortune and the spreading of sounder political ideas in the country should bring about a different state of affairs, and afford to the Italians themselves the opportune occasions to fight for and secure permanently their OA\m national independence. This dream of my manhood, thank Heaven, I have lived to see realized, and I am not a little proud of the share I have had in bringing it about. Sir Robert Wilson, on the other hand, saAv no chance of success but in a republican form of government for the Avhole of Italy. The examples of that form of administra- tion Avhich it Avas my lot to Avitness at the close of the last century in the Milanese territory in Liguria, the strife, litigiousness, schisms, and braAvls in Avhich I saAv myself draAvn when hardly able to distinguish right from Avrong, or to judge correctly of the many abuses in the public ad- ministration,— all these things were not calculated to wdn FORM OF GOVERNMENT FOR FrALY. niy assent to tlie warm and earnest arguments of my really gallant friend in favour of a republic. “ Besides,” said I to tire general, “ the Italians, no more than their neighbours the French, are fit for such a form of government. Their intrinsic character, nay, their very nature, revolts against the notion of equality. As regards Italy, had there not been a doge, with his pompous ceremonies ; the senate, each with his individual selfish sway ; the Libro d’ Oro ; I Dieci^ and the distinction between the patricians and the earth-born, the mighty republic of Venice would not have endured as many years as it did centuries. The old Italian republics, what were they in reality ? Tliey were princi- palities with a republican title. For how long were the French proletariat able to sustain their own republic one and indivisible which they paid so dearly to purchase ? and how much blood and gold did not they squander in striving to comprehend what a republican administration really was, and learn at the same time that the rule of a single tyrant is preferable to that of a legion of myrmidons ! ” In con- clusion, I told Sir Robert distinctly, that if in the course of my peregrinations through the peninsula I should find op- portunities to proselytize the anti- Austrian cliques of en- lightened Italians I might meet, I hoped it would be in the sense of a monarchical, and not of a republican independence. In accordance with the arrangement entered into with Mr. Hamilton, who had returned to England, I commenced my confidential correspondence wdth him on my arrival at Milan. My letters refer naturally to times long past, and offer but little interest in these days, except as indications of those varied (many of them extraordinary) events which have since come to pass, and have served for the compilation of the history of Europe during the first half of the present century. In that light the letters which I may occasionally .1 A 2 356 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. insert may serve either to confirm or rectify, sometimes to add to, the statements put forward by the writers of that history, while they will not be found altogether unnecessary for the elucidation of my own narrative. June, 1814. Milan. “ Direzione Generale delle Poste. “Dear Sir, — I avail myself of the few hours’ notice which Mar^chal Bellegarde has given of his intention to despatch a courier to Paris, in order to inform you of my arrival here on the 29th ultimo at night. I waited immediately on General Sir Robert Wilson with the letters I had brought from England and those from Viscount Castlereagh, by whose private secretary’s advice I remained three days in Paris, in order to carry any despatch there might be ready for Lord William Bentinclc, commanding the English troops occupying Genoa. Sir Robert Wilson was just on the point of sending off a courier to Genoa, and as there is nothing in that capital at this moment demanding my attention, I delivered to him, with his assent, the letters I had brought for Lord William, and also for Sir Edward Pellew, containing duplicate notice of his elevation to the peerage ” (a more welcome message than the one Sir Edward had sent me on my arrival in his fleet in 1812, when he removed me from a desirable frigate to an undesirable line-of-battle ship to serve his own parti- cular purpose). “ Lord William was to have left Genoa the very night I arrived at Milan, and consequently I should have been too late had I attempted to get to him. “ I shall not undertake to describe the many symptoms I noticed of the present convulsed state of France through the districts I passed. You were well informed on the subject in Paris. The disorganized state of the country strikes even the most superficial observer, and I have met PUBLIC MIND IN ITALY. 857 several who had traversed the country on their return home to England, and who confirmed me in my obser- vations. I began these at Lyons, and all the way up to the Simplon, and it would surprise you to find how greatly the inhabitants of those mountains like to meddle in the politics of the day. It would seem as if the late commotion, and the great changes to which it gave rise in Europe, had served to give a turn for political thinking, even to the meanest of the dwellers in these mountainous districts. Associated with this state of the public mind, there is an unnatural restlessness and an air of discontent which they do not attempt to conceal. The temporaiy suspense of the government police has given them leisure and facility to indulge in that dearest of all privileges to them — free- thinking and free speaking, of both of which they had so long been deprived, and this indulgence is by every one carried to excess. The smallest encouragement suffices to put you in possession of their way of thinking, and thus to become acquainted with the spirit and character of public opinion. ‘‘You no doubt remember the ideas mentioned in an interview in London as regards the disposition of the Italians in general, but of the Milanese Jn particular, respecting the Austrians. Nothing that has happened since induces me to alter my notions ; rather the contrary. But I was far from supposing that the same feeling of animosity towards the same nation was shared by the Savoyards and Piedmontese in general. This, however, is indisputable, as I had opportunities of ascertaining in my conversations with some of the leading men of the day, such as Saint Marran and others in Turin, where I had letters to deliver to Count Vidua, the Piedmontese Prime Minister, on the part of Count d’ Agli4, Minister of the King of Sardinia in London, and our common friend. 358 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. passing tlirougli Savoy in my way to Turin, I could not help remarking that the government troops were on the alert, and prepared to defend the Alpine passes from either side, as they had clone most persistently in 1796 ; and I was glad to find that some of the Italian regiments and officers, ci-devant in the service of the French-Italian kingdom, had joined the standard of the house of Savoy, and had been incorporated with the Piedmontese troops. The prospect of a return of the royal house of Savoy was looked for with intense interest, and the Savoyards seemed to have religiously treasured up their feelings of loyalty towards their native princes, at which fact, with my pecu- liar political opinions, I heartily rejoiced. I remain yours truly, B. G. W. Hamilton, Esq., Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, London.” I soon found myself reconciled to my novel position in the old quarters, and in a day or two later surrounded by old faces which I had left very young ones at my departure twelve years before. The congratulations and the inter- change of friendly expressions were of course such as one might expect on similar occasions. I found all my friends and contemporaries of one political opinion and faith, — faith in the stability of Italian independence when properly secured by the adoption of the constitutional monarchical form of rule ; an opinion not differing from that which I had promulgated in all my public writings in England, and in my translations in Italy also. With Carlo Botta, Ugo Foscolo, Angeloni, Cattaneo, Pallavicini, all ardent patriots, I preached this great truth till I was hoarse : You will never achieve independence without an armed champion to support your aspirations to that blessed political condition which the freest nation in the world has purchased for CARLO BOTTA. 359 itself with tlie honors of a revolution. Italy, a nation of 25,000,000 of people, from the Alps to the southern shores of Sicily, and from Nice to Trieste, the mistress of intel- lectual civilization, the teacher of the Fine Arts and of the elements of beauty and taste ; Italy, the inspiring goddess of poetical genius, the instructress in political laws and political economy ; Italy, who, at the destruction of Athe- nian Greece and of her oavii Roman empire, Avas the only country remaining which could point out to the world, eager for enlightenment, hoAV to escape from a state of brutish abasement to reach one of sentimental and intel- lectual enjoyment ; Italy, in fine, Avill not, cannot achieve her great destiny Avithout first promoting the extension of the kingdom of Piedmont, Avhich stands noAv isolated on its Alpine summits as a great fugleman to all the Italian races about to be drilled in the theory and practice of liberty and independence. The day will come Avhen the ^ drilled ’ Avill help the drill-master to extend his oavii influence and command over the whole Italian peninsula ! Some of my audience Avere sceptical, others dissented. Carlo Botta, AAdiose friendship I Avas proud to acknoAvledge, Avas not likely to surrender that enthusiasm for a republican form of government with which his masterly composition of the History of America had inspired him. Ugo Foscolo Avas too Spartan to admit any regal theories. Yet had both of them survived but a feAv years longer, as their friend has done, they Avould have Avitnessed his, and not their OAvn, cherished ideas triumph and overcome all others. Tliese, then, Averc the ideas it Avas ray purpose to dissemi- nate during my visits to tlie chief cities of central Italy, all of them once, and some still, the seats of learning and intelligence with a high tone of civilization. There I Avas sure to meet Avith men Avhose minds had nreat influence over a rising generation of young students likely to take 360 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. high stations in the councils of a redeemed and self-ruling country. The facility which railroads at present afford of flying from place to place, different from the slow and incon- venient communication by horse conveyance such as I was condemned to, like every one else when I was last in the country, did not exist so as to enable me at once to visit my alma mater, Pavia. I did nevertheless pay a visit to that cherished spot, and renewed acquaintance with old school or college fellows, among whom I was grieved to And many changes had taken place, although the insti- tution itself had advanced and improved with the improve- ments of science and the belles -lettres. In Milan, my favourite literary retreat, the library of the old Brera, I found enlarged and greatly improved, a Pinacoteca being established in the buildiug, which offered to the lovers of first-class pictures a never-failing treat. My own lyceum of S. Alessandro had now assumed a more consequential rank, and some of the old teachers were still living and active, truly glad to see their former pupil. Some of my fellow-students, I learned, had now assumed the profes- sorial gown in other cities and institutions, and I took care to write down their names and abodes, with the full deter- mination to see some of them shortly. In the mean time, as the term of my residence abroad was limited, and as I had still some official communications to make to our English consul at Leghorn, and through him to Colonel Neil Campbell, English Commissioner and representative in the Isle of Elba, I prepared to depart at once for the south, taking the line east of the Apennines, so as to pass through many of the principal of the ancient lesser capitals of Italy. Before leaving England I had promised to make special inquiries into the condition and management of the prin- REACH PIACENZA. 361 cipal quarantine establishments in Italy, where a sad expe- rience had taught them to be strictly on their guard against the introduction of contagious diseases, by which indeed they were threatened in the east as well as the south ; and again more recently in the west, where they had to keep off the yellow fever from the Andalucian, Valencian, and Catalonian shores, places at which it had been so lately prevalent. As Leghorn was named as the place where I should find the most complete and best regulated lazaretto — another of those measures for which Italy stands indebted to the enlightened Grand Duke Leopold — I determined to make myself master of its details, with the view of practically applying them to any similar public establishment which I might succeed in persuading the English government to adopt. To this end I deter- mined to proceed to Leghorn as the winding-up of my other semi-political and literary investigations. Sir Robert Wilson having given me his instructions, I took leave of my father for the present, and set off on the 7th of June from Milan, traversed that most lovely and rich plain between it and Lodi, passing over the ever- memorable bridge to Casal Pusterlengo, and thence to Piacenza — the sight of which strongly reminded me of my comical embarkation on the Po in a Noah’s Ark about twelve years before — and crossed the river this time on a flying bridge. At the gates my passports and permits were again demanded by Austrian soldiers. There was certainly no lack of sentinels and out-posts over fair Italy with these hated tedescM, In the present instance the words “ Cour- rier du Cabinet Anglais,'^ screamed out by my servant, settled it all, and we entered Piacenza and there stopped for the night. On the following day, on arriving at Firenzuola, a little village, I was recommended not to proceed farther until a 362 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR, GRANVILLE, detachment of hussars should have passed on their way to Bologna, which they would do early the following morning, as the road was then infested with robbers and vagabonds of every sort, who during the late disturbances had been set free from prison. At this place I witnessed one of the most awful thunderstorms I ever remember to have seen. The close proximity of the village to the Apennines renders it liable to an almost daily repetition of these disagreeable electrical phenomena. Borgo San Donnino comes next, where we waded through the Torro, a formidable torrent rushing down almost per- pendicularly from the Apennines, and without a bridge. Castel Gandolfo follows, and next Parma, the entrance into which city, not less than the aspect of its principal street and large mansions in grej^ stones or brick, with their unusually lofty arches, present interesting objects to an architect. In Parma I halted for a couple of days to see two of my learned correspondents. Doctor Eubini and Professor Tomasini, the latter well known as the author of a novel theory of medicine, and afterwards to view the Correggios and pay my respects to Count Nugent, who kindly gave me a letter of introduction for the commandant of Bologna, to which city I drove, after resting a couple of days at Eeggio and Modena, with both of which places I was well acquainted. Of course the railroads have since put an end to excur- sions of the complicated kind I have described, and tra- vellers nowadays are transported to, through, or by the side of the several cities I have named with an expedition which admits of no time for observation. But I may still dwell with delight on the recollection of such an excursion as I have slightly indicated, as one of the most inviting, ngreeable, and instructive which an observant traveller SCENERY OF ITALY. 363 could desire to undertake. The landscape is throughout picturesque, here and there fantastical, and in the interior some of the towns afford specimens of architecture, statuary, and pictorial art that remind one of those we expect and are accustomed to meet with in large capitals or metropo- litan cities. But as I shall have to say much of all these matters when staying in Bologna, I shall not dwell longer on any analogous observations 1 made in the intervening cities I passed through. CHAPTEE XXIII. 1814. Arrival at Bologna — Cornelia Martinetti — Cardinal Mezzofanti — His metliocl of acquiring languages — Medical science in Bologna — Napoleon and the Institute — La Signora Tamhroni — Her lecture on Homer — Public buildings in Bologna — Italians fail to imitate the English constitutional system — Barbarian discipline — Leave Bologna for Florence — Threatened with brigands — The first to recommend a prince of the house , of Savoy as king of united Italy — Danger of restoring old sovereigns. I HAD received warnings long before I left England, and indeed the part I had all along taken against the Anstrian interest and politics might have led me to expect them, that my movements wonld be watched by that jealous government. Monsieur de E’enmann, the Counsellor of the Anstrian Embassy in .London, had addressed letters to the ministers at Vienna, annonncing my departure for Paris and Italy, and it was natural to suppose that from Vienna notice to the Austrian authorities in Milan, and elsewhere in Italy, would be forwarded to keep them on their guard against the manoeuvres of a political opponent. Aware of this, I took care to provide myself with letters of introduc- tion from the military commander (beginning with the chief, namely, Mar^chal Bellegarde) of one district to that of the district next in order throughout the line of my -intended journey, so as to preclude all possible excuse for any maltreatment on the pretence that I was an unknown individual without standing or character. Accordingly, through Sir Pobert Wilson, and my own personal acquain- tance, I obtained unmistakable documents from Mar4chal Bellegarde’s office, vouching for my individuality and CORNELIA MARTINETTI. 365 respectability^ and with these I deemed myself safe at the commencement, at all eyents, from all possible annoyance. The good effect of these preliminary precantions became evident on my arrival at Bologna, when, being conducted to the general commanding the Austrian troops and the city, my papers from the head-quarters at Milan, as well as the private recommendation General Count Nugent had given me at Parma, secured me a courteous and friendly reception. This was a great point gained, inasmuch as I intended to make Bologna my head- quarters, for many reasons. Arrived on the 28th of June, I took up my residence at the Citta di Parigi, a moderately decent hotel. According to etiquette, my first visit on the following morning was to Baron von Eckhart, who had not appeared at my examina- tion at his office on the previous evening. I found him to be a gentleman of very affable manners, and a man of the world ; his wife, to whom he had been married for many years, was an English lady he had met at Brussels. My next was a much more formidable visit. If there are any English tourists of Italy who survive from the early years of the present century, I would, in confirmation of my state- ment, fearlessly appeal to them to declare whether the most imaginative writer, or the limner most prone to flatter his original, has beheld, or known, or imagined an example of such exquisite beauty as the lady who wielded the sceptre of fashion and beauty in the higher circles of society in Bologna at the epoch I now refer to. I was forced to admit the possibility, which I had before stoutly denied, of the celebrated sculptor Canova — the most simple-minded and simple-hearted genius alive- — having fallen desperately in love with Cornelia Martinetti (as the lady was called), while modelling the bust which he afterwards transferred to the purest Carrara marble. 