I need hardly say how totally different were all the circumstances under which Monsieur himself and some of his followers were again seen by me in the year 1817;-the same actors, indeed, but with an entirely new change of scenery and decorations. Among the variety of aspects presented by this change, the ridiculous certainly predominated; nor could a satirist who, like Philoctetes, was smitten with a fancy for shooting at geese, ask any better supply of such game than the high places, in France, at that period, both lay and ecclesiastical, afforded. As I was not versed, however, sufficiently in French politics to venture to meddle with them, even in sport, I found a more ready conductor of laughter for which I was then much in the mood in those groups of ridiculous English who were at that time swarming in all directions throughout Paris, and of all whose

*"Pinnigero, non armigero in corpore tela exerceantur: the words put by Accius in the mouth of Philoctetes.

various forms of cockneyism and nonsense I endeavoured, in the personages of the Fudge Family, to collect the concentrated essence. The result, as usual, fell very far short of what I had myself preconceived and intended. But, making its appearance at such a crisis, the work brought with it that best seasoning of all such jeux-d'esprit, the à-propos of the moment; and, accordingly, in the race of successive editions, Lalla Rookh was, for some time, kept pace with by Miss Biddy Fudge.

The series of trifles contained in this volume, entitled" Rhymes on the Road,” were written partly as their title implies, and partly at a subsequent period from memorandums made on the spot. This will account for so many of those pieces being little better, I fear, than prose fringed with rhyme." The journey

66

to a part of which those Rhymes owed their existence was commenced in company with Lord John Russell in the autumn of the year 1819. After a week or two passed at Paris, to

enable Lord John to refer to Barillon's Letters for a new edition of his Life of Lord Russell then preparing, we set out together for the Simplon. At Milan, the agreeable society of the late Lord Kinnaird detained us for a few days; and then my companion took the route to Genoa, while I proceeded on a visit to Lord Byron, at Venice.

It was during the journey thus briefly described, I addressed the well-known Remonstrance to my noble friend *, which has of late been frequently coupled with my prophetic verses on the Duke of Wellington †, from the prescient spirit with which it so confidently looked forward to all that Lord John has since become in the eyes of the world.

Of my visit to Lord Byron, an event, to me so memorable, I have already detailed all the most interesting particulars in my published Life of the poet; and shall here

only cite, from that work, one passage, as having some reference to a picture mentioned in the following pages. "As we were conversing after dinner about the various collections of paintings I had seen that morning, on my saying that, fearful as I was of ever praising any picture, lest I should draw on myself the connoisseur's sneer, for my pains, I would yet, to him, venture to own that I had seen a picture at Milan, which—The Hagar!' he exclaimed, eagerly interrupting me; and it was, in fact, that very picture I was about to mention to him as having awakened in me, by the truth of its expression, more real emotion than any I had yet seen among the chefs-d'œuvre of Venice.”

In the society I chiefly lived with, while at Rome, I considered myself singularly fortunate; though but a blind worshipper of those powers of Art of which my companions were all

* Abraham dismissing Hagar, by Guercino.

high-priests. Canova himself, Chantrey, Lawrence, Jackson, Turner, Eastlake, such were the men of whose presence and guidance I enjoyed the advantage in visiting all that unrivalled Rome can boast of beautiful and grand. That I derived from this course of initiation any thing more than a very humbling consciousness of my own ignorance and want of taste, in matters of art, I will not be so dishonest as to pretend. But, to the stranger in Rome every step forms an epoch; and, in addition to all its own countless appeals to memory and imagination, the agreeable auspices under which I first visited all its memorable places could not but render every impression I received more vivid and permanent. Thus, with my recollection of the Sepulchre of St. Peter, and its ever burning lamps, for which splendid spot Canova was then meditating a statue*, there is always connected in my mind the exclamation which I heard break from Chantrey

* A statue, I believe, of Pius VI.