What I Remember, Volume 2

at one time the road to the Florentine Tyburn. Our house was the one next to the east end of the church of Santa Croce. Our rooms looked on to a large ga

loane, a fervent Catholic, who was at that time one of

quered. In conjunction with Horace Hall, the then well known and popular partner in the bank of Signor Emanuele Fenzi (one of whose sons married an English wife, and is still my very good and forty years old friend), he obtained a new concession of the mines from the Grand Duke on very favourable terms, and by the time I made his acquaintance had become a wealthy man. I fancy the Halls, Horace and his much esteemed brother Alfred (who survived him many years, and was the fathe

without infringing by a hair's breadth the rule of the Church. And admirably he succeeded in showing how entirely the spirit and in

at the ultra-demonstrative zeal of the female portion of the mixed Catholic and Protestant assembly, who would kneel and kiss his hand. A schoolmaster meeting

to tell everything of what I remember in connection with those days, I should produce such a book as non d?, non homines, non concessere columnae-a book such as neither publishers, nor readers, nor the colum

not from the thronging in of the motley company, but from the inevitable passing out of them from the field of vision. One's recollections come to resemble those of the spectator of a phantasmagoric show. Processions of heterogeneous figures, almost all of them connected in some way or othe

rse there were, who gave to our moving quic

m-gatherum dinners and receptions-his hospitality was of the most catholic and generous sort-both he and Lady Holland (how pretty she then was there is her very clever portrait by Watts to testify) never failed to win golden opinion

n reason, that Lady Holland was accused of receiving in two very distinct fashions-en ménage and en ménagerie. The mot was a successful one, and nobody was more amused by it than the spirituelle lady of whom it was said. It was

resented at the court of the reigning sovereign. But this, as far as I remember, was avoided in those halcyon days by the simple expedient of pr

this had not gone, on for more than two or three weeks before it was whispered in the minister's ear that the Grand Duke would be pleased if he were less strict in the matter of his presentations. "Oh!" said Hamilton, "that's what he wants! A la bonne heure! He shall have them all, rag, tag, and bobtail." And so we returned to the Saturnia regna of "the good old times," and the Duke was credibly reported to have said that he "kept the worst d

as at last driven to notify her intention of acceding to it. It was in these circumstances that Massino d'Azeglio came to me one morning, in the garden of our house in the Via del Giglio-the same in which the poet Milton lodged when he was in Florence-to which we had by that time moved, and told me that he wanted me to do something for him. Of course I professed all readiness, and he went on to tell me of the critical and dangerous position in which the refugees of whom I have spoken were placed, and said that I must go to Lord Holland and ask him to give them British passports. He urged that nothing could be easier, that no objection could possibly be

pidity. I went out early in the morning before breakfast, in company with a younger brother of the Dr. Nicholson of Penrith whom I have mentioned, who happened to be visiting us. We climbed to the top of Giotto's tower, and saw at once the terrible extent and very serious character of the misfortune. One-third, at least, of Florence, was under water, and the flood was rapidly rising. Coming down from our lofty observatory, we made our way to the "Lung' Arno," as the river quays are called. And there

it. Less than a foot of space yet remained between the surface of the flood and the keystone of the highest arch; and it was thought that if the water rose sufficiently to beat against the solid superstructure of the bridge, it must have been swept away. But at last came the cry from those who were watchi

oard a large boat, which was already engaged in carrying bread to the people in the most deeply flooded parts of the town. But all difficulty was not over. Of course the street door of the Palazzo Berti was shut, and no earthly power could open it. Our apartment was on the second floor. Our landlord's family occupied the primo. Of course I could get in a