366 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Signor Martinetti, Cornelia’s linsband, a scientific archi- tect and antiquary, retired from an exalted profession that had made him a name and put him quite at his ease in the world, had raised a spacious fac-simile of a Pompeian house, with corresponding gardens and inviting terraces and porticos, where they welcomed strangers and natives who possessed any claim to he admitted to such an intellectual and artistic symposium. My own introduction I owed to II canonico Schiassi, a well-known antiquary and Latin scholar, president of the University, with whom I had been for some years in correspondence. He had instructed his fair friend in all the difficulties of the Latin language, many of the best writers of which they had read together. This initiation into a knowledge of classical authors awoke in the lady the desire to become personally acquainted with her eminent townsman Mezzofanti, of whose won- derful philological talent she had frequently heard her guests discourse, but whose modesty, and the knowledge of his own humble origin, had precluded him from asking the privilege of an introduction so much the ambition of other people to obtain. I happened to have met him. at the table of Baron von Eckhart, and I undertook the pleasing task of presenting him at her conversazione^ when the lady was enchanted with her guest, and was not long in testing his facility in Latin conversation. This wonderful philologist, who from the humble station of a son of an artisan rose to be a cardinal and one of the Pope’s ministers, could speak thirty-one languages, inclusive of dialects, all equally well, whether as regards facility or pronunciation — the latter probably the most remarkable speciality of his talent, since he had never once been out of his native country. I can vouch personally for his being conversant with French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, English, modern Greek, and Turkish; and I have heard CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI. 367 Hungarian officerSj Slayonians, Moldayians, and Russian trayellers youcli for his equally accurate knowledge of their own languages. Questioned as to the mode he had adopted for acquiring the correct pronunciation of such diyerse languages, he stated to me, that with respect to all the lan- guages which were spoken in Christian countries, he had caught the proper accent by getting a natiye of any of those particular nations who happened to be studying at Bologna (at that time in high esteem owing to the celebrity of its pro- fessors) to repeat to him three or four times a day for a week the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed. As regarded the Turkish and other oriental languages he had taken regular lessons from a learned mollah residing in the Uniyersity as professor of oriental languages. Being possessed of a prodigious memory, his references to, and citations from, authors of so many nations were frequent and appropriate, rendering his conyersation a perfect intellectual treat. The Italian liberals in the old Roman legations (late a part of the Gallo-Italian kingdom) also found in the salons of La Martinetti a genial and eyer cordial reception. It was her policy to keep friends with the powers that be for the day, and hence Austrian officers who had any preten- sions from position and education to be presented, were receiyed with courtesy. Thus the son of the general commanding, Baron yon Eckhart, was one of the most assiduous habitues^ and an admirer of the mistress of the house. The day following mj introduction of Mezzofanti we all dined at the house at the usual hour of 2 p.w., when I made the acquaintance of a Captain Gordon of the Engineers, a most agreeable man, whom I had met before at Milan. Soon after dinner, and some hours before the Opera, under the direction of Mezzofanti, we droye in my carriage to the promenade called La Montagnola, ossia Giardini Publici, 368 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. one of tlie public improvements for which Bologna was indebted to Napoleon I. It consists of a circular promenade and ride, both for cavaliers and carriages, edged in all along by handsome and lofty trees, having in the centre a small lake of the clearest water, and, being elevated above the ordinary atmosphere of the town, a cheering freshness is imparted to the air in the sultry seasons of the year. All these gaieties and delightful occupations did not alienate my attention from another of my main objects in undertaking my present excursion. Medical science was at the time holding her head high in Italy, owing to the many very distinguished teachers who flourished in the universities of Pavia, Padua, Bologna, and Turin. Many novel theories had been started, and surprising facts announced which invested with paramount interest the art of medicine. It was natural, therefore, that I should seek the acquaintance of the most eminent practitioners in the several cities I visited. To some of these. Professors Borda, Brera, Giannini, Tomasini, and others, I am indebted for an acquaintance with new medical views, and the knowledge of particular medicines in connection with them, which proved of great advantage to myself and patients in my subsequent practice, besides forming the groundwork of some of my published writings in England. On the other hand, errors had crept in much to be depre- cated. There is no disputing the fact that the introduction of a general theory of inflammation in fevers, which had led to the indiscriminate use of the lancet among the Lombard and Piedmontese practitioners, was a serious mistake — a mistake aggravated by an additional erroneous idea which had taken hold of medical men’s minds at the same time, namely, that the surface of fresh-drawn blood which exhibited a cup-form appearance and a dense yellowish pellicle on the surface, indicated the continued existence of UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. 369 inflammation, and the consequent necessity of more aTbstrac- tion of blood until such cup-form appearance and such pellicle ceased to show themselves. Hence those melan- choly instances of reiterated venesection we have read of, which cost the lives of Gioberti and Cavour, and of other illustrious individuals, the disastrous effects of which prematurely bereaved me of my mother. But I need not dwell more particularly on medical subjects in this part of my narrative, as I have very fully divulged my way of thinking on many of the most strenuously debated points of physiology and medical practice in books and essays, and at some of the ordinary meetings of medical societies, whose transactions have fully recorded the same. The Abbate Mezzofanti accompanied me to the public library, where I saw a collection of engravings of all the best European schools, but none English. Some manuscripts of the tenth to the thirteenth centuries were tendered for our admiration, chiefly on account of their remarkable state of preservation. Among these I admired a manu- script of St. Basil in Greek of unexceptionable correctness. Considerable additions had lately been made to the edifice of the library. In the anatomical cabinet, which exhibits no specimen but such as are made in wax from nature, I noticed several from the hand of a female professor of anatomy. They consisted chiefly of tablets, on which were represented the minor, sections of the human body modelled in wax to perfection. I was reminded by the rector of the University, that under the pontifical govern- ment anatomical dissections were strictly prohibited, as was the case indeed in other parts of Italy, in Florence itself, for instance, under the more enlightened government of the Tuscan Grand Dukes. Mezzofanti pointed out to me, hanging on the walls of the Aula, the portraits of Galvani, Marsigli, and Zanotti, the three founders of the Bolognese VOL. I. B B 870 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Institute. This name of Instituto^ it appears, had canglit; Bonaparte’s fancy when he penetrated into the Papal States in 1796, and visited the Bolognese University ; and so pleased was he with it that he applied the title to the French Academy of France, and afterwards to the Corps des Savants sent to Egypt. The name, nevertheless, is barbarous. II Cabinetto di Fizica Sperimentale deserves to be men- tioned in this narrative, even were it for no other reason than the fact that the collection includes the philosophical instruments of the third Earl of Shaftesbury, bought at a sale of his effects in Florence, and presented to the Univer- sity by some young students who greatly admired the author of Characteristics of Men and Manners,” and other works, and whom Montesquieu placed on a par with Plato and Malebranche. The richest and best managed department appeared to be that of antiquities and numismatics, under the direction of Professor Schiassi, to whom I was indebted for the introduction to La Martinetti, as well as to another lady, the professor of Greek, La Signora Tambroni. I did not pretend to enter into any learned discourse with this re- markable person in reference to the Homeric language she professed to teach (for she was at the time going through a course of lectures on Homer), but I could not resist the satisfaction of initiating a conversation with her in the Pomaic Greek, then so familiar to me. She expressed herself somewhat surprised at my pronunciation, until I explained to her that in those parts of Greece in which was spoken the purest language, approaching nearly to the ancient — as in Samos, for example — the pronunciation was different, and nearly akin to that of which she had just been giving me a specimen while reading and expounding parts of the fifth book of the Iliad.” Her lecture I took SIGNOEA TAMBEONI. 371 clown there and then in Latin from her lips as she ad- dressed the students,’ in order to compare her interpretation with the poetical one in Italian of her own countryman Cesarotti, reserving to myself the pleasure of contrasting both with any modern English translation I might find on my return to England. Nor was I disappointed, but on the contrary more than fortunate in having to welcome (fifty- five years after my return home) a new and masterly version of the immortal poem by no less a personage than the Premier of England. La Signora Tambroni expressed her regret to me that a friend of hers, the great impro- visatrice Bandinelli, was at that moment absent in Modena, else I might have had the satisfaction of hearing not only her wonderful improvisations, but also the reciting of some lines from her own clever epic, entitled “ La Teseide.” Wandering about on foot through Bologna and entering the churches, one discovers in dark or recondite chapels altar- pictures of exquisite beauty. Thus, in the church of Santo Dominico there are some of the most enchanting specimens of Prancia and Guercino, both of the Bolognese sfchool. In the best known public galleries I have visited since, I do not remember to have seen better examples of these two delicate limners of the seventeenth century. To lovers of wood carvings, the choir seats in the same church, repre- senting the principal events in Genesis, will afford a great treat. They are the work of one of the monks, and bear date 1740. Once embarked in these pleasing and instructive occupa- tions, and with facilities for pushing my investigations, I felt loth to halt in my course, and thus I went on accepting one facility after another offered to me for satisfactorily collecting important inf ormation. I may add parentheti- cally that, freemason like, I cautiously sounded each of my newly-made acquaintances on their political principles B B 2 372 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. before I trnsted tlienij and was happy to find that the dis- satisfaction at the Austrian rule was inferior only to their feelings of hatred to the French^ the longing for a free constitutional political existence being a sentiment common to all the ablest amongst them. We exchanged our in- dividual ideas, formed projects, and mutually promised to correspond in futoe, and to help by our pens to bring about a solution of the Italian question as near akin to the constitutional English regime as is compatible with the nature of the Italian races. In this respect, with the ex- ception of Carlo Botta, Leoni, Cicogna, Cattaneo, Villa, and others, the notions which most liberals entertained respecting the mode of action of the English government and its Houses of Parliament, the Commons especially, were as far from the real thing as possible, and it was on my part a work of patience not less than pleasure to under- take at times to inform them of first principles of which they had not formed a correct idea before. The expression of contentment they evinced once they had comprehended the simplicity as well as the beauty of the system, fully compensated for the pains taken to make them understand it. My countrymen have since attained to that desirable state which I prophesied and prayed for, or at least preached for, before hand. They have had granted to them all the refined mechanism for successfully conducting the government of an independent nation as it is conducted in England, and they have now been in the practice of it for a period sufficiently long to have made them expert administrators. They have not become so ! Eather the contrary ! In the few later years, symptoms of retro- gressive political adroitness have appeared both in debate and in the acts of ministers. They ape readily enough the form, but not the spirit of their prototype beyond the Alps and the Channel. They must commence a new political BOLOGNESE GALLERIES. 37b education. What a splendid opening in the bosom of a kingdom of twenty-five millions of the most humanized race in Europe, for a “Heaven-horn Minister” like Pitt to teach the diverse chiefs of such a stupendous multitude, and the people themselves, how to steer the vessel of a free and independent state in tranquil not less than in troubled Avaters ! Before I dismiss Bologna, I may allude to the wealth in pictures by eminent masters which the palaces contain. The Palazzi Maresealchi, Eanuzzi, and Ercolani are par- ticularly deserving of attention. In the first of these, many of the earliest and original Caraeci, painted for the family, are preserved. In the last of the three named palaces, a splendid staficase is universally admired. On the occasion of my attending a conversazione given by the Princess Ercolani, this magnificent specimen of architecture was set off with increased effect by a profusion of ivell- arranged groups of lighted candelabra and the choicest fioAvers. Ho Austrian or military officers Avere present, a fact which a gentleman near me, a stranger like myself, but more intimate Vith the family, explained to me by stating an occurrence that had taken place only a few weeks before, the narrative of Avhich I should preface with “ hor- resco referens,” had I not been informed soon after of acts of a similar kind perpetrated by the then military occupants of ill-fated Italy. A superior Austrian officer quartered in the Palazzo Ercolani, being displeased with the conduct of one of his orderlies, commanded him to be forthAvith subjected to the punishment of the hancata, meaning a certain number of “ bastonate sul deretano.” The operation Avas actually carried out under the AvindoAVS of the princess’s apartments, who on hearing the loud cries and shrieks of the victim was throAvn into such a state of agony that she exclaimed, 374 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. Pieta, pieta per V infelice.^^ The sergeant who snperiii- tended the barbarous punishment, on hearing this, simply smiled, and cried out, Der Henker ist ein scharfer Barhier (the executioner is a sharp shaver). Bologna was at that time the known rendezvous of Italian patriots, many of whom, having served as officers in the Viceroy Eugene’s army, had preferred to retire from the service and return home to entering that of Austria. Such being the case, that city was the very central spot in which I could gather more practical and useful information towards forming a just notion of public opinion on the political questions of the day. But I began to suspect that sentiments and feelings were stealing insidiously and daily into my nature which might ultimately interfere and alto- gether mar the real object of my journey ; I therefore adopted at once the resolution of advancing farther on my expedition, and approaching as near as I could to the confines of the recently created monarchy of Elba. I had been charged with a despatch from Lord Castlereagh for Colonel Campbell, English representative at Elba, which I was to deliver either personally or through the English consul at Leghorn, but on no account to commit it to the post. I had therefore a plea for proceeding farther into Italy, and that plea had been originally communicated to the Austrian authorities at Milan by Sir Eobert Wilson, and from Milan to the commander in Bologna. My passport as a cabinet messenger being renewed, I ordered post-horses, and on the 4th of June, 1814, started in the direction of Florence with the intention of visiting Pisa, Leghorn, Pistoja, Lucca, &c. Were I to allude in these days to the difficulty of ascending the Apennines after the first level post to Pianoro until you reach Florence, I should excite a smile ; nevertheless, the diffi- culty was great in olden times, as the additional couple of CEOSSINa THE APENNINES. 375 oxen attacliecl in front of the post-horses until we reached an albergo on the top of the hill would testify. Here again, as usual, the landlord, with the proverbial good nature of all such padroni^ tried to frighten ns into a night^s lodging and a snpper, with a long bill for the morning, by declaring that the road further on was infested with marauders, who had only a few hours before robbed the diligence from Florence to Bologna. The fellow looked to me so much like a cut-throat himself, that I preferred taking my chance on the road to remaining under his roof, or in proximity of his no better looking ostler. My servant, who carried with him on the hind seat of the carriage an Italian blunderbuss, had been instructed to display it as often as possible, whilst I took care to be seen removing a pair of pistols from the carriage and putting them in my pocket on getting out for a short time. While we were debating these points, and I was steadily intent on looking at the flaring carburetted-hydrogen gas emitted from Pietra Mala, at a short distance, the night being intensely dark and the phenomenon very visible, the rumbling of another equipage and the postilion’s horn were heard approaching, which ultimately reached and stopped at the albergo, disclosing, to my great delight, one of my Bolognese acquaintances, the Duca di San Giovanni, with his aide-de-camp and a nephew and two servants. After a brief colloquy, preceded by such an earnest squeeze of the hands and the expression of surprise as are apt to take place under such unpleasant circumstances, it was agreed that we should perform the journey together, and we safely descended into Florence at 10 o’clock p.m., both of us alighting at the same hotel. Before I proceed further with my report of the political crusade in which I had voluntarily \ enrolled myself on behalf of my native country, I deem, it right to declare my 376 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. specific object to have been to inculcate among my country = men in Italy the doctrine of a monarchical government based upon liberal principles, to the entire exclusion of every species or form of a pure republic. I was hostile to Carbonarism ; neither did I make any secret of my partiality. From the commencement of my political career, that is to say, from the time I began (apart from my own profession) to write on political subjects referring to my fatherland, my avowed principles had been limited to the choice of an Italian prince for its sovereign, and of a freely elected assembly of enlightened citizens to initiate and enact the laws by which that sovereign and his people were to be directed and controlled. I looked to the Mountain King of Piedmont, with the great prestige of his valorous ancestry and his ow firmness of character, as the prince who could best fulfil the part of sovereign to the whole north of Italy, limiting in my mind at first the extent of the new kingdom to the confines of the Eoman territory, but com- prehending thus far both the eastern and western shores of the peninsula, including Venice and Genoa. A periodical called II Patriota Italiano ’’ was first pub- lished by me in London in 1814, to work out my ideas even while the French were in possession of Italy. The periodical was quickly followed and supported with cogent arguments from the able pens of various contributors in a bi-monthly magazine started the previous year, entitled Italico,” to which the Prince Eegent and several of the British Ministers subscribed as a literary and scientific miscellany written in the pm^est Italian. But it was in the ^^Appello’’ I addressed to the head of the allied sovereigns in Paris the same year that the entire plan, since successfully carried out, was fully developed. I may therefore claim the merit of having been the first Italian to suggest the idea, and warmly to support it during the FORM OF GOVERNMENT FOR ITALY. 377 revolutionary era of 1848, in my two letters to Lord Pal- merston On the Italian Question,’’ published in London and favourably reviewed in all the leading journals of the time, besides being reprinted in Turin. It is not the abstract idea of Italian unity that I claim as an original idea. God decreed that unity,” as Mazzini himself has declared in a letter he addressed to Victor Emmanuel II. God decreed that unity when He en- closed us between the eternal Alps and the eternal seas.” Dante, Machiavelli, Alfieri, preached the dogma of union. Unity is the prayer, the desire of all Italy ; with Pome for the metropolis. What I claim is, that first among all the Italian writers I said in many publications : Let an Italian prince of ancient descent, let Charles Albert of the house of Savoy be placed as king at the head of the Italian union, backed by a freely elected legislative body of “^enlightened citizens, and aided by a suitable number of patricians as moderators. Thus constituted, such a sove- reign will be looked upon by all Italians as the head of a confederacy of free and independent people, as the centre in which their joint allegiance should be fixed, and as the balancing power in the state by which the welfare and political influence of the kingdom of Italy would be estab- lished and recognized among the other great powers of Europe.” It was unfortunate for Italy that those foreign powers, which had been themselves fast bound in slavery for many years, should have triumphed, and have their chains re- moved simultaneously by virtue of a congress at which Italy was not properly represented ; for she would have protested against the resolution of subjecting once more the different sections of the Italian peninsula to the old forms of government, with all the antiquated and despotic rules of former days, in open disregard of the progress 378 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. society had made since 1799. Accordingly^ Victor Eni= mannel I., dispossessed in 1802, returned to Turin in 1814 with all his old inherent privileges, which Montesquieu had declared to constitute the Piedmontese as the most despotic government in Europe. It was hoped that the error com- mitted at Paris, in not insisting that the king should adopt a liberal constitutional system, would be remedied at the Congress of Vienna ; but no such measure was there suggested, and the Piedmontese king hastened back to his capital to revive the prestige of his former autocracy. He commenced by abolishing the regency appointed by the allied sovereigns, at the head of which they had placed the Marquis of Saint Maysan, a distinguished statesman whom the natives loved, and then proceeded to re-establish the several departments of his government on the old footing of 1798, replacing in their posts the occupants of twenty years before if alive, otherwise their sons of fifteen or sixteen. The consequence of such a miserable and mistaken arrangement was an unexpected moral re- action, which proved disastrous to the government itself and to the country. Numerous families were at once de- prived of all resources, while a deficit of many millions in the public revenue was occasioned by the entire ignorance and incompetency of the persons employed to perform the work assigned to them. On the other hand, the principal of the patrician families, who were accused of having served the preceding government too well and honourably, were declared incapacitated to fill any of the posts of honour in the administration. In such a manner were treated Counts Salmatoris and Balbi, the Marquis de Cavoiir, all the members of the house of de Salmes, the Marquises de Lascaris and de Breme, with many more, who were all deprived of the honours and dignities they had formerly enjoyed. RESTORATION OF VICTOR EMMANUEL I. 379 With the army, matters went on not less strangely. All the brave Piedmontese officers who had distinguished them^ selves in the wars of Napoleon, and had returned to their homes covered with scars and many tokens of honourable distinction, were thrust aside, and their offers of service scouted, except where dire want compelled the applicants to accept an inferior rank to the one they occupied before. The generals of division, Lieutenant-Generals Fresia and Seras, were rejected, and were received most gladly by the French king. Lieutenant-General Giflenga having offered his services, was thanked, and informed that he could only hojDe for the rank of captain. In the mean time the regiments presented a most dis- orderly aspect : there were no officers capable of maintaining discipline, the non-commissioned officers were without au- thority, the soldiers without restraint. All was in disorder. The lodging, the clothing, and the instruction of the troops were mere words without any reality. The youngest colonel was fifty-eight years old. This statement for which I have official authority, I have purposely introduced to show the dire effects of restoring the old royalty in Italy without a controlling constitution, and to point out also the absolute necessity that existed of adopting the scheme for a monarchical administration of the recovered provinces of Italy, such as I suggested while Napoleon was yet master of the field, and I fully developed in its entirety after his fall, accompanied with the outline of a free constitution suited to my countrymen. At the same time, the very melancholy description of political affairs in Piedmont given above, goes to show how abso- lutely necessary had become the revolution initiated by Charles Albert, Gioberti, and others, to whom I lent the aid of my pen from a foreign country, to be happily com- pleted by Oavour some years later. CHAPTEE XXIV. 1814. .Florence — Signor Ferroni — Niccolini— Mascagni — Eapliael Morglien — Benve- niiti — State of Italy — Sympathy in England — Proceed to Lucca — Letter to Mr. Hamilton — Bonaparte’s flight predicted. The pleasant society in which I fonnci myself rendered my stay in Florence very delightful, chiefly on acconnt of the nnmerons acquaintances I made with persons of distinc- tion and renown of both sexes, many of whom were remarkable for some peculiarity that had raised them to the head of their class. Such an intercourse had another result, for it enabled me also to appreciate properly certain individuals who had assumed out of their country a cha- racter to which they were not entitled. But a number of people of a different order, and chiefly among the learned and scientific professors, more than compensated for the less estimable portion of the society. I cannot resist the plea- sure of naming a few with whom I successively became acquainted in the course of my visit to public galleries and private studios, and also during my attendances at different public institutions and hospitals. First I would express a wish that those who were younger than myself, or about the same age when we first met in 1814, should they cast their eyes on these pages, will accept my references to their names as an evidence of the esteem and respect they inspired me with during our personal intercourse and by subsequent correspondence. I select as the first name that of Signor Ferroni, president of FLORENTINE SOCIETY. 881 the Academia della Cmsca, a profound mathematician, a man of great learning, of agreeable manners, and of a very pleasing aspect. The Ahhe Zanoni, conservatore della Galleria Medici, a learned antiquary. L’ Ahhate Parigi — full of learning, hut rather partial to light and frivolous literature, who would have shone in the art of punning did the Italian language admit of such atrocities — ^was a wit, and a welcome guest at a dinner table, where his manners and conversation made him a favourite. To this Ahhate I owe my presentation to the Marchesa Mazzei, in the Piazza Pitti, a celebrated improvisatrice far more pleasing to listen to than the young fashionable improvisa- trice Striggi. We found the lady full of poetic fire, and she favoured us with more than one example of her won- derful facility of weaving together poetical phrases on any suhj ect proposed to her, whether rhymeless or with ‘ ‘ rime obligate ” — an inspired muse on Helicon. At the Biblioteca Laurenziana, the one of several which I frequented in preference, and the best known in Europe for the vast collection of manuscripts, many of them precious as well as rare, there was II Signor Euria as principal librarian. Signor Euria’s Imoivledge of books and prodigious memory were equally remarkable, two most excellent qualifications for a librarian. It was impossible to converse with him for half an hour without coming away with an amount of information almost perplexing. With respect to highly talented people, I may well feel proud at having been admitted, on the 13th July, to an agreeable dinner by special invitation from Hiceolini, anthor of the tragedy “ Polissena,” which was crowned by the Academia della Crusca in 1810, followed at no long interval by other tragic poems, “Medea,” “Edipo,” and other dramas, all after the severest models of the Greek stage. 382 AUTOBIOaKAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. In my own particular department I rejoice at having known personally the celebrated anatomist Mascagni, an indefatigable practical dissector, who was able to design and have engraved a series of coloured human figures of the natural size, representing the various regions of the body and their internal corresponding organs in perfect assimilation to a real injected subject lying on a dissecting table. I possessed myself of a copy of this great anatomi- cal work as soon as it was completed, which was forwarded to London the year after, where it was the admiration of all my medical friends. I readilj?^ promised the professor to assist him in disposing of some copies in England of his laborious work, that had cost so much exertion, attention, and labour, besides a heavy disbursement of money; and I am happy in the recollection that all the universities in Great Britain, the large medical and surgical colleges, did not hesitate to subscribe for a copy of a publication unpa- ralleled in art, and a most valuable assistant in anatomical instruction. With this illustrious teacher of the medical art I proceeded ta examine at the great Ospital di Santa Maria Nuova, very carefully (and well worthy are they of a minute examination), these famous prej)arations of the plexuses of the educting capillary vessels of the skin, which the good professor promised soon to j)iiblish for the benefit of our profession. I looked on the dear old man with veneration, devoting himself (to the neglect of every worldly consideration) to irksome occupations simply for the benefit of his kind, and with no prospect of profit to himself in this world. No philosopher has more truly laughed at worldly interest or mundane desires than Mascagni. Such was his indifference to appearances and personal comforts, that he might have been infinitely benefited by the assist- ance of a valet. He reminded me in habits and appearance of my old anatomical teacher in London. SIGNOR BENVENUTI. 383 Another and very different studio in which I found subjects ’’ also, but of piu^e art, where the human figure was drawn and engraved in all the perfection Nature has imparted to it, was that of Eaphael Morghen, the prince of Italian engravers, and probably the most indus- trious and indefatigable of them all. Not fewer than two hundred and fifty-four are the engravings known to have been the produce of his burin in the course of a life which extended to seventy-five years, although for some years before his death he ceased to do more than superintend the work of the school he had formed. At my visit he took great pleasure in showing me that triumph of his art, the Transfiguration, which he had lately completed (1811). Another triumph was hanging in sight as a pendant to his Eaphael, I mean La Eornarina. Can a human face be represented more lovely ? Another acquaintance enabled me to judge pretty accu- rately of the state of the art of historical and portrait painting in Tuscany. This was the case on my being admitted, through the courtesy of the painter himself — Signor Benvenuti — to view on his easels his two chefs- cP oeuvre (as his admirers call them), the one representing Elise, Principessa di Lucca e Piombino, seated and sur- rounded by several of her courtiers, all portraits ; the other being a representation of the death of Priam, a splendid historical design such as Italian painters only can produce, but faulty in colour. In this latter respect the Tuscan painters may be classed with those of the modern Prench School, who have adopted the red-brick colouring of Davichs historical works. A lucky rencontre in Benvenuti’s studio Vith the Mar- chese Strozzi, whom I had often met at the very hospitable mansion of the Marchesa Santini, procured me a better opportunity of judging of the style and imagination of the 384 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. living Tuscan painters in almost every branch of their art, especially in frescoes, in his own grand palazzo, via della Scala, when I had likewise the opportunity of admiring an English garden really deserving of the name. The marquis had once filled the post of prefect of Florence, and was rather too partial to the late French government, of which, as prefect of an Italian city ridiculously converted into a French one, he had been one of the superior officials. I could excuse his partiality, for I knew that in his heart he was a true Italian, with patriotic sentiments entirely in unison with those I was anxious to propagate. I had frequent meetings with this young nobleman, rich in information, and of most agreeable manners ; as also with his friend Count Brunetti of Massa, formerly Secre- tary of Embassy at the Court of Naples from the Kingdom of Italy. I learned from them, that immediately previous to the fall of Napoleon and of Prince Eugene, my “ Appello ” had found its way into Tuscany, where copies WCTe made hr manuscript of the Italian version of that work, Avhich were afterwards distributed throughout the southern provinces of Italy by the members of “Young Italy,” many of whom, patricians though they were, had become converted to the idea of a united Italy, independent, monarchical, and con- stitutional. My intercourse rvith these choice spirits deter- mined me at once to extend somewhat my next journey into the interior provinces, thus adding something to my originally devised excursions to Leghorn to examine the lazaretto and quarantine establishment in that j)lace, such being the ostensible reason for coming thus far south from my native city. Visits at the same time to a feAV other neighbouring cities, such among others as Pisa and Lucca — in which latter city especially I Avas informed some political intrigues were being carried on with the connivance of the Austrian authorities — I considered to be equally essential. STATE OF ITALY. 385 ■ Pending tlie expected resolutions regarding the future political condition of Italy, for which we were looking to the Congress of Vienna, my own attention could not he more usefully directed than to the consideration of the state in which my native land found itself after the Austrian arms again had penetrated into almost every part of it, under joromises publicly proclaimed by their generals of bringing freedom and independence to the people. These promises were never meant to he realized, and indeed were repudiated as soon as made by the same congress in whose name they had been proclaimed. Thus the whole of Italy was once more enslaved, and the old tyrants once more enthroned. The sunny provinces of the peninsula alone were left undisturbed in the possession of a Gallic king, while to the old sovereign of the northern Alpine provinces, the dominion of his ancestors was restored without any condition or pact for securing the rights of the people consigned to his authority. But neither southern nor northern sovereign was likely to maintain his position long. He of the sunny provinces, who had declared himself ready to barter his honour to save his territories, was doomed to other and more awful destinies, whilst he of the northern regions, after in vain striving to revive autocratic and antiquated or exploded rules of government, would presently be compelled to yield to the nascent principles of freedom and independence in his own people and in the line of his own posterity. It is painful to reflect, that while the destinies of these two parts of Italy were working out their fulfilment, the name of an English general should also have been found in the list of the military chiefs appointed by the congress to settle the fate of Italy, whose signature appeared under a proclamation addressed to the Italians of the Ligurian provinces, not less deceptive as to promises of C 0 VOL. I, 386 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE, freedom and independence never to be realized than the preceding proclamations. But Lord William Bentinck had his excuses for not succeeding at Genoa, as he did succeed afterwards in Sicily. On the present occasion, however, he too abandoned the northern Italians to their fate, and thus all chances of independence vanished, and Italy now again lay under the despotic sway of the Anstrians, who insisted on keeping possession of it as their own, according to the declaration of their Emperor Francis to the Milanese deputation when calling on him for the reorganization of the kingdom of Italy. Signori miei, qneste sono pro- vincie del mio Impero ’’ (Gentlemen, these are provinces of my empire). And there was not one power in Europe to say No ; not even England to tell his imperial majesty it was an ontrageons usurpation ! But all the powers united approved the act, and legalized a spoliation that endured more than half a century with all its disastrous conse- quences, though it was destined at last to recoil Avitli tenfold severity on the alien perpetrators. * The Austrians had once more been allowed to fix their double-headed eaglets talons on the fair land of enslaved Italy, while their generals were promising to the people independence and a free choice of government in their mendacious proclamations ! Was it not natural that such treatment should rouse the indignation of the Italians ? and such a feeling I found generally prevailing in all the provinces I visited. General Count Nugent, at the head of a fresh corps of Austrian troops, entered from the north- east into the Venetian and Lombard territories, and pro- claimed the independence of the people. General Lord William Bentinck, in the north-west, followed the example at the head of British troops, by a proclamation of liberty and independence to the Piedmontese and the Ligurians, who had implicit confidence in the English. But both STATE OF ITALY. tliese military chiefs were made to forfeit their word as well as the honour of the country they represented. The south of the peninsula was left in the hands of a Trench- made king ; the north was rendered hack to its own old soyereign, with more than his old despotic attributes ‘ and the larger portion^ the fairer, the richer^ including the once powerful republic of Venice and the once happy centre^ LombardjA Tuscany^ the LegationSj and Eomej were suffered to become the usurped property of Austria, its satellites^ princelets. and the Pope. These, it ydll be said, are now become occurrences of / / such ancient datCj and moreoyer tlie usurping power has since paid so dearly for his usuj;‘pation. that a reference to them in any modern biography might seem preposterous if not absurd. But not so ! The occurrences are one and all such as must and will form part of the history of Europe. In them I haye been mixed uji^ and I suryiye them. I laboured hard to preyent some of thenij and was successful in bringing about in others results that were more desirable. What greater motiyes can a yuiter allege for referring to matters so intimately interwoyen with his life ? But in referring to the pregnant eyents that took place in the first half of the present century in my natiye land, I shall not trayel beyond such as relate to occurrences destined (indeed intended) to lead to a far different and happier condition of political existence in Italy. All who haye perused the history of ISII^ and then pro- ceeded to that of 1848 and 1856, will acknowledge the happy and (as it has turned out) wonderful change between those periods, neither unexpected nor unmerited. To bring that change about, eyery good Italian lent to his country- men in arms what help his own indiyidual condition enabled him to contribute. Tor my part, I deemed it a duty, both as an Italian born and as a denizen of England, to keep the 0 c 2 388 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. attention of the English people and their ministers close to the question by letters addressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and by frequent contributions to the liberal London papers, especially to the editor and proprietor of the “ Morning Chronicle,” James Perry, to whom I was well known, and for whose personal friendship (which con- tinued to his last days) I had been indebted to His Eoyal Highness the Duke of Sussex, to whose private dejeuners at Kensington Palace we were both frequently admitted. There was an ostensible motive for my enjoying the fre- quent privilege of these meetings in the great love the duke felt for Italian literature, and his not less ardent attachment to the cause of , Italian resurrection, as he was wont to call it. The editorship of my own journal, “ L’ Italico,” led first to the Kensington meetings, many of the articles being there read in manuscript. There, in the presence often either of the Marquis of Buckingham or of, Lord Douglas, a son of the Duke of Hamilton (both staunch friends of Italy), the best manner of shaping my Italian articles, which were to assist in accomplishing the re- organization of Italy, was discussed and settled. On these occasions also, Mr. James Perry would take notes for his own part in this patriotic work, by writing leaders in his broad sheet. Accordingly, in its columns of the summer and autumnal months of 1814 and 1816, not a few such leaders or communicated articles, either from Italy or con- cerning Italy, will be found, all picturing the iniquities of Austria, the sufferings of the Italian patriots, and their aspirations. In my communications with Mr. Hamilton there was no attempt on my part to assume the office of “ our own special correspondent ; ” and I well knew the difficidty of securing a safe conveyance for any letter I might choose to invest with the semblance of an ex-officio communication. PROCEEI) TO LUCCA» 389 and BO commit the Britisli government. Private letters could more easily be transmitted by private and sure bands, and tlierefore my correspondence was limited to that form onlyo On the 6th of June, 1814, v^hile at Plorence, I had delivered to Colonel Campbell the despatch addressed to him which. I had brought from Lord Castlereagh, a reply to which the colonel handed over to me to take to England, as he himself was on the point of setting off for Pome. I told him I shonld not be in London before the middle of Angnst, and would keep his packet till then if he thought the ordi- nary post could not be safely trusted, to which arrange- ment he agreed. Some readers may think that I am rather too particular in noticing such petty matters, and perhaps accuse me of ostentation in parading the peculiarly courteous manner in which I was treated by the several officials with whom I came in contact. In this I have a legitimate object, which will appear evident in the relation of what is presently to follow. Considering myself now a free agent — free, I mean, from responsibility as to the home government, I felt at liberty to indulge somewhat my propensity in favour of Italian inde- pendence, and consequently in an unrestricted intercourse with the “ Young Italy and the rest of the true friends of the good cause. Many of these I Imew I should find in the principality lately ruled over by a sister of Napoleon, and where some political intrigue ^vas being hatched which it would be of service to the friends of peace and order in Italy to thwart. To Lucca, therefore, I proceeded, leaving for the moment Pisa and other Tuscan cities. The people of Lucca are indebted for the good road of access to their capital city to the Princess Elise : the scenery — good but not gay — through which it passes consists prin- cipally of small forests of olive trees, that may vie in gloom AUTOBIOGRAPHY OR DE, GEANVILLR» with the most sombre forests of cypresses^ Lucca has nothing striking either at its entrance or in its streets. The DuoniOj an edifice of the eleyenth century^ is a re- markable structure, with bRsso-relieyi of that barbarous style which preceded Pisani the restorer, of whom there are in the Church of San Prediano, patron saint of the city, some other works, at the sight of which one is amazed that the same artist should haye! been able in the short space of a few years to produce thenia Opposite to the church are some remains of a Eoman amphitheatre, upon which dwelling houses haye been built, preserying the round form of the original edifice, the materials, together with the columns taken from the ancient amphitheatre, haying seryed to erect the church of San Prediano, in which I found a most excellent picture of Tofanelli, a Lucchese artist then recently deceased. More of his paintings are to be seen in Casa Manzi, at a short distance out of the town. Professor Ciampi, from Pisa, who had found me out, introduced me at once to a few of ^Hhe choice spirits,’’ among whom I may now mention aloud, without fear of any likely political detriment to the parties, il Cayaliere Lucchesini, the Secretario Treiita, Papi, member of the proyisional goyernment, the translator of Milton, who also had seryed as colonel in the English army in India. I must add, howeyer, a feyr words respecting the latter dis- tinguished Italian, with whom I became well acquainted by letters in subsequent years. Lorenzo Papi had pub- lished the history of the Prench Eeyolution in terse Italian, and the result of his Indian experience in a series of Letter e Orientali.” To his pen we are likewise indebted for some pleasing translations from the Greek, and I esteem his yersion of Paradise Lost” into the Italian language an admirable work. When the old Duke of Lucca was trayelling in Italy, he was asked his opinion LOEENZO PAPI. 391 of tlie celebrated Luccliese liistoriaii and poet; but tlie duke liad neyer heard of the name in his diminntiye capital ; and Cantie, the historjan^ goes on to say^ that^ perfectly ashamed^ on his return he had an interyiew with hinij and made him his librarian arid the tutor to his son. My next letter to Mr. Hamilton, which I was specially desirous to conyey to him without loss of time, owing to the imjDortant yaticinations with which it concludes, and which I hoped would be brought to the notice of the highest quarters, I now proceed to insert Liiccaj lOtli June, 1814. My beae SiE,^ — With the deliyery of Lord Castle™ reagh’s despatch, addressed to Colonel Campbell, British Commissioner in Elba, into whose hands at Elorence I gaye it three days since, I haye accomplished all that I had been instructed to do, and according to Sir Eobert Wilson^s interpretation, I consider myself free from any further responsibility towards those by whom I haye been instructed to perform a certain duty* ^Hn mentioning the name of the gallant general, I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of conyeying to you the sentiments and opinion I haye heard expressed in many quarters, by people in authority as well as in priyate life, with respect to the praiseworthy and admirable manner in which he fills his diplomatic post in those parts of Italy he has resided in, where his official conduct was remarked for the dignified and, at the same time, conciliatory spirit he displayed in his intercourse with those who had to transact business with him. As regards myself, I cannot be too thankful to him for the adyice and countenance he has Youchsafed to me during our official intercourse, which has tended to confirm the friendship and regard I entertained for him. One of my objects in coming to Lucca yeas to test 392 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE, and decipher a certain mystery which hangs oyer the be- haviour of King Murat, respecting whom the congregated powers at Vienna seem not a little suspicions, and yet they affect to trust. But I am not about to trouble myself regarding the affairs of the congress. Sufficient for me to try to ascertain whether we could venture to trust a man who entertained a clandestine correspondence with the ‘ Giovine Italia/ to whom he pretended that his offer to assist the Austrians was a mere ruse. Perhaps by visiting the governor of this province, Count Stahremberg, I might be able to learn some particulars of the supposed plot. Doubtless there was something in the wind, and the court at Porto Perrajo seemed to have become an object watched with great jealousy. I had brought with me a letter of introduction from Count Nugent for the governor, and accordingly I applied to his secretary, an Italian from Parma (well known as a poet and author of a well- written tragedy). Signor Possetti, to ascertain at what time I might present myself. The secretary was just on the point of joining Count Stahrem- berg at the celebration of a grand mass, which was taking place that morning in the Duomo, and he invited me to accompany him thither. I was courteously received by the count, and accommodated with a prie-dieu at his right hand. I recognized near me a Milanese acquaintance. Count Couvenoff, a chamberlain of the Emperor of Austria, and aide-de-camp to the general. The high mass Yvas celebrated with all the gorgeous pomp of the Pomish Church, accompanied by vocal and instrumental music, of which it may be said (whatever objections certain people may have to such displays) that it certainly was most appropriate and impressive. On its conclusion. Count Stahremberg, his staff, and his company walked in procession from the Duomo to the count^s COUNT STAHREMBERO. 