The value of the paul was, as nearly as possible, equal to fivepence-halfpenny English. The lira-the original representative of the leading denomination of our own l.s.d.-no longer existed in-the flesh I was going to say, but rather in-the metal. And it is rather curious, that just as the guinea remained, and indeed remains, a constantly-used term of speech after it has ceased to exist as current coin, so the scudo remained, in Tuscany, no longer visible or current, but retained as an integer in accounts of the larger sort. If you bought or sold house or land, for instance, you talked of scudi. In more eve

ht of liquid, or about three bottles. The same sum purchased a good fowl in the market. The subscription (abbuonamento) to the Pergola, the principal theatre, came to exactly two crazie and a half for each night of performance. This price admitted you only to the

occasion, or during the singing of the well-known tit-bits of any opera, there was an amount of chattering in the house which would have made the hair of a fanatico per la musica stand on end. There was also an exceedingly comfortable but very parsimoniously-lighted large room, which was a grand flirting place, where people sat very patiently during the somewhat long operation

without the necessity, or indeed the possibility, of putting themselves to the expense of giving anything in return. There was a weekly ball at the Pitti Palace, and another at the Casino dei Nobili, which latter was suppo

es out of school (but then the offenders have no doubt mostly gone over to the majority), the guests used to behave abominably. The English would seize the plates of bonbons and empty the contents bodily into their coat pockets. The ladies would do the same with their pocket-handkerchiefs. But the Duke's liege subjects carried on their depredations on a far bolder scale. I have seen large portions of fish, sauce and all, packed up in a newspaper, and deposited in a pocket. I have seen fowls and ham share the same fate, without any newspaper at all. I hav

our cousins had not yet begun to come in numbers rivalling our own, as has been the case recently. By the bye, it occurs to me, that I never saw

ow living. I have a notion that I have seen this story of mine told somewhere, with a change of names and circumstances that spoil it,

y that there may be many now who do not know without being told, that Dymock, the last champion, as I am almost afraid I must call him-though doubtless Scrivelsby must still be held by the ancient tenure-was a very small old man, a clergyman, and not at all the sort of individual to answer to the popular idea of a champion. He was sitting in a nook all by himself, and not looking very

at was the name-in a fight with an antagonist of the name of Heenan. In fact it was I, and not my fair companion, who was a muff, for having imagined tha

s one of the "web-footed," by descent if not birth, was present, and I told them the story of my Pitti ca

not deserve their affection. But there was at that time another lady at the Pitti, the Dowager Grand Duchess, the widow of the late Grand Duke. She had been a Saxon princess, and was very favourably contrasted with the reigning Duchess in graciousness of manner, in appearance-

with the consciousness that he had nothing to say. It was on one of these occasions that an American new arrival was presented to him by Mr. Maquay, the banker, who always did that office for Americans, the United States having then no representative at the Grand Ducal court. Maquay, thinking to help the Duke, whispered in his ear that the gentleman was connected by descent with the great Washington, upon which the Duke, changing his foot, said, "Ah! le grand Vash!" His manner was that of a lethargic and not wide-awake man. When s

ertain Florentine and his wife, named Madiai, who had been, it was asserted, persecuted for reading the Bible. It was not so. They were "perse

s of the Chiana, between Arezzo and Chiusi, was a well-considered and most beneficent work on a magnificent scale, which, so far from "drying pockets," added enormously to the wealth of the country, and is now adding very appreciably to the prosperity of Italy. Nor was Giusti's reproach in any way merited by the Grand Ducal government. The Grand Duke personally was a very wealthy man, as well as, in respect to his own habits, a most simple liver. The necessary expenses of the little state were small; and taxation

they look," which generally may be understood to mean that the individual spoken of cannot with physiological accuracy be considered a crétin. Nevertheless, in his c

erfectly true, and which is so characteristic of the man,

o the Duke, resting his person first on one leg and then on the other, after his fashion, stood in front of the two or three score of men drawn up in line before him, and after telling them that obedience to their officers and attachment to duty were the especial virtues of a soldier, he continued, "Above all, my men, I desire that you should remember the duties and observances of ou

orta San Gallo on his way to Bologna among a crowd of his late subjects, who all lifted their hats, though not without some satirical cries of "Addio, sai" "Buon viaggio!" But a few, a very few, friends accompanied his carriage to the papal frontier, an invisible line on the bleak Apennines, unmarked by any habitation. There he descended from his carriage to receive their last adieus, and there was much lowly bowing as the

of men and from history a G