393 official palazzo, lately the Princess Elise’s residence, there to partake of a grand dejeuner served up with all the dis- play and attendants of the preceding possessor of the magnificent palace^ Here again Count Stahremberg, who had in the mean time opened and read Count IsTugenCs letter, was profuse in his expressions of civility, and pointing out to me a chair on his right hand, he soon commenced a conversation, the tenor of which I suspect was to ascertain whether I had any intention or instruction to visit the island, or had any commission referring to the great personage residing in it, I frankly and at once in- formed him of the fact of my having brought an official despatch from the Foreign Office in London, which I had duly delivered to Colonel Campbell at Florence, and I should also take charge of any official letter he might intrust me with in return, give him a further proof of my frank dealing, I added that I had also held some conversation at Leghorn wnth Count Balmaine, the Eussian Commissioner at Elba, veith whom I was well acquainted, since he had had occasion to consult me professionally in London for his own health, and ever since which time I had been honoured with his friendship, Our interview at Leghorn, I added, had been but a brief one, and the subject of our discourse had been entirely in reference to his own health, with a passing remark or two on the manner of living at the imperial court in the island. With regard to myself, I assured the general that I had not the slightest wish to visit Elba, otherwise I had had a legitimate excuse for gratifying that wish by the delivery of my despatch into the British com- missioner’s own hands, as I had been instructed to do. My frankness seemed to have produced a favourable impression, for on his part the count told me of certain suspicious movements going on in the island, and that he had himself ^94^ AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE* ordered the arrest of two agents who were foimd recmiting soldiers for Napoleon. He added some anecdotes con- cerning the ci-devant Grand Duchess^ who he said had suddenly gone off to the Congress at Yiennaj while Count Bacciochi^ her husband^ remained at Bologna* On the subject of any political niovenient on the part of his own government towards either the sovereign of Elba or his sister^ la Duchesse Elise^ of coimse he was silent. But his reticence did not prevent my becoming acquainted with certain facts which I learned from unim- peachable authorities. An active correspondence is being carried on^ with the knowledge of the governor, between King Murat and the Princess Elise, and between the latter and Napoleoiie Two well-known agents are recruiting soldiers out of the late Italian regiments at a high pre- mium, ostensibly for King Murat, who offers to assist with his troops the Austrian armies in their operations in Italy, as he had declared to the Congress at Vienna, but which troops may chance to be employed for very different pur- poses. The father-in-law and the son-in-law may find it worth while to make common cause, and by combining their whole interests secure both Italy and the restora- tion of the imperial diadem of Prance with the Emperor Prancis to back them. Not a dreamy project this, by- the-by, if there be but daring enough in any party to under- take it. You will excuse me if I prose, but since I have been so much among diplomatists and martial heroes in my journey, I am become a schemer, and viewing political matters as they are here represented or suspected, does it not seem practicable that the plot known to be going on at this moment between the courts of Vienna and of Naples and of Elba, which are in reciprocal correspondence through the intermediate agency of titled personages, might cul- MAPOLEON S plight PPEDICTED, 395 iiiinate in the sudden appearance of Napoleon at the head of his old soldiers, while th ose of his brother-in-law advance / from Naples conjointly with, the Austrian troops already spread all over the rest of Italy^ the possession of which they would naturally try to keep ? Ai this conjecture, Francis, the father-in-law, upsetting the chess-board at Vienna, breaks up the Congress, joining with his whole army the recruited ranks of his bold French son-in-law, turns the tables against his compeers, and becomes the joint head of a new coalition ! I ask Quis vetat? would the remains of the allied troops, the Eussians, the Prus- sians, or the English, who had just fought and been decimated in their advance on Paris, prove sufficiently alert and in number sufficient to withstand such a terrible combination ? Eetiirning now from the imaginative to the real, I am not a little puzzled at learning from one of the members of the provisional government that the civil police, who on thein own responsibility had arrested certain suspected spies and known agents of Napoleon, were ordered by direction of Stahremberg to discharge some and to treat the Test with leniencv and consideration, and also that orders t/ ' had been given to respect all letters that might arrive for the princess ! Murat, Elise, Napoleon, and the Court of Vienna therefore are on good terms. A packet arrived a few days since from Vienna, directed to the government, for the Sovereign of Elba. The govern- ment, not wishing to appear as regards the Lucchese to take an open part in such a transaction, confided the packet to a young gentleman belonging to Porto Ferrajo, that he might deliver it to the Emperor. This young messenger, much attached to the Italian cause, mentioned his errand to Mr. Grant as a privileged communication. On inquiry the latter gentleman found the report correct, and ascer- 396 xiUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. tained that the young messenger^, whom he knew personaUyj had actually sailed for Porto Perrajo. Lord William Bentinck has abruptly superseded Mr. Grant in his consulship, thus depriving his countrymen, as well as the Italian community who transacted business with him, of a most valuable and conscientious civil agent, whose zeal and assiduity in the discharge of his functions and in his endeavours to be useful to your own department of the Foreign Office had earned him the consideration of a large number of friends, of whom I am happy to be one, and a most obliged one. ^Mn the course of the day, part of wffiich I spent by invitation from the count in examining the Grand Ducal palace. Signor Eossetti, the governor’s secretary, introduced me into a large and highly ornamented gallery, which I found actually encumbered with rich furniture and many ornaments taken from other apartments, — cases, boxes, and paintings all collected pell-mell. To explain this strange spectacle, a gentleman, whom I learned afterwards to be a member of the Q-overno Provisorio (for in taking possession of Lucca the Austrians did not at once oust the Grand Duchess, but ajDpointed a number of civilians to administer the city temporarily), related the following anecdote a— ^ Some treasure had lately been found in the city be- longing to Elise, which she had secreted. The count, with much civility, had applied himself to ascertaining the fact, and no doubt in calculating also how much of the treasure-trove might justly come to himself as his share, for which purpose he made frequent visits to Florence and back, when superior orders arrived (within the last few days) to suffer things to remain as heretofore, and the count is balked of his anticipated booty, which accounts for the strange and yet magnificent masses and groups of valuables you see collected in this large gallery.’ SIGNOR ROSSETTI. 897 “The coiuit in the mean time had been pacing np and down the few remaining spaces in the place nnoccnpied, examining with his secretary at his side the various col- lections of plate, rich ornaments upon valuable marble and mosaic tables and in front of splendid mirrors, when all at once, as he was returning towards us, I heard him call out to Signor Eossetti in French, ‘ II y a des fripons qui en cachent encore. Faremo un altro decreto ’ (suddenly changing the language from French to Italian, for he was versed in both), ‘promettendo la quinta parte delle cose scoperte a chi le scoprira.’ ‘ Si, si, certamente,’ re- sponded Eossetti ; ‘ e vi aggiungeremo una pena di eorpo, come si dice, cinquanta, o cento bastonate ai Signori che le celapero.’* “ Je fremis ! Such is the expression I find written in my diary in that part in which the degrading expressions of the Italian poet are transcribed, together with the notice of the anecdote itself. I ceased from that moment to address the secretary, and was not surprised to learn that the Liberals were sadly grieved to find an Italian so gifted in intellect should be so lacking in love for his countrymen writhing under foreign oppressors. “ In the course of conversation with some of my literary acquaintances, and especially at the house of Madame Celami, nee Orosco, to whom I had brought' letters from Ugo Foscolo, and whose salons were always open for the reception of the grand monde^ instances of Austrian op- pression of the inhabitants of the ci-devant Grand Duchy were neither few nor insignificant of which I was informed, many being reported by persons perfectly disinterested and speaking apparently de honne foi. But of such examples ^ Yes, yes, by all means ; and we will add a corporal penalty of fifty or a hundred blows with a stick to those gentlemen who shall have been guilty of concealing any of the Princess’s projierty. 39H AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. I had heard quite enorigh in most of the places in Italy I had visited to satisfy me^ that a state of alfairs exists at present in my native country not likely to endnre many years without a change. And above all, I think that the relations between Italy and Austria, Austria and France, France with Prussia and the rest of Europe, as they exist just now, are so strangely linked together that there must be more than one disruption of the principal links soon, tending to form new and different concatenations. En attendant^ all tends to show that grave events are at hand, and that looking to the deep plotting manifestly going on at this moment in these parts, where the great lion is caged but not subdued, unless England can give a new direction to passing events by new measures, Bona- parte will not l)e long in Elba after Christmas ! Above all, put no faith in the protestations of the King of Kaples, nor in those of any of his creatures, Lecchi, Minutoli, De Gallo, Pignatelli, Eocca Eomana. They are Bad-faith personified. Believe me, my dear sir, yours, &c., ^'A, B. G;^ CHAPTER XXY. 1814. Legliorn—Mr. Consul Grant — Visit the Lazaretto —The Countess d’ Albany--’ Signor Papi — Proceed to Pisa — Professor Vacca — Professor Ciampi — Carlo Botta — Vicissitudes of an Italian historian. My next movements shall be recorded in a letter : — Leghorn, 8th July, 1814. Deal Me. Hamiltox^— Mindful of my original inten- tion of examining thoroughly the quarantine establishment at Leghorn^ I proceeded thither this day. addressing my- self at once to Mr. Consul Grant. Mr. Grant^ who during the many years of his consulship gained the esteem of all the principal merchants of Leghorn^ and a well-earned fortune as well as the regard and consideration of all who had any transactions with hinij lives at present an almost secluded life^ withoiitj however^ neglecting to keep his eyes as well as his ears open to all that is transpiring around him. As he told me soon after we first met^ ^ My dear Doctor^ there is more mischief brewing in the air just now in these parts than the gentlemen in Downing Street, from whom you brought me this despatch (which we had just perused), dream of. If you go over to the island with the letters you have brought from the Foreign Office for Colonel Campbell, you may hear more about it. Should you dislike the visit, you will have him over, and possibly some other of the foreign commissioners at the court of the Emperor, who frequently visit Leghorn, and you may then consign to him your despatch from Lord Castlereagh, 400 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. and so terminate yonr mission. If yon will dine alone Avith me a cjuatr’ ocelli^ as these people here say, we may next proceed to the theatre, where I will introduce yon to the governor, who will facilitate yonr inquiries about the sanitary laws of the Lazaretto, and give yon permission to visit the establishment in all its several parts. ^ We did so accordingly ; that is to say, we dined (and very well too) and proceeded to the theatre, when Mr. Grant took his station deliberately in the grand palco as an habitue^ followed by myself. Bnt il Signor Governa- tore never came, and my presentation consequently to the Conte Spanocchi was adjourned to the next morning, when I had the honour of being very well received, every facility being afforded to me, and a number of official documents and returns I required granted without hesita- tion. The count seeing me in an English naval uniform, with which he was 'well acquainted, from having noticed it in many English men-of-war which appear from time to time before Leghorn, expressed surprise on hearing me speak in good lingua Toscana, until the puzzle was explained to him. It being early in the day, I expressed a wish to see the establishment at once. My visit occupied the best part of the morning and the whole afternoon, I taking notes of everything remarkable and useful, and copying plans of the different compartments or localities for the performance of personal quarantine, and those for the expurgation of the merchandise. As it is my intention to publish on my return to England a professional account of my present investigation,"^ I will not lengthen my letter * A letter to the Right Honourable F. Robinson, M.P., President of the Board of Trade and Treasurer of the Navy, “On the Plague and Contagion with reference to the Quarantine Laws, &c., &c., with a plan of the Lazaretto at Leghorn.” London, 1819, 401 COUNTJblSS d’ ALBANY. by adding another word on the subject, except to say that I consider the whole establishment particularly well adapted to all the purposes for which it was formed and is sustained, pace the non-contagionists. In all my inquiries I had the assistance of the head sanitary officer. Doctor Palloni. “ On my return to the office of Count Spanocchi, to thank him for his courtesy, he desired his secretary. Signor Spighi, to supply me with every possible document, whether in print or written, which I might wish to have, that might throw light on the subject of my researches. I cannot speak too highly of the manner in which I was treated, both by the principal authority and his subordi- nates on the present occasion. “ By way of mere chat, I will add to my serious, a few words of the frivolous information that one is sure to pick up in any city when yon choose to seek for it. I mean of course news of men, women, and manners ; as, for example, — While in the grand palco at the theatre, I had pointed out to me, in one of the boxes, a lady who in her day had played a part of no trifling popularity. I allude to the Countess d’ Albany. Having ascertained her address this morning, the moment I quitted the office of Count Spanocchi, I drove thither, and presented the letter I had brought, introducing me to her acquaintance, from one of the intimate friends of Alfleri, not many years dead, with whom it is well known the widow of the Pretender, Charles Ed^vard, had lived in habits of the greatest intimacy. But Elo'ise was as fond of the pictorial art, it is to be supposed, as she had been of the Apollinean muses, for on the death of her dolcissimo vate, she contented herself with living with a man the very anti- podes of Alfleri in mind and body, a Monsieur Fabre, a French painter, whose only merit was the having VOL. I. D D 402 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. painted a miserable looking portrait of tire great tragic writer. “Tbe Countess d’ Albany, like most elderly ladies from central Germany, looked older than lier age. At sixty- two all traces had entirely vanished of that beauty that had for a time subdued a rough and drunkard Celtic prince, enslaved the greatest of modern tragic writers, and kept captive to the day of her death an obscure painter belonging to the most volatile nation in Eurojie. Nothing but the prestige of her name and the surviving graces of her manner could explain the desire travellers expressed on arriving at Leghorn to pay their respects to this last remnant of the Stolberg-Gelden, and of the Cardinal of York’s families. “I trust yon have received duly my second letter, written from my own home in Milan, announcing my arrival from Laris. It inclosed Sir Eobert Wilson’s acknowledgment of having received the several despatches with which I had been intrusted, and also an Italian letter to yourself from my father, who upon hearing my full state- ment of the kind manner in which I had all along been treated by yourself and family, could not resist the desire of expressing in his owm language to yourself his thank- fulness for all yonr good offices and friendship towards his son so long absent, a great part of whose prosperity and success in life he justly attributes to your kind and per- sistent patronage. “ I remain, your very obliged, “ A. B. G.” Desirous to learn the state of feeling in the former pro- vinces of Tuscany, which the Lrench had converted into as many departments, placed absolutely under the rule of the Grand Duchess Elise, I proceeded to visit Pescia and FEELING IN TUSCANY. 403 Pistoja, and ended with Pisa before returning to Florence. In both the two first-named cities I found the same spirit of hatred against the Gallic, not less than against the Austrian rule, and an equally intense desire to be emanci- pated from an ignominious thraldom. The Giovine Italia^ and many of the most spirited amongst several hundred persons conspicuous for talent among the Lucchese, had planned a scheme for securing the independence of their state in the event of the post of Grand Duchess being definitely abolished and she herself exiled. Unfortunately, some of the members who belonged to the provisional government, when the moment of the final declaration had arrived, hesitated and drew back, upon which I received from Signor Passi the following communication, which I translate into English Lucca. 2 cli Agosto, 1814, “ Caeissimo Signore, — difference which unaccount- ably spread itself among my companions prevents me from carrying out what had been concerted between us, at which I am exceedingly vexed. If the affair en grand succeed, nothing can be more glorious, and I shall lend a hand to the utmost of my power. In the contrary ease, and we fail, I hope that yon will still do in our behalf as much as you can, being convinced at the same time of onr gratitude and of all that I before explained to you by word of month. If yon can by some safe channel send us news of yourself, and inform us what we ought to do, you will confer on me a great favour. I cannot say more at pre- sent, but remain, with affectionate esteem, “ Dear Sir, yours, &c., “ L. Passi.” The two systems had proved equally oppressive, and in the language of the many learned and distinguished men D D 2 404 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. and professors one was sure to meet in every j)rovincial city of importance, ^Hlie Puhlica Salus will no donbt be wrecked nnless tlie Italians rise to a man for independence.^^ In these parts, again, I was able to trace evidence of the Appello ’’ having been received and read. My travelling companion was Professor Ciampi, whom I was recondncting in my carriage to his chair at Pisa, where I had the advantage of his guidance and assistance, not only in contemplating and admiring the truly beautiful speci- mens of architecture of which his city can boast, but also in understanding and duly appreciating those marvellous mural paintings in the Campo Santo (erected after the designs of Pisani), with which Giotto, Buffalmacco, Cimabue, and Agogna, between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, gave birth to the pictorial art in Italy. In the University of Pisa, which I visited with the view of paying my respects to the eminent Professor Vacca, to whom Ciampi introduced me, the viri docentes were still in a state of uncertainty and confusion, no one knowing when he might be dismissed to make room for some German teacher ; for to such an absurdity had the Austrians pushed their interference wherever they ruled, as they had done at Pavia and Padua, and now in this city of Tuscany. Andrea Vacca was not a man likely to meddle in politics. Enjoying a European reputation, much engaged in anatomical and surgical investigations, loved and esteemed by a large number of pupils, and respected by an exten- sive practice, which had placed him in very affluent circumstances (as I had an opportunity of judging during a visit I paid at his country house), he was not likely to look beyond the extensive circle of his own comforts and enjoyments. Yet he joined with Ciampi and myself when. PROFESSOR CIAMPI. 405 in allusion to the complaints against tlie existing political condition of otir fatherland, Ave exclaimed Speramus meliora ! Ciampi insisted on seeing me safe hack to Florence, and I confess I parted Avith this truly good and learned man AFith more than common sympathy, and a Avish that his future might make amends for his past adyerse fortune. In that expectation, hoAvever, I Ayas destined to he disap- pointed, as Ayill appear from a letter I receiyed from him, dated Pisa, 23rd Pehruary, 1815. I give a translation: — “ Some time since, hy the channel you indicated, I addressed you a letter Avith the patent of member of the Academy of Pistoja, and Ayith it some literary trifles of my OAvn, a feAY of Avhich I again forAyard in case the others should have miscarried. Poor Ave ! to Avhat are AA^e reduced ! Here Ave are, fast retuiming to the times of the Crusades unless God applies a remedy. The priests are the despots, and do not alloAY us to live. Unfortunate Italy ! This is Avhat she has gained after so many years of suffering ! In Prance, at all events, a liberal system has taken ground, and some- thing has been gained. Here the spirit is in chains. Here no one is master in his house. At every step neAV states are to be met Avith, Avhich divide us into a thousand slices. What is our fate to be? What evil have Ave committed against human kind that Ave should be given up to theocratic rage and every political disaster ? Shall CA^ery hope then be extinguished for us ? England, so liberal, Avill she continue to look Avith indifference upon a nation thus oppressed aud torn, Avho has ever been attached to her ? We have some hopes in her magnanimity. I pray Heaven, in common Ayith all true Italians, that England may not remain deaf to our aspirations. 406 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. As regards myself , if tilings continne as they are, I think of expatriating myself. We have had no letters for several months, either from England or from France. The present yon 'will receive tlirongh a private hand. In answering it, unless yon have a safe channel for conveyance, be cautions, since spies watch everything here. Continne me your friendship, and fareivell. Sebastian Ciampi.’’ Of three or four distinguished Italians who figure in biographical dictionaries under the same name, ordinary readers must have noticed that of Carlo Botta, the author of the excellent History of America,’’ in four volumes, published in 1809, in every way a standard work, whether as regards matter or style. It proved to be the most suc- cessful of the many endeavours made at that time to bring back la hella lingua clelV Arno to the state in which it flourished in the days of Dante, Machiavelli, and Guic- ciardini. Botta was educated for a physician, and took part in all that related to the profession in his days, but more so, and by preference, in the political changes which were hourly taking place, and which led him to publish a History of Italy from 1799 to 1814. As a relaxation from his other serious labours, he -wrote a poem entitled II Camillo, o Vejo conquistata, ” displaying a genuine poetical fire with an easy versification interspersed with not a few energetic beauties. After Yirgil, I know not that I ever experienced more real pleasure in the perusal of an heroic poem in blank verse. With this, eminent person, now consigned to perpetual fame, who died in 1837, aged 71 years, my acquaintance commenced in Paris in 1814, and was continued by frequent letters until, immersed in professional CAELO BOTTA. 407 and laborious duties which, permitted not the relaxation of friendly correspondence, I felt compelled to relinquish this as well as many other social enjoyments. Botta^s biography has been written in every European language, but in none of them are to be found those affecting traits of his chequered life which in his intimacy he confided to me, and which enhance the beauty of his character as a father and a warm patriot, as will be found in a few of the letters he addressed to me between 1814 and 1816, letters which, for the terseness of the composition as wmll as for the picture they exhibit of the arduous life he had to en- counter, may well find a place among the reports of the incidents of my own life. I limit for the present my com- munication of these epistles to a translation of two ; one of which was received in the year of Avhich I am now treating, reserving others for insertion in their proper places. It is well that I should intimate as a preliminary, that the acquaintance on my part commenced with a letter I sent to him by a common friend, the sculptor Comolli, who exercised his profession with great success, sometimes in London, sometimes in Paris, in which letter I offered Potta my services respecting the best mode of aiding him in disposing of his works in London, being aware that a successful sale of them would be of great service. To that offer of mine the following was his reply : — Paris. 7tli of November, 1814. ^^No. 1, Eiie du Paon, Paiiboiirg Saint Germain. ^^SiE,- — The gain you propose to me of your friendship is a thing that I might sooner have desired than hoped for, so little used am I to find lucky ventures in this world, whence you maj imagine whether I have not congratulated myself iq3on it and accept it willingly. I thank you in 408 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR.- GRANVILLE. the mean time for the favour you do me, and I offer on my part everything in which I can obey you, and yon may commence by taking possession of onr friendship in com- manding me. gladly accept your kind offer to assist me in dis- posing of some copies of my work, ^ The History of America ; ’ and as yon insist on my making known my intention on this head, I will say that two modes offer themselves for disposing of the said work in London : The first, that yon shonld take charge of some of the copies to be disposed of for my benefit (a favour I hardly venture to ask) ; the other, that I shonld forward a certain number of copies to some London bookseller, while yon in your rounds would take the trouble of recommending the work to such friends as you think likely to wish for and be able to read the work in the Italian language, naming to them the bookseller at whose shop it is to be had. The work, which as you know possibly through our friend Comolli is in four volumes, sells in Paris for twenty-four francs, but I deliver it to the trade for eighteen, and even seventeen francs if they take more than twelve copies, with a thir- teenth copy for their benefit, according to custom, it being understood that the said copies are in sheets, and not bound. Matters being thus settled, I beg you to inform me by which of the two modes you are disposed to oblige me. If by the first, which as I before observed I would scarcely venture to suggest, though I confess it would be a boon to me, I would in that case despatch to your address a case containing twenty-eight copies, of which I should request you to keep four copies for yourself to do what you like with, and the remainder to be disposed of for my account. Should you, however, feel disinclined to take on yourself such trouble, and prefer rather the second mode proposed CARLO BOTTA. 409 of disposal, I shall in that case he obliged to yon to indicate any particular London bookseller to 'vyhom I conld forward the case of twenty-eight copies, two of which I would esteem it a fayonr from yon to accept from me — ^the other two wonld be given as a bonns to the bookseller, he spelling the remaining twenty-fonr at the prices before agreed upon, nnless the bookseller shonld prefer to purchase them all himself at the lowest cost, paying down the whole amount by a bill of exchange at three months’ date, negotiable on Paris. In regard to costs of transport, custom-house duties, &Co, the whole amount (the bookseller having paid them preliminarily) he would recoup himself either by selling the V olumes dearer or by paying them to me at a less price pro rata on each copy. But I perceive that I am abusing a friendship which is yet quite young, but such is the great kindness of Comolli towards me, which I place on a par with your own, that I shall hope not to be deemed imper- tinent to you. I sometimes read the ^Morning Chronicle,’ and I am conscious of having perused in it a most able article from your pen on the affairs of Italy. May Heaven at length listen to our old and just plaints, which surge in the midst of our unfortunate country ! II Signor Angeloni"^ will be gratified to hear from and enter into friendly relations with you. Please command, and do not spare me. Awaiting future news from you, I hold myself in the number of yours most devoted. Carlo Botta.” * A celebrated Italian polygraplier in bis day, and a great liberal, some of wliose most eloquent letters I shall probably introduce in the course of my narrative of Italian affairs. He published an Essay on Guido d’ Arezzo, the re- storer of music, also a Treaty, Della Forza nelle cose politiche.” He was a member of the Roman Republic, and died in London in 1842, aged 84 years. 410 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. To minds attuned to such syinpatlietic feelings as tlio letter just perused cannot fail to awaken (a letter in wMcli' we behold a noble mind compelled by tlie needs of life to enter into repulsive calculations to facilitate the bartering; of his brain-power for paltry lucre), the fact must causes no slight distress, as it did to me. It is a consolation tp me, however, to know that not only one, but more than one package such as cited in the letter was success-, fully forwarded to a London bookseller during the two following years, intelligence of which I Avas fortunatii enough to communicate to him ; and on one occasioii, while Ave Avere both in Paris, still more fortunate in handing over to him the pecuniary result at a moment Avhen his Avorldly straits had draAvn from his pen the following heartrending note : — ‘‘ Paris. 5th NovembeiA 1815. Rue de la Tixenderie, No. 41. Dear Granville, — I am at length reduced to the last blade of grass, and if you do not help me by the sale of the remaining copies of my ^ History of America,’ and. sending the little sum it may yield, I can hardly tell Avhat may become of me. I pray you therefore, as much as I knoAV and can, to take some trouble for me, for I can tell you that you Avill do me not only a very great favour, but the greatest service that one friend can do to another. ^^The field here is sterile. Literature is quashed, and I am ruined. In my desperation I am printing my poem/'' and say good-bye from my heart. Carlo Botta.” I This literary luminary of the nineteenth century, this eloquent and truthful historian, Avas driven into still deeper scenes of distress. Bereft of his Avife, and Avith three young 11 Camillo, o A^eio conquistata.’’ 411 botta’s disteess, children^ boys, growing up by his side whom he dared not take with, him to employment which was offered him in the United States, dreading, should he die, to leave them in utter poverty ; and yet to leave them behind him and part, Heaven knows for how long, for that he had no courage ! Every Italian scholar with a pitying heart must ex» perience many sharp pangs in his bosom while reading the following extract of another of his later epistles to me, picturing his domestic distress. The historian of America, the modem Tacitus, then crying out : — ^^But I have three children whom I love with the most impassioned love, for they are my own, for they are the children of an incom- parable wife, who on leaving me, now eight years since, took her course to Paradise, and while dying recommended xhein to me Then speaking of going to the United States with his children, to fill a public appointment there, in another part of his letter, he says : — How to get there with empty pockets ? I have no capital to carry with me, and did I sell what little I possess in Piedmont, besides being forced to sell it at a disadvantage, the produce would scarcely suffice to defray tbo expense of the voyage. You will toll me aiat I can live on the emolument of the post the government will assign to me. Very true ; but' r hould I die ! What then Avould become of my three poor infants, jienniless in the world in a country so distant, pai'Ontless, and perhaps friendless ! They would have no other resource left than to beg, and live, if they can live, Oi‘i public pity.’’ CHAPTEE XXVI. 1814. Quit Florence for Bologna — Presentiments of coming evil — An awkward horse- man — A challenge — Arrested in the Opera House — An Austrian ijvoch- rnrhal — Shuffling of the offlcials — General Montresor obtains my release — Beach Modena — Farewell to Milan— Grassi. It is now time to turn my face once more to tlie east and north. With snch a ronnd of visiting acquaintances and friends by whom I had been most conrteonsly treated, it was a puzzle to know how to say farewell when the day came at last to bid adien to the Italian Athens. Perhaps one of the most pleasing features of a frequent international meeting of literary, scientific, or artistic persons, is the satisfaction of finding yourself conversing with the vei^^ individual whose historical work has instructed you, whoso poems have delighted you, or v^hose artistic labours have often gratified your sense of sight and your imagination. This is what I experienced on becoming successively acquainted with the many great and distinguished cha- racters I met during my peregrinations through the m.ost enlightened provinces of Italy. A personal knowledge brings the work of the author or artist alternately or together before you, and you enjoy a double pleasure at one and the same time, for your recollection is doubled. What a treat ought it to have been to the living Pomans, after having perused his Odes or Epistles, to have looked on Horace himself, pacing the Eorum by the side of Augustus ! or how delighted would have been the contemporaries cf Lord Somers could they have cast their eyes on the recluse EETUEN TO BOLOGNA. 413 of Chalfont Saint Giles when his great ]5oeni was suddenly divulged to English readers twenty years after it was written ! I availed myself of an idea which my late qnasi-diplo- matic character suggested, of addressing a more or less Lrief or more or less affectionate note to every one, excusing my abrupt departure under the plea of having received ■sudden orders to return, an excuse which was not altogether an invention on my part, inasmuch as Colonel Campbell had in reality, as he said he should do, committed to my charge a reply to Lord Castlereagh’s despatch which I had brought from Paris. The journey to Bologna commenced very early in the morning. I slept the whole way, arriving at my old hotel, \sl Ville de Paris, the same afternoon, at 6-30 p.m., on the 14th of July, 1814, vexed to find both the fair mistresses of the two conversazioni I used to frequent absent from town. IVty mind was at once made up. No further delay than a day or two’s rest, then off on my return to Milan, and thence straight to Paris. But Vhomme propose^ &c. Upon waking the following morning, after a most refreshing night, the first object I noticed on the breakfast table was Madame Martinetti’s card, with two lines, “ Collazione alle undice. Sensa sciise.^^ The dejeuner was a tete-a-tete one, except for a moment when the “great architect came in for a squeeze of the hand on his way to his office. It was agreed that I should dine with them, and drive out in them calessino to the Montagnola before the opera. Some of my readers will feel disposed to laugh outright at a learned doctor admitting that he is an inveterate believer in all sorts of popular superstitions, forebodings, and presentiments. I am alarmed at the spilling of a salt cellar ; I don’t like to meet a hearse while going out of the street door ; I would not imdertake a journey or any 414 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. important work on a Friday ; and tke breaking of a looking- glass would throw me into fits. Now this morning, soon, after our tete-a-tete dejeuner^ I became suddenly depressed- in spirits, to such a degree that my fair hostess fancied I had been taken ill. This state of nervousness and depres- sion endured after I had returned to my hotel and was making ready my luggage for my positive departure at noon on the succeeding day, leaving out only the evening dress for the dinner and the opera. On taking my place at dinner, the knife and fork laid before me crossway startled me (I dare say I turned pale)^. but I said nothing. There were two attendants. At the next course, the other valet replaced my plate, and again the fatal cross was laid before me ! I looked round to the three guests to see if it was the habit of the servants of the house. They had no cross, only the doctor ; and again the third time the same symbol made its appearance before me with the setting down of the dessert and corresponding plates with gilt knife and fork, the two latter of which articles again contrived to be laid down in a crucial form ! Ah ! now there was no mistake. Some great crossing was about to befall me. I had better shut myself up for the rest of the day, give up the projected drive and the opera, and wait until I can escape in the morning from the doomed city. To make matters still more formidable, I found on looking at my calendar that it was Friday ! All this mind- work I of course kept to myself, albeit I must have appeared rather more stupid than was my wont. After dinner I excused myself and retired. La signora would send the carriage at the proper time to fetch me. Instead of returning to my hotel, I called on Quadri, a litterateur and a liberal, with whom I had been intimate ever since my first visit to Florence, when I had become acquainted with him, and together we took a walk ^ utside AN AWKWARD HORSEMAN. 415 die town, and next directed onr steps Ayhitlier every one goes, to La Montagnola. The fresh air and the lively, instructive conversation of my companion had nearly re- stored my energy and good spirits, when lo ! an Austrian hnssar officer, mounted on a fleet bay, coming at full gallop along the round ride just outside the foot promenade under the trees, as he brushed by ns knocked over, at two feet distance before him, an old beggar woman who was at that instant crossing from the centre fountain to the outer walk, which she had almost reached. A cry of horror was heard, and the woman was being placed on one of the inner benches, motionless, when the culprit again galloped round a second time, without as much as turning an eye towards the group of spectators assembled on the spot of his military proAvess. I noticed near me some whom I knew to be military officers of the late kingdom of Italy, though in plain clothes. They were murmuring. There were also several Austrian officers of the garrison, both riding and walking. No one had anght to say but cry Shame! shame I when presently, behold the violent rider for the third time tearing along I I felt the blood boil in my veins m I beheld him approaching. My head swam as he reached the spot. I let go Quadrics arm, stood out in the open ride with a stretched-ont arm, and fortunately seizing the Loose curb bridle, gave a sudden jerk to the bit. The horse reared and threw his rider, when I let go the bridle amivdst, the Bravo V Inglese I What became of the horse I knew not, but guessing what would become of me imless^ I instantly assumed the initiative, I went forward toAvards the rider, Avho Avas then on his feet, though rather shaken, and addressing him in French, but neither in anger uoi witii petulance,, I said, ^Woii are a very aAvkAAvird h()i\seinan„ Just look at your Avork on this bench, point- ing to the fallen AYoman, ^Wou knock her doAvn and do 416 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. not even give yourself the trouble to inquire whether sh( still lives or not.” “ E vero, e vero ; e nn infamia ” (It is true, it is true it is a shame), cried the people about us. But the offender- had by this time gathered around him some brother officers, some more saucy than the rest, one or two of whom ap- peared inclined to insult me personally, but I believe were deterred from doing it at the sight of many Italian ex- officers in the crowd who were applauding. Quadri stood firm by me. The most insolent of the Austrians came near enough to tell me, “ On demandera raison de ce scandale” (We will have satisfaction for this scandal). “ Quand il vous plaira, capitaine ” (When you please, captain), and I placed my card in his hands. The calessino of Signora Martinetti in the mean time had wormed its way through the crowd of carriages to the front, and she pressed me to get in. “ I knew something cross would happen to me,” were the first words I uttered in the carriage, and as she insisted on Icnowing what I meant, I recounted to her the crosses at her table, and told her with great gravity that nothing of the kind would have happened had not her servants crossed the Imives and forks. There was a general laugh, and nothing more was said. We spent some time with my friends in front of -a fashionable cafe to eat gelati, and then they proceeded to the opera, where madame had her permanent box open to all visitors. It was decreed that this result of the unlucky crossing of knives and forks should lead to a practical les«on ad- ministered to the would-be Italian reformer on the laxity of discipline, the gracelessness, obliquity, and want of principle which at that epoch marked the chai acter of tho chief Austrian authorities and their subordinates, the DISAGREEABLE RENCONTRE. 417 t officers of the army^ in my native land. What wonder, after such an example, that the Anstrians so qualified should be charged by the Italians with more or less mis- conduct and mal-practices in those places in which they had located themselves as masters ? In detailing what follows, I refer to the proces-verhal — an oflScial document pretending to give an account of the occurrence at the Montagnola. I had fully anticipated a fracas^ and had consequently requested to be driven to my hotel, purposing to walk to the opera later. My idea was to put on my uniform and proceed to the theatre in it. A little reflection made me alter that intention. , J ndging from the knoAvn inbred nngracionsness of these young soldiers, I had no right to expose my royal blue to their possible im- pertinence, and so I decided on visiting the ' opera in my ordinary dress, and in it I entered Madame Martinettfis box. There was present young Eckhard, the son of the general commanding, at whose table I had dined twice during my former stay in Bologna. He left the box as I entered, and the lady and I talked of what had happened :at the Montagnola. My visit did not last long. In the corridor outside I met the captain again, who invited me to enter with him the large box belonging to etat-mccjor. Here five or six officers, among whom I recognized the famous rider. Jumped up simultaneously and surrounded me, screaming, some in German, some in Hungarian, and some in bad French or worse Italian, that I had insulted the whole corps by challenging one of their brother officers, who are strictly forbidden by their army regulations either to give (!;)r accept a challenge. ^^En ce cas, messieurs, vous ■f^jermettrez que je me retire ’’ (In that case, gentlemem, eillow me to retire). Being near the door, I had no ^lifficulty in throwing it open and making my retreat irom E E VOl . T. 418 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. these infuriated warriors. But they followed me. I recognized among them young Eckhard and the Marquis de Caratsay. One or two of them hustled me down a short flight of steps to where a sentry was standing, who at the bidding of Captain Eckhard arrested me, and calling out for the sergeant on duty, I was conducted to the guard- room of the theatre. After the closing of the theatre, I was marched off to the neighbouring quarters of the de- tachment, where, notwithstanding my formal protestations, I had to pass the night a la militaire^ down just as I. was in evening dress on the slanting bare boards whicl'i form the ordinary sleeping place of an Austrian soldier,, All demands on my part to see the commanding officer of the guard, or to have a note conveyed to the general commandant, were treated with derision. No officer made his appearance, and I tried to reconcile myself to my fate, sleeping as I never had slept before, in spite of the stench of a dozen long pipes loaded with the most detestable tobacco. A brief extract from the proces-verlal and one or two official letters will tell the story of this unprovoked, illegal, and disgraceful arrest, for which I obtained no other redress than some ignorantly-worded written lapologj/' in Italian from the principal offender, and a concluding phrase soothing to my feelings in Lord Castlereagh^s reply to Count Metternich’s complaint against me on the occasion. ^ The said proch-verhal commenced with a palpable false- hood. ^Mn consequence,’^ it stated, ^^of what occurred at the theatre last night, between certain army officer^' and il Signor Granville, wishing to afford him protectior, against any personal violence and place him in safety^ h(3 was detained and left in the guard-house for the night. He was examined by the commissary of police the follow- ing 4ay at his own hotel, whither he was permitted to PLACED UNDER ARREST. 419 proceed under a military escort, 'wiiicli was placed en permanence in the house during his arrest. His trunk and papers were searched and examined, and on finding several packets of letters sealed and directed to various persons in France and England, which had been introduced by him into the country in violation of the postal laws ^ they were all seized and removed, as were his passport and his sword, zhich he surrendered at the request of Captain Usiach, aide-de-camp to the Commandant de Place, who was present at the examination. The examination was then continued as to the identity of the person, to discover bow it was possible that he should be both Signor Bozzi of Milan and Doctor Granville of London. That looked very suspicious, and his passport by no means explained the enigma, although it certainly recited both those names and character as applied to him.^b The examiner insisted next on my repeating the story of my different jormieys into the interior, in support of v/hich I showed him the various visas at the back of my or:i.giiia], passport, granted to me by Marechal Bellegarde at Milan on the demand of General Sir Eobert Wilson, such as those of Spanocchi, Stahremberg, Strozzi, and others ; and in the end, being pressed by me to declare the reason of my arrest in the theatre, and by whose order, the e vaBiining officer pretended that it had not been done by the said officers on their own authority, but by orders from tluj high imperial commissioner, Count Strasoldo, and rhe Baron Eckhard, who was not satisfied with the identity of my person (although he had received a private letter of recommendation in my behalf from the Austrian general, Count Nugent, who had known me in London). In fact, the proces-verlal was a pure shuffle to screen a parce]. of half-civilized soldiers wearing epaulettes, of brute habits, and scouting all discipline. E E 2 420 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. The short correspondence on my part that followed the examination^ addressed to Baron Eckhard, complaining of the arrest, brought a verbal message through the Com- mandant de Place Usiach^ declaring that he, the baron, had never given orders for my arrest or to keep me under arrest, but that Count Strasoldo, the imperial commis- sioner in the provinces of Bologna and Ferrara, had issued the orders for my arrest from information and instruction he*' had received from superior quarters. As , regards my request to forward a letter from myself to Lord William Bentinck at Grenoa, or to the Foreign Office in London, ffie regretted that he was not authorized to comply with mj request. On this I had no other alternative but to address the following letter to Count Strasoldo “ Bologna. 2 1 st J uly, 1814. “ Excellency, — I am made to believe that my arrest, ■wbicb still contimies, tbis being tbe fourtb day, depends on your excellency, wbo gave the orders as civil governor and imperial commissioner in these provinces. I am therefore obliged to address myself to your excellency for an explanation of such treatment, from which my personal conduct, my public character, and the tmiform I wear of a nation in close friendship with Austria should have guaranteed me.” The answer was not long in coming : — “ In reply to yours of the 2lst instant, I do not hesitate in the least in giving you the following answers : I h(^^- never received any order to cause you to he arrested^ nor have I had any hand in the arrest of your person on the evening of the VJth instant j ^c. “ I pride myseK to be, &c. “ Giulio, Conte di Strasoh^o.” AUSTRIAN SHUFFLING. 421 How could one deal with such shuffling in high places ? I was attacked and hustled by five young fellows full of ire (not wine, certainly) in a theatre, and arrested without a proper order given, or an officer on guard to give it. At home, my Avardrobe and my chancellerie (as my good old friend Count Simon WoronzoAV used to denominate his papers) Avere ransacked, and my SAVord required of me. I Avas dealt Avith as a perfectly unknown stranger, though T was the bearer of a passport from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, vise in Paris by Talleyrand, and a second passport from Field-Marshal Bellegarde, Com- mander-in- Chief of the Austrian army in Italy. I natu- rally complained of my arrest, and of all the other pro- ceedings, to three of the officers in high places. Each denied the charge, casting it on another. FTo one, then, had ordered my arrest, and those scapestrati (as I may rightly call them in my OAvn vernacular) were the only guilty parties ! HoAvever, the situation was becoming someAvhat serious. I recollected my poor felloAV-citizens throAvn into prison by these very Aus- trians, and condemned Avithout even the sham of a trial to the dungeons of Spitzbergen or alle Bocche di Cattaro, at the sight of Avhich I remember also shuddering Avhen sailing in front of them doAvn the Adriatic only a fcAV years before. I Avas aAvare that the papers seized in my rooms had been forwarded to Vienna, and Avho knows Avith Avhat concocted story along Avith them ! My name, as a recent political writer on Italian interests, Avas unfortunately too familiar at the Congress of Vienna. ^^AAvay Avith him! aAvay Avitli him I Avould exclaim those plenipotentiaries, al car cere, duroP Such Avords are soon Avritten, and in Austria as quickly obeyed. Should they treat me as they treated my felloAV- 422 AUTOBIOGHAPHY OF t)R* GRANVILLE. townsman and sdioolfellow^ Confalioneri, or like Silvio Pellico, wko from England will claim me^ or be able or wiE ling to rescue an improvised cabinet messenger condemned to a foreign prison ? Stich were the perplexing reflections that were passing through my mind, not very likely to make me very cheerful, when the waiter of the hotel brought in a card with Lieutenant-General Montresor ’’ written on it. Admit instantly. tell yoti at once, without apology for the intrusion/’ said the general on entering; on arriving last night in Bologna, I was assailed with so many rumours respecting the arrest of an English officer under iniquitous circumstances, and who cannot obtain redress after having been under arrest some days, that I at once deemed it my duty to ascertain the truth of the report.” Fortunately I had retained in my pocket the passport from Lord Castlereagh, with an additional memorandum signed by Mr. Hamilton, Lnder Secretary, which testified that I was charged with despatches. A private letter from the last-named gentleman I had also with me, both of which I at once placed in General Montresor ’s hands. In addition to which, opening Steel’s List,” without which a naval officer in those days would no more think of going about the world than he would without his Prayer-book, I pointed out to him my name oj)posite the date of 1808, October 24, A. B. Granville, full surgeon.” Quite enough; and now what is the story of the quarrel ? ” I related it in a few words ; when the general took his leave, adding, I shall go immediately to Baron Eckhard, the commander of the forces, vouch for your identity, and claim your release, which I am sure to obtain; but I strongly advise you to take yourself off the very instant you are released, which will be by the return of AN APOLOGY. 423 your sword and the remoyal of the sentinels from yonr door.’’ All this turned out as anticipated^ and I set off with f onr horses for Milan. The transaction with General Eckhardj however, did not take place as expected, for he sent one of his aides-de-camp to beg me to call upon him to receive my SAVord from his hands. Well, that was flattering, and shoAved that the good General Montresor had accom- plished his voluntary friendly task well. Still I did not Avish to leave anything else undone Avhich ought to be done before leaving, for fear of accidents. So I settled my bill at the Yille de Paris, was liberal of my mezzi scudi among the Avaiters and the maids, not forgetting even the squad of Croat soldiers that had formed my guard of honour for nearly a week, and drove to the Government House, at the porter’s lodge of which I deposited my card for the baroness, Avho Avas by-the-by an English lady, and had been very courteous, and then ascended to the cabinet of the baron. With a neat turn of phrase he placed my SAVord in my hand, Avhile to my surprise, addressing his son, AAdio Avas present, he said, ^Woii haA^e AAuitten tAVO forms of apology to Monsieur Granville, neither of Avhich satisfies him, nor can you blame him for it. But there is one thing an officer and a gentleman Avho has so far for- gotten eyeii for a moment the rules of equitable dealing and les mameres convenables should not be ashamed of, and that is to express regret.” Young Eckhard uttered the Avords, and Avitli my free hand I grasped his, then bidding good-bye to both, I rushed doAAm stairs and jumped into the carriage. A fcAV minutes saw me through the gate ; my seiwant on the dicky behind my Parisian hired caleche keeping a sharp look out to see that Ave Avere not pursued, for I did not consider myself yet safe ; nor Avere my surmises fanciful, as the sequel Avill shoAV. 424 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANYILLE. I may as well get through the remainder of my story at once, though it took some months to complete it. Catch an Austrian diplomatist making light of any affair ! Not he ; especially if he he one of the old Metternich school, with their protocols, notes, memoranda, and explanations ! The original documents I insert in the Appendix to this volume will he found not devoid of interest — Istly, as completing the story of my adventure at Bologna ; 2ndly, as showing the duplicity of character in persons filling the most responsible post ; 3rdly, in pointing out how easily a simple fact is turned into something mightily important ; 4thly, how determinedly Austrian public officers will deviate from truth when useful to them so to do ; and, lastly, these same documents (from their genuineness and the rank of the writers, as well as the fact of their being published for the first time) will constitute a not uninteresting interpo- lation into the diplomatic history of Europe in the year of our Lord 1814, memorable for the fall of the great Napoleon. That wretched political echafaudage^ yclept the Austrian ; Empire of the days of Metternich, has tumbled so com- pletely to pieces under a more able German constructor, that it is not really worth while to look back to its heroic annals, else one could not help thinking of the indignation our present foreign minister would have expressed at the presumption of the Austrian chancellor recommending, as he did, the English cabinet to keep a sharp look on their liberals, whom he calls Jacobins, in England, and to recall the general commanding the English troops in Italy because he refused to do his, the chancellor’s, bidding ! ALould he have dared to address such injunctions to Palmerston ? AN ould the suggestion be ventured in any duspatvch to the present Minister for Eoreign Affairs ? But Lord Castlereagh, who was a juggler of such wonderful QUIT BOLOGNA. 425 skill as to be able to turn Ms back on Mmself, possessed likewise the cognate ability of all such performerSj that of submitting to any amorLiit of pommelling Iloweyer, I was now ont of the scrape, as Lord Byron got out of one exactly similar in 1822, according to my friend Captain Medwin’s account of the affair in his Con- versations,’^ and I meant to avoid any fresh chance of being again kidnapped under some quibble which the caprice of the lowest myrmidon might urge against me ere I had cleared the Austrian confines. I had found suffi- cient time in the evening before appearing at the Govern- ment House to bid adieu personally to all my kind friends, especially Madame Martinetti, la Marcolini, and the Prin- cess Ercolani, by visits in their respective boxes at the ojDera which facilitated this, nor did I forget my polyglot friend Mezzofanti. I came away from Bologna, therefore, with a clear conscience I may say. Once on the high road, I directed my course to Modena, so as to arrive by the evening of the 24th of July, and be present at a grand court ball given in honour of the two Archdukes Francis and Maximilian and the wife of the former, a very handsome person. Here 1 heard the famous improvisatrice Bandettini, by whom I was presented with copies of her poems, and in whose company and a few select people I partook of the supper which followed the ball. On the following day, after dragging through a sandy plain, I crossed the Po at Casal Maggiore, and lodged for that night at my cousins’, the Forni. They insisted on my visiting the Duomo and the church of Saint Peter, in which last I found some truly superb painting's by Carnpi. An interesting motive induced me to halt again at Lodi before reaching Milan, for the purpose of having an inter- view with Mrs. Cosway, favourably known in London as 426 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF DE. GEANVILLE. tlie superior of a young ladies’ academy founded by her- self, many of whose pupils, like herself, were English. She escorted me oyer the establishment, to which no similar institution could boast of being superior. She intrusted me with a letter for her husband, and another for the Marquis of Douglas* The moment I reached Milan and my own home I addressed a short official application for an audience to Marechal Bellegarde, and spent that day and the following one with Professor Yolta, with whom I dined, and with Professor Quadri, who had accompanied me in my carriage from Bologna, his . professional duties being in Milan. Volta, who as one of my late teachers treated me with almost parental familiarity, spoke much of his own and of Sir Humphry Davy’s discoveries, and expressed himself flattered at the manner in which the Eoyal Society of London had honoured his scientific labourSo Another Ute-a-Ute^ and I may add a philosopher’s repast, I had was Avith my most respected and truly great teacher Doctor Easori, Avhose name and Avorks are Avell knoAvn to my erudite English colleagues. Eor a master and his disciple to meet thus, Avheii the latter has advanced in knoAvledge and experience in the course of twelve years, and can undertake to discuss serious subjects respecting Avhich he could only accept lessons formerly from his inter- locutor and be thankful, is one of those circumstances that make a neAmr-f ailing impression. Besides Avhich, I could not forget that it avus he Avho decided my fate Avhen my OAvn parents and myself Avere hesitating as to Avhat my final destination should be. The Honourable and EeA^erend Mr. Pinch, Avith AAdiom I had once travelled, and II CaA^diere Benincasa, aaEo intrusted me with an important message for the Margravine of Anspach in London, both paid me a Ausit at mj father’s, Ego Eoscolo likeAvise came to bid me tJGO FOSCOLO 427 adieu, and coiiimissioiied me to set him right with some of his London correspondents who had complained of his silence. I conld not look at this cleyer and shrewd Greek, so fond of the Italian canse, without apprehension as to his personal safety : with his fame for patriotism, to continue under the wings of the Austrian bird was rnnning an awfnl risk. Eortnnately a good inspiration took him to England not long after. Here he lived in peace in one of the cottages ornes of the Eegent’s Park, fretting at the ill fate of Greece and Italy, hoping always for better days to both countries, but leaving behind him his doubts, his anxieties, and his bones to English earth, whence regene- rated Italy came to recover them with suitable reverence on the 7th of June, 1871. To wind up at last all my Milanese exploits and parental greetings, a party of I know not how many cousins, with my good father also, assembled along with myself at the country house of a great friend of our family, the famous Professor Eafaelli. The interview which Mar^chal Count de Bellegarde had accorded me lasted but a few minutes, and consisted only in his informing me that he had made his report to Vienna, and in his affixing his signature to my fresh passj)ort, made out for Turin, Geneva, and Paris. I must here insert a letter which in fact decided me on taking Turin on my way, rather than any other pass over the Alps : it adds to the interest which one feels through a knowledge of the true condition of enslavement to which the men of intellect in Italy were reduced at the return of the dark days of Austrian rule. The writer, Grassi, was a Turinese, who, having abandoned the law, devoted himself entirely to literature, in which he acquired great reputation, having moreover conducted a literary journal with great success, until it was despotically suppressed by the returned 428 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. . GRANVILLE. / Austro-Sardiniaii goyernment after the fall of the kingdoni of Italy. He wrote a sketch of the history of Piedmont, and an essay on synonynies in the Italian language. Another philologic work is likewise attrihnted to his pen, though pnhlished anonymously, namety, A Parallel of three Dictionaries, Italian, English, and Spanish.’’ Grassi also translated the Satires of Persins, and wrote several letters on the trne origin of the Italian langnage. Three years before his death, that is, nine years after the following letter was written, he was struck with sudden blindness : — Turin, 2nd August, 1814. deah and yeey esteemed Priend,-^ — I received this morning your letter, which gave me great pleasure, for to tell the truth I thought you a thousand miles from us, without hopes of hearing from you for a long time; instead of which, lo ! you are staying in your sweet native air of Milan ! I learn with great satisfaction, that your journey into the interior has proved very agreeable, and I hope that, having become personally acquainted with some of our eminent men of letters, you will represent them to the English in the light which their learned labours entitle them to be. Italy is still rich in great men, more than is commonly believed, and I hope that you will, like a good Italian, be among strangers the proclaimer of our glories. If on your arrival in England you, will inform me of your intentions in regard to the journal you edited once, that is, whether you mean or not to continue it, I, who in the great changes that have taken place have become a thoroughly disengaged man, confined to my library, where I wear my brain on books for eighteen hours a day, could send you every month or two some good extracts from works recently published in different parts of Italy, or short notes on current subjects that appear from the press in our country ; and should you deem it useful, some LETTER FROM GRASSI. 429 dissertations also upon one or other point of Italian litera- ture. Once acquainted with your intentions, and the am- bassador from England who arrived here would be, disposed to take charge of forwarding such matters to you, I shall be able every month to keep up my engagement with exactitude. I say nothing about myself. I await the result of the Congress of Vienna to know what will become of the different Italian governments ; for as to our own country, there is little to hope, the present rulers being unwilling, on false principles, to employ persons who have served the last French government. They blame us for having been virtuously loyal. It is also possible that I may be tempted by the idea of coming to salute the blessed land of Albion, and if Italian letters be truly cherished there, I can tell you that many fine schemes are fiying about in niy head which I think and hope would prove essentially profitable. In the mean while, if you do not object, I can make a small essay of what I could perform with the articles for ^ V Italico,’ and you, as a good friend and a good Italian, will aid me with your counsels. I do not trouble you any more about books, since having lost my employment I have been obliged to sell the best part of those which I had acquired at great cost. My journal has been suppressed, nor do I know whether it will be restored to me, but I believe not. Therefore, study and the muses will help me to forget these annoyances and human miseries. Gioberti,^' Yassalli, and Balbi are quaking, and with * A sliort and brilliant career was Ms, but in the course of it two distinct phases marked him as a man fit to be the precursor of Gavour, to complete the great work Gioberti and Carlo Alberto inaugurated, and which Victor Em- manuel and Cavour accomplished. At the date to which my text refers, Gioberti had lost every place, and went into exile. The great movement of ^48 brought him back on the scene of his former successful efforts against Jesuitism and Mazzinism. Under his auspices, when Minister of Foreign 480 AUTOBlOGKAPny OF DR. GRANVILLE. good reason, for their professorial chairs. The venerable Caluso had to bear not a few vexatioris. See to what excesses violent political passions will proceed ! I delivered your letter addressed to Pallavicini to a Piedmontese officer, who assured me he should have it before night, Gioberti is in the country. On his return I will remind him of the offered recommendations he promised you for Paris, Lord Bentinck arrived in Turin yesterday. I cannot answer about Mr. Hill, but I believe he is in town. The noble lord will remain some days. Write to me from Milan, or from Paris, or London respecting all I have propounded, or rather take a trip hitherwards, Grassi.’^ Alfairs, my two English letters to Lord Palmerston were translated into Italian, and the king named me Chevalier of Saint Lazare and Saint Maurice. This eminent man, my epistolary correspondence with whom I repute to he a great honour, v/as not only an able politician and political writer (though edu^ cated for a mere man of science), but also a sound and brilliant philosopher as well as an ethic writer, as appears from his work entitled, On the Supremacy, Civil and Moral, of the Italians,’^ published in French in Paris in 1843. He was then in exile, from which the bursting shell of 1848 recalled him to' become minister of foreign affairs and president of the government. He only survived the triumph of his and my own principles three years, having died in 1851, at the age of fifty, CHAPTER XXVIL 1814. Anive at Geneva — Visit Sir Humpliry Davy — Madame de Stael — Lady Char- lotte Camphell— Mn Faraday — Invitation to Coppet — Meet Sisniondi and Pictet — What is a gentleman 1 — Letters of Dr. J olin Davy, I WAS getting impatient to be once more on the high road, not so much from any weariness that had got hold of me, but from a conviction that my next meeting v/ith other and different people veould be one of individual and intellectual gratifica- tion. I had to pass through Geneva, where I was commis- sioned to perform a public duty, and where also I knew that I should meet with those at the sight of whom my heart would rejoice, while their conversation would be an intellectual treat. So the arduous crossing of Mont Cenis at the end of September was borne very patiently. Arrived at the gates of Geneva, I found them closed, that little republic having during the recent warlike disturbances between Italy and Austria deemed it safer to keep their own house closely shut up, especially after having had the two field guns v/hich guarded the gates taken away by the Austrians, These very pieces of artillery, on the loss of which they had applied to Marechal Bellegarde through the intercession of the British Commissioner General, Sir Robert Wilson, — these very guns I was coming to announce the immediate restoration of to the Grand Conseil, in a despatch Sir Robert had committed to my care, addressed to DTvernois, the president, who received the announce- ment and the messenger with scarcely less transport than 43E AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. he received the field-pieces themselves on the following day. As a matter of course I had to accept a gracious invitation to a public banquet from the Gonseil Administratif, in return for the trifling service I had rendered them as a messenger. I could not help sympathizing heartily with these honest republicans at beholding their naive and national enjoyment at the recovery of these two symbols of independence^ the possession, to wit, of arms to defend it. However, neither the satisfaction of having performed an act grateful to so many citizens, nor the pleasure derived from the social reward of a festive demonstration, could detain me long from the spot, not many paces distant outside the bastions (since demolished), where dwelt the greatest English chemist of the age, and near him that first among the literary and philosophical women whom the Eevolution of 1789 had brought to light in a country above all others in Europe rich in that class of a gifted fair sex. Need I name Madame de Stael? Verily, here was a treat in store for an inquiring traveller of my temperament. My respects were necessarily due first to Lady Davy, who resided not far distant from Coppet. To her villa therefore I directed my steps. Sir Humphry was absent for the moment, but seated by the lady’s side I instantly pei-ceived the daughter of Necker, such as I had seen her in her tem- porary habitation in Argyle Street, London, in the preceding- year. On that occasion the meeting was the mere slight introduction of a stranger to the lady of the house surrounded by hundreds of visitors — done ! and it has vanished. Here, on the contrary, the introduction was a deliberate act, contrived a q^uattr’ occM, followed by that kind of mag- netical impression which the eyes of a lady must infallibly cause when they happen to be as those of Madame de Stael most assuredly -were. 433 MADAME DE STAKE. Strange as it may seem, the eyes were not only the first, but the only feature in Madame de Stael’s physiognomy, I might say of her whole person, which produced an impres- sion and which absorbed all attention. Large, lustrous, almond-shaped, with a mobility of pupil that obeyed every inward feeling and guided its direction, and so profoundly black when dilated as almost to modify the velvety and violet tint of the iris. One of her biographers, a lady, Madame de Saussure, Las said Le g^nie 4clatait tout-^-coup dans ses yeux, qui etaient d’une rare magnifi- cence.^’ I have, like most men, looked on many female faces with absorbing admiration, but that admiration in general was equally distributed over the entire personal attrac- tions. In Madame de Stael, the whole and the undivided attractive features that caught and retained your exclusive regard and admiration were her eyes, and on turning from them, even after some minutes' observation, one would be at a loss how accurately to describe the rest of her person without a fresh inspection. That inspection, fortunately for me, I had ample Lisure to enjoy, first under the hospitable roof of her friend, and again at ‘Coppet itself. It had been my good fortune to be of some little service to Lady Davy the year before, when Sir Humphry obtained from Napoleon permission to visit the Continent, then in arms against France. That permission, which was solicited by the Institute and accorded to the high reputation of the petitioner, restricted nevertheless the number of his atten- dants to one, besides Lady Davy and her maid. Limited thus to a single attendant, Sir Humphry had the good fortune to find the young chemical assistant in the labora- tory of the Royal Institution, Mr. Faraday (who was destined to become its prop as well as its star), not only willing, but a volunteer in charging himself with all the duties and functions of a confidential attendant. Sir Humphry raedi- ¥ F VOL. I. 434 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF DE. GRANVILLE. tated going at once into Italy, for which purpose a passport from the ambassador of Piedmont — which had just been wrested from France — became necessary, and this document I obtained for them from the Count d’ Agli4, the Sardinian minister in London, whose private physician I had the honour to be, as well as the official medical member of the legation. On forwarding the passport to Lady Davy in 1813 she acknowledged it with the following note : — “ I return you thanks in Sir Humphry Davy’s name for your obliging letter of last night, and I request you to con- vey to Count d’ Agli4 his acknowledgments, and also his regret that the count is indisposed. Sir Humphry’s journey cannot be certainly fixed beforehand, since his movements will be guided by health and weather, &c. He intends to go by Nice ; but he may enter Italy by Mont Cenis. He therefore wishes a double security in a lasciar passare, which you have procured him for either frontier pass, the Var, or the Col de Tende, or by Mont Cenis. I am very much obliged by the concluding expression in your letter, and I beg, in presenting my own good wishes, to join those of Sir Humphry, whose departure will be very speedy. “ Yours sincerely, “ Jane Davy. “ London. Saturday evening, 1813.^’ My introduction to Madame de Stael on the preseut occasion, it will be seen, was by a person herself distin- guished, to whom I was not a stranger. It was therefore a cordial introduction, and as such it was apparently accepted by madame, who at once began to question me about her favourite country, my own native one, whence she was aware I was just returning on my way to England. “ What could I say to a writer like you, madame, who have painted us such as we ought to be, and might be, but which unfor- tunately we are not ? Everything we have in still nature MADAME DE STAEL. 485 and ancient art, which you have represented with such magnificence and in so dazzling a style, has no power to touch my countrymen of the present time. Rendered almost brutish in their susceptibilities by the harsh manner in which they have been treated, as well by your coun- trymen as by the Germans (whom, by-the-way, you have thought worthy of praise), the love of the fine arts with the Italians, of letters, of sciences, or the art of governing still exists, but it is suppressed. Nothing remains but the desire for a resuscitation and for vengeance which burns in their breasts and disturbs their heads. There is now a general supineness. This can scarcely last for ever, nor even any length of time. There will be a re-awakening, which will be fearful and decisive. But when will this be ? There cannot be much further delay.” “So much the better,” replied the daughter of Necker. She next inquired after some of the Italian ladies who had made for themselves a name in literature, and chiefly in poetry, some of whom she had known personally. Of the wonderful discovery of Volta she had heard fully from her present host. Sir Humphry, and she regretted not having been presented to him when at Milan. She spoke of Parini, Cesarotti, Niccolini, and Monti, whose wife she con- sidered to be the most splendid statuesque woman she had ever beheld, either in ancient sculpture or in living flesh. She seemed to look upon me with something like increased interest when I acquainted her with the fact that I had had the honour of acting with that lady at the amateur Teatrc Filodrammatico in Milan, in one or two tragedies of Alfieri, and in the imperishable one tragedy by her husband Monti — “ Aristodemo.” Lady Davy interposed with an exclamation, that the read- ing of “Corinne,” and the present account of the celebrated beauty just named, made her impatient to find herself again F F 2 436 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLK. in Italy, and she grudged the terrible giant screen that every day stared her in the face, rising between herself and that highly favoured region, as she rose at early morning to open the casements of her chamber to catch the Alpine breeze so laden with fragrance. “ Well,” I remarked, “ you will very soon be in the very centre of that region you so much covet,” for Sir Humphry had informed me in London that he counted on writing to me from Rome in November. “Take notice, dear lady,” I said, “ of what Rome is at present ; Pagan in studies and erudition ; Christian in faith and adoration. If God, who is worshipped there, will but help us, within fifty years the world will salute Rome as the capital of a powerful kingdom, virtuous, intelligent, and happy I trust, but which will no longer love either the beautiful or the fine arts, or care only little for them.” “What, then,” observed Lady Davy, “cannot all the good qualities you have mentioned be allied with the love of the beautiful ? Is a whole people to be metaphysical and nothing more in order to be happy ? ” “ But the object of metaphysics,” interposed Madame de Stael, “ is the knowledge of things purely intellectual, and which do not appear to the sight. The most celebrated philosophers have made them their principal study.” “ Granted,” I said. “ Then how can you expect that people accustomed to abstractions should appreciate, still less be able to enjoy, realities ? A metaphysician might lecome an ascetic, and as such he may form to himself an abstract notion of some lovely fair saint in heaven, as Dante and Petrarca did, admire her, address his prayers to her, and direct all his aspirations to her ; still he will not for all that be a lover of the beautiful.” On the day after this morning visit, the following invita- tion came from Lady Davy ; — LzVDY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL. 437 “ Dear Sir, — You must come and dine witli us to-morrow, but as we think that too distant, pray go this evening, in half an hour, to Lady Charlotte Campbell’s, close to Geneva, outside the gate Cornivau, at a house called Les Grottes, and we shall be there to introduce you. Indeed, you had better return and sleep here. We shall be delighted, and I can settle for you about Madame de Stael’s dinner. “For the Chevalier and myself, “ Yours sincerely, “ Jane Davy. Saturday evening. “ Pray go, and come to us this evening.” I did as I was bid, and my casual acquaintance with the interesting member of the noble family of the Argyles, which Lady Davy procured me, and thus suddenly com- menced, was destined to lead in later years to days of great interest, which none of the present parties were likely to surmise or anticipate. Lady Charlotte was herself a charming specimen of that British aristocracy which, young denizen though I was of Great Britain, and but little acquainted yet with high life in London, I nevertheless knew how to appreciate. The contrast which the few of its members whom I happened to have met in the world of the metropolis presented in my imagination with so many of my own aristocratic country- men — effete, cast down, or reduced in circumstances by years of foreign oppression and tyranny — was too painful to reflect upon. In her graceful and gracious manner of receiving her guests, Lady Charlotte was well supported by her two fair daughters, only one of whom survives her, but both of whom had become in their turns the cynosure of their own respective circles in society. I happened to be a sort of lion for the night, from the 438 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. circumstance of my having been the bearer of the official announcement of the restoration of the guns, and (as I soon found out) from my adventure at Bologna having oozed out and made its way to Geneva. I was rather glad at this double chance of being for the time made a subject of notoriety, which no pre-eminent antecedent in my own individual existence could have secured to me. It was late when Sir Humphry hinted to his lady a retreat, and on that night I enjoyed their hospitality. It was on my retiring to my own room soon after, that I recognized and addressed the young assistant of the Royal Institution. Mr. Faraday, who had kindly conducted me to my apartment, did not speak many words ; indeed, the hour was not propitious, and the immediate proximity of Lady Davy’s own room rendered a long conversation inadmissible. He, however, expressed his great satisfac- tion at what he had seen of the Continent, and seemed to enjoy, as if paid to one who was part of himself, the admira- tion he saw profusely showered on his great teacher and protector by the eminent men with whom Geneva then abounded. I have since (that is, fifty-four years subse- quently) read in Doctor Bence Jones’s able biography of that young aspirant for glory, who was to become a correla- tive constellation in the world of science with his teacher, a letter of Mr. Faraday, in which some painful insinuation appears to lurk respecting his own personal position with Sir Humphry abroad. In a letter to a Mr. B., dated in September, 1814, after admitting the many advantages he enjoys in his position with Sir Humphry, he goes on to remark — But if I wish to enjoy those advantages, I have to sacrifice much ; and though those sacrifices are such as a humble man would not feel, yet I cannot quietly make them.” In the June preceding (June 17, 1814) there had been a meeting between the two great electro-chemists — MICHAEL FARADAY. 439 “ Volta called on Davy ! a hale, elderly man, very free in his conversation ; ” and that is all Faraday has to say of Volta ! He certainly did not express himself to me as if he were dissatisfied that in his intercourse with the family he was not treated as if he were an independent gentleman. I can well conceive, however, that even with his innate humble- ness of character, our departed and loved Professor, full of the sublime aspirations that were in him, might at times have felt mortified at his own state of dependence. But had not his own great teacher himself been in a like condition at the commencement of his wonderful career? Moreover, Faraday in his own case enjoyed a mitigating benefit for a dependent man which his great teacher had never known, namely, that of being cheered by the graciousness of the mistress of the house he lived in, and encouraged by the esteem of the master himself, esteemed by all.* I know not whether my first interview with Madame de Stael impressed me with higher notions of her intellectual powers than I entertained already from the perusal of her * Dr. Bence Jones states that in Mr. Faraday’s journey with Sir Humphry, he was a year and a half away, during which he kept a diary, remarkable for the minuteness of the descriptions of all he saw, and for its cautious silence regarding those he was with. Only a few extracts are given. The follow- ing, which I add to them, are intended to caution the biographer as well as the general reader, that if Faraday’s diary was very minute, it was also, like most diaries, not always accurate. With reference, for example, to his first appearance and residence in Paris, where Sir Humphry was warmly received, Faraday tells his mother, in a letter dated 29th December, 1813 : — We left Paris this morning, after a residence of three months But in another letter, also to his mother, dated Rome, April 14th, 1814, he says : — I have said nothing as yet to you, dear mother, about our past journey, which has been pleasant and agreeable (a few things excepted). We first went to Paris, and stopped there hvo months” Faraday forgot to refer to his diary while writing the present letter. But a difference of one month in eighteen of a residence on the Continent is a notable one. I demur to another remark of Faraday’s biographer. Lady Davy’s character, or rather manners towards their attendant, he has inaccurately represented. 440 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. writings ; possibly it did, looking at the additional charm I enjoyed of the. melodious intonation of her voice with the fluency of her well-turned phrases, all aided by the expres- sion of her wonderful eyes ; or perhaps, again, from that expectation we are apt to form of still loftier qualifications in a person we find so gifted. But the result of our first interview was to make me reluctant to encounter her again at close quarters, and with such an ample opportunity for discourse and the interchange of ideas which a select private dinner party with only a few persons affords. Madame de Stael had laid an injunction on her intended guest, that he should visit her earlier than the usual dinner hour, in order that he might enjoy, from the front terrace of her chateau, the charming view of the lake and its lovely shores, backed by the Jura on the one side, and by the king of the Alps on the other. She had promised me at the same time a probable additional pleasure, in the presence of one or two friends with whom I should certainly be glad to become acquainted. These observations were intended as a special communication to myself, for I was included in the general invitation addressed to Sir Humphry and Lady Davy. These select friends turned out to be Monsieur de Sismondi and Pictet. No better selection, even for some- thing better than a mere dinner party, could have been made. The fair mistress of the feast could not have sum- moned to her side two more choice spirits than, first, the man who had accompanied her in more than one of her travels in Italy, and who admitted always that the polishing of his own native rude character and manners was due to, the association he had enjoyed on those occasions. The second, a very old friend of her father, whose views and principles in matters of state and political economy had almost always coincided, for Necker and Pictet were bound all their lives in intimate friendship — the latter proudly A DINNER AT COPPET. 441 pointing out on this occasion to the company assembled the very room in which the elements of the “ Compte Rendu” were brought together. For myself, I was thankful that chance had given me the opportunity of knowing personally two individuals, the work of one of whom, concerning my own native land, I was well acquainted with and grateful for ; while the occasion I had frequently had in recent times of addressing letters to the other distinguished person. Monsieur Pictet, after he had founded the journal entitled the “ Bibliotheque Britan- nique” (afterwards called “ Universelle ”), rendered him almost a personal acquaintance. No sooner had these two guests joined us at the usual hour of dinner, which our own party had anticipated for the purpose of enjoying the panorama before us from one of the four angular turrets of the Chateau Coppet (a sort of plain, massive, quasi-feudal structure, with many windows and no ornaments), than we all sat down at the festive board, and the flow of soul commenced. As the latest arrival from foreign parts, and coming from a country which was just then a common topic of conversation, and one so well known to most of the guests present, it may be supposed that I had to sustain the first fire of questions. I had, fortunately, much to tell that could interest generally ; but in one particular case individually also, since I had it in my power to give to one of the guests present some account of my very recent visit to the small town of Pescia, in Tuscany, ivhich so particularly interested Sismondi, whose parents sleep in the cemetery of that place, near the family domain of the delightful Walchiusa, in which both had passed not a few years of their happy life. At my simple account of the visit I had paid to that sacred spot, Sismondi exhibited all the tokens of a sensitive heart which the bonhomie of his countenance (enlivened, how- 442 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. ever, by very intellectual eyes) would of itself lead one to expect. Fortunately, the broader question of the resurrection of Italy was broached at this moment, and the part I had taken in endeavouring to rouse my countrymen to a sense of their own character and of the greatness of their ances- tors, diverted the feeling from a partial to a more general sympathy, and the conversation between Sismondi and myself continued on the subject of his great work, the “ Histoire des Rdpubliques Italiennes,” and on the great admiration I entertained of the matter and style of a more recent publication, “ Sur la Littdrature du Midi de 1’ Europe,” from his fluent and eloquent pen, itself a vast field of know- ledge, far more valuable than any discussion on the repub- lican regime of restless populations. I believe that my casual mention of the fact of my being personally ac- quainted with Sir James Mackintosh, who had encouraged me in my periodical, “ 1’ Italico,” and of my having been a fellow-collegian with the husband of Bianca Milesi, Doctor Mojon, a Piedmontese physician first practising at Genoa and next in Paris, completely riveted the friendly inter- course between Jean-Charles Sismondi and myself, upon which Madame de Stael, with that sort of sweet d propos which she alone knew how and when to find, congratulated me after dinner. These topics of general conversation, and my own dialogue with Sismondi, left little time for any except a mere occasional interpellation by Madame de Stael to me, or from me to herself, to which our intercourse for the mo- ment seemed destined to be confined. Nor was I sorry that matters had taken that turn almost naturally, for, as I have said, I stood in awe at the idea of a closer and continuous conversation with her, so prompt her remarks, so sudden and rapid her repartees, so stringent her propositions, and 443 WHAT IS A “ GENTLEMAN.” SO learned her references and citations, all uttered with a quick yet pleasing intonation that would leave me no chance to meet her on equal terms. I felt then (and well do I remember it) that the anecdote of the gaucheries of the English guests at Lady Bessborough’s souper, when asked to meet and welcome the daughter of Necker in London, must be correct.* Nothing could be more amiable than the lady was on the present occasion. She very possibly suspected my shyness, and tried to help me on. A slight opportunity of showing that I was not unwilling to join in the spirit of amenity that prevailed among the other guests offering itself, I profited by it to venture on a critical opinion on the English term “ gentleman ” (which, by-the-by, has so frequently served as a cheval de hataille in conversation in society abroad and in French families in England). On the present occa- sion it seemed to be the opinion of all the guests, that no equivalent to that term could be found; upon which I ventured to make the following observation : There is a writer, I said, in the “ Revue des Deux Mondes,” Camille Sendel, who seems to have solved the question we are now agitating. He was reviewing an account of the life and letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in that periodical. Passing over for the present the great blunder he makes of qualifying her ladyship as the person who introduced vaccine and vaccination into Turkey, instead of the inoculation of small-pox, of which she had really the merit (for vaccine was at the time unknown), but passing over that mistake, as I said, when Monsieur Camille Sendel comes to speak of Mr. Wortley, her intended husband, he says, that he was a “ vrai gentleman, mieux qu’un gentleman, un gentilhomme.” * It came out in tlie course of conversation between Madame de StaM and Lady Davy, that the former confirmed the fact of the gaucheries de ces braves seigneurs de Lond.res.^’ 444 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP DR. GRANVILLE. What can be more impertinent than such a reclamation against the interpretation of a word admitted to be not only untranslatable, but without equivalent, in favour of another term which is universally employed in the designation of a gentilhomme de campagne, or a gentilhomme campagnard^ neither of whom need be a gentleman for that ? Madame de Stael remarked, “ Je lirais cet article le plus tot possible. Les lettres de Milady m’ont toujours charmdes, et je ne me serais jamais imagine qu’elle voulusse dpouser un tout autre qu’un ‘ gentleman ’ sans s’occuper de si c’dtait un gentilhomme ou non.” * Upon which everybody laughed, and the conversation rolled on for a short time longer, until we were called away to the grand terrace to take our coffee and enjoy the sight of a glorious dip of the sun into the waters of the Leman lying at our feet. Before leaving my quarters at Geneva and taking leave of Madame de Stael (of whose last movements I shall have to speak when we again meet in Paris in 1817), of Lady Charlotte Campbell, and of all the new acquaintances I had made in that snug and delightful Swiss city, I had a short interview with Sir Humphry respecting his brother. Doctor John Davy, a chemist who has left behind him a high reputation. It appeared that the doctor had an opportunity of entering the medical service of the army and filling a high post on the staff in a distant colony ; but he was unable to accept either place unless he could free himself from his then engagements as a lecturer on chemistry at the Saint George’s Hospital, courses of which were delivered in the great room of the Westminster Medical Society in Great Windmill Street, of Avhich the late Sir Benjamin (then Mr.) Brodie, surgeon of the hospital, was the head. Sir * I will read that article as soon as possible. Milady’s letters have always charmed me, and I never could have imagined she would have wished to marry anyone but a gentleman without troubling herself as to his being well horn or not. DR. JOHN DAVY. 445 Humphry, knowing that my object was to settle finally in London as a medical practitioner, very naturally imagined that I should be glad to join such a school as teacher, and that possibly I might not be reluctant to take the place Doctor Davy now occupied. Should that be the case, he desired to tell me before we parted that he would feel obliged if I would put myself in communication with his brother on my arrival in London, and talk to him on the subject with a view to an arrangement. I did not give Sir Humphry a definite answer at once, as I could not foretell what my future engagements might be, but I assured him the idea was one that suited me well, the more so that both his brother and Mr. Brodie were old acquaintances of mine, and I should like to act with them, I may as well add at once that the arrangement in the course of time took place as Sir Humphry desired. I did not hesitate in putting myself in correspondence with the doctor, who was then in London, and m constant communi- cation with his brother, who with Lady Davy had returned to Florence and Rome after we had parted at Geneva. The following letters from Doctor Davy will show on what footing we stood, and I may mention that the Doctor Harrison named in the second letter was a London physician acting as treasurer to the Committee of Lecturers (we did not then assume the more dignified title of professor, as it has become the fashion to do since) at the Windmill Street Medical School : — Frith Street, London. January, 1815. “Dear Sib, — I have just seen Dr. Harrison, and he assures me that the lectures will be continued during the summer months, and that your assistance will be acceptable. He is decidedly of opinion that, should I remain at Dublin the lectureship will be at your service. On both these subjects, and the first especially, he says there is no room 446 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. GRANVILLE. for doubt, and he desired me to inform you, so that you might commence when you pleased your preparations for the summer course. On Harrison’s word I have perfect reliance, and I think you may depend confidently on it. Roget’s opinion at present seems to be of no consequence, and if it were, for you it would be favourable. Pearson, you may be assured, will throw no obstacle in the way, and were he to attempt it, Harrison promises to remove it. “ Believe me, dear Sir, “ Yours most sincerely, “J. Davy.” “ Dear Sir, — The following is the postscript from my brother’s letter which I promised to send you : — ‘ I examined a vei’y curious natural phenomenon in the Apennines, the fire of Pietra Mala.* There issues from the soil an enormous quantity of carburetted hydrogenous gas, which is always inflamed, and which makes a flame of eight or ten square feet. It is probably from a coal stratum acted on by the volcanic source of heat which probably exists everywhere in the south of Europe.’ “ Yours truly, “ J. Davy.” London. January, 1815. “ Dear Sir, — I have brought the packet you had the goodness to offer to forward to my brother at Rome. I hope it is not too large. Besides ‘ Berzelius ’ (which I have read, and think worth reading), it contains only a single letter. I have brought also a small quantity of potassium, which you will oblige me by accepting. “ Believe me, &c., “ J. Davy.” * This phenomenon, as witnessed by myself, has already been mentioned in my narrative while crossing the Apennines from Bologna to Florence in the ni^ht. Since that time an exhaustive acconnt of the phenomenon by Sir Hnn^phry Davy was transmitted through me to the Eoyal Society. DR. JOHN DAVY 447 “ Frith Street, No. 22. Wednesday morning. “ Dear Sir, — A llow me to remind you of to-morrow morning. Doctor Harrison has promised to breakfast with us at nine o’clock to meet you. “J. Davy.” This was the meeting at which the agreement on my part of assuming to lecture at the Medical School was to be formally settled, as it actually was settled. From the same to the same [a week later). “ Dear Sir, — I send you the packet you had the good- ness to offer to forward to Paris. Not knowing Orfila’s address, I have directed it to my friend Monsieur Rainier, who is acquainted with him. To-morrow morning, mercury and its combinations will he the subject of my lecture. If you have any small specimens of the yellow and red iodes to spare which you made, I would venture to petition for them to show my class. The quantity of iodine I have is so small that I cannot afford to make them. “ Believe me, &c., “ John Davy.” APPENDIX. Report from Marechal Comte de Bellegarde to Prince Metternick, Eeferred to in page 424, Le 17 du mois, a Toccasion qu’a Bologne une femme tomba a la promenade publique sous le clieyal d’un officier Autrichien, un inconnu en habit de bourgeois s’approcha de I’officier et lui dit, de mauvaise grace, qu’il n’etait pas permit de courir si vite a cheval a une pro- menade publique, en ajoutant que si cela etait arrive a Londres, le peuple se serait empare de lui. On en vint a une dispute, qui pour le moment n’eut pas de suite, et qui pour le moment finit par la declara- tion que rinconnu fit, d’etre le Sieur Granville, officier Anglais loge a I’auberge de la Yille de Paris. D’apres ces notions deux officiers Autrichiens allerent le chercher pen de temps apres a son auberge, et ne le trouvant pas, ils allerent au spectacle oii il etait, et ils Pattaquerent par des propos fort determines. La querelle fut alors tres-vive, et on en serait venu a une affaire, mais la garde survint et mit aux arrets le Sieur Granville, qui etait tout comme Papres midi sans uniforme. Monsieur le Comte de Strasoldo, Conseiller de Pin- tendance Generate des Armees aupres de Monsieur le General d’Eckhard, jugea a propos de mettre a profit cette circonstance pour s’eclairer sur les menees du Sieur Granville, qui lui avait ete indique d’ici comme un homme tres-suspect, d’apres les renseignements donnes par la police ; et il ordonna en consequence qu’on le soumit le lende- main a un examen, et qu’on saisit tons ses papiers. Il resulta d’apres le proces-verbal du dit examen — 1°. que le veritable nom est Auguste Bozzi. 2°. qu’il est Milanais. 3°. qu’au lieu d’aller tout droit a Eome, pour ou on P avait muni ici de passeport, sur demande du General Wilson, il n’etait arrive qu’a Livourne, d’oii il avait rebrousse chemin a Bologne, sans faire viser son passeport aucune part, et sans se presenter a Bologne au Commandant de la Place. 4°. que tantot il se qualifie officier Anglais, tantot cliirurgien dans les flottes de Sa Majeste Britannique, et tantot simple professeur de medecine. Dans sa chambre a Pauberge on a trouve 18 lettres cachetees, une xinglaise non terminee, un extrait de registre des francs mapons, des cartes de APPENDIX. 449 visite, et un billet de permission pour entrer au Lazaret de Livourne, On a saisi reguliereinent tons les papiers, et on on anrait peut-etre trouve de plus interessant si on n’eut pas permit au Sieur Granville, apres I’avoir mis aux arrets, de rentrer chez lui pour quelques heurcs. Monsieur de Strasoldo envoy a d’abord ici par courrier expres le proces- verbal et les papiers du Sieur Granville, et demanda des ordres ; mais comme dans I’intervalle le General Anglais Montresor est arrive ii Bologne, et a declare que le Sieur Granville 6tait‘reellement au service de sa Majeste Britannique, le General , d’Eckhard et Monsieur de Strasoldo ont cru de ne pouvoir pas le retenir plus longtemps, et Granville a ete muni de passeport pour venir a Milan, oii il est arrive avant bier au soir. Yotre Altesse aura ainsi sous ses yeux tout rensemble de cette affaire, et sera a m^me de prouver au Ministk^e Anglais toute la regularite de notre maniere d’agir vis-a-vis du Sieur Granville, dans le cas de reclamation de sa part. II yient de demander dans rinstant meme qu’on lui rende les papiers qu’on lui a trouves, et qui sont marques dans le proces- verbal, et on lui a repondu qu’on les a envoyes a Yienne joints au proces-verbaL— Sign4 Bellegarde, Feld-Marecbal. Co2ne d'une lettre du Prince Mettermcli d Milord Castlereagh. {Confident idle,') Baden. 18th AoCit, 1814. Milord, — La confiance que je vous porte, milord, m’engage a m’adresser directement a vous, dans une circobstance trop im- portante pour qu’elle ne doive pas exciter toute notre sollicitude, et par cons4]uent egalement celle du gouvernement Anglais. Je vous ajoute des pieces auxquelles nous n’eussions pas attache la meme valeur, si I’individu qu’elles regardent ne se trouvait en des rapports aussi directs avec votre gouvernement. Le Sieur Granville, plutot Bozzi, ne sujet Bolognais, s’est rendu coupable de manoeuvres que nous avons surveillees aussi longtemps que la chose a pu se borner raisonnablement h ce fait ; mais les pieces susdites fournissent des preuves tellement evidentes de trames odieiises, que nous devons viser a les dejouer de toute maniere. Le Sieur Granville se trouvant en correspond ance directe avec le Ministero Anglais, ce dernier court risque d’etre induit en erreur par un individu qui se permit tous les mensonges dans le but incontestable d’arriver a ses fins. Yotre Excellence trouve dans les annexes dos lettres qui liii sont adressees. Le General Eckhard a cru devoir les respecter, et il a Q YOL. I. 450 APPENDIX. a tres-bien fait. II y en avait nne adressee an Sous-Secretaire d’Etat : celle-ci a ete ouverte, parceqne Bozzi s’etait vante de la protection qne Monsieur Hamilton lui faisait eprouver. L’Empereur m’a ordonne de blamer en son noni Ponverture de cette lefctre. Votre Excellence la tronvera egalement parmi les pieces. Elle est sans doute de nature a meriter toute son attention. Tons les fails qu’elle renferme sent faux, ou bien ils out souffert une fausse interpretation sous la plume du redacteur. Le langage du Sieur Bozzi est au reste le meme que celui de tons ses complices. Les Jacobins Italiens ont prit a tache de denigrer les gouvernements et de precber le mecontentement des peuples. II est de fait que les mecontents forment dans ce pays-la la si faible minorite que toute inquietude est superflue. Les mecontents dans la classe des proprietaires du veritable peuple, le sont en sens inverse de ce que les representent les Jacobins ; ils blament les gouvernements de ne pas retourner strictem&nt a Tandm ordre des cJioses. Telles sont les plaintes exclusives qui nous arrivent de toutes les parties des provinces ci-devant Autrichiennes, et qui dejti sont rentrees sous notre administra- tion. Avec le ferment revolutionnaire qu’entretiennent les restes de I’armee Italienne (cette quantile disproportionnee de generaux, d’officiers, et d’employes de toutes genres), ce ferment se trouve soutenu et appuye par des agents se disant Anglais en abusant de leur caractere. II n’est pas moins vrai que des desordres partiels et momentanes pourraient avoir lieu. L’Empereur est si convaincu, milord, que les vues de votre gouvernement sont entitlement opposees a ces man- oeuvres, qu’il m’a ordonne de vous prier de nous soutenir dans nos recherches, et dans nos mesures toutes dirigees dans le sens d’ecarter des troubles qui ne feraient que des malheureux. Un des moyens les plus efficaces pour arriver h ce but, est que le gouvernement Anglais surveille les Jacobins Italiens en Angleterre, et qu’il rappelle de I’ltalie le General Lord William Bentinck, qui, malgre les plus pures intentions, a singulierement favorise les men6es des perturbateurs de I’ordre des cboses, qui reclament egalement le besoin de repos que nous avons tous, et le systeme d’equilibre politique de I’Europe. Je desire egalement, et ce voeu est fonde sur celui d’eviter des com- promissions penibles par la suite, que vous veuillez bien, milord, designer sous le sceau du secret les individus avoues par vous, et qui pourraient se trouver charges des commissions en Italic. Ils eprouveront tons les genres de protection, tandis que le gouvernement aura la faculfce de sevir contre la foule d’aventuriers qui se compro- mettent journellement, et qui aussi souvent que Ton vent sevir contre eux pretexfcent des cominigsions de votre gouvernement, qu’ils sont APPENDIX. 451 qien loin de ponvoir prouver. Je vous soumets memo I’idee, s’il n’y aurait pas un veritable avantage si pour le moment yous placiez pres dll Gouvernement General a Milan un agent sure et accredite 'par vous, qui par ce fait meme aurait droit a toute notre confiance, ce qui faeiliterait infiniment la marche du gouvernement en contribuant au maintien des meilleurs rapports entre nous. Je profite, &c.j de votre Excellence, &c., Tres-luimble serviteur, (Signe) Mettehnich. Copy of the reply from Lord Castlereayh, s {Private.) Verona, 8tli October, 1814. Mon Prince, — I received the day before yesterday your Highness’ letter to me, marked private, of the 18th of August, from Baden, respecting the conduct of a person named Granville or Bozzi, who was arrested at Bologna by the orders of Count Bellegarde on the suspicion of his being a spy, and on whom were found letters directed to Mr. Hamilton, one of the under-Secretaries of State, of a very indiscreet nature. Without entering into any of the circumstances attending his arrest, I take the earliest opportunity in my power to assure you that such a person has never been in the service of the British Government. His history is this, as far as I can learn from Mr. Cooke, the Under- secretary. He is by birth an Italian, and a surgeon in the British Navy. Mr. Hamilton, my other under-secretary, became acquainted with him long ago, somewhere in the Archipelago, and they travelled together in the Levant. On his coming to London he renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Hamilton, who placed him about his children to teach them Latin and general science. In the last spring he expressed a great wish to visit his aged father, whom he had not seen for the space -of twelve years, and asked Mr. Hamilton to facilitate his passage to Italy, who allowed him to be charged with despatches, and desired him to write to him familiarly respecting the general state of affairs. He wrote accordingly two or three letters to Mr. Hamilton, and they all had a tendency to give the same colouring to affairs as is painted in the letter which has been seized. As to sending to your Highness secretly the list of our agents in Italy, I should be most happy to do so if we had any whatsoever, unless bis Majesty’s consuls can be so 452 APPENDIX. designated. As to the other part of your Highness’ letter^ I will, take an eailj occasion of conversing with you. I know not in wdiat situation Granville is, or has been since his arrest. His interfering against the violence of an officer, who rode over an aged female in the street without necessity, seems to be a proof of human sensibility, and I think no person who was acting as a spy would have so openly committed himself. Castleueagit. END OF VOL. 1 . ERADECJRY AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WIIITEFRIARS, LONDON,