[499] By "Board of Literature" Scott doubtless means the Royal Society
of Literature, instituted in 1824 under the patronage of George iv.; see
_ante_, vol. i. pp. 390-91. Besides the members who paid a subscription
there were ten associates, of whom Coleridge was one, who each received
an annuity of a hundred guineas from the King's bounty. When William IV.
succeeded his brother in 1830, he declined to continue these annuities.
Representations were made to the Government, and the then Prime
Minister, Earl Grey, offered Coleridge a private grant of £200 from the
Treasury, which he declined.
The pension from the Society or the Privy Purse of George iv., which Mr.
Hookham Frere told Sir Walter he had made up to Coleridge, was one
hundred guineas.
[500] Afterwards Lord Berwick.
[501] The travellers established themselves in the Palazzo Caramanico as
soon as they were released from quarantine.
[502] A brother of Malcolm Laing, the historian.
[503] An account is given by Sir William Gell of an excursion by sea to
the ruins of such a Roman villa on the promontory of Posilipo, to which
he had taken Sir Walter in a boat on the 26th of January.--_Life_, vol.
x. pp. 157-8.
[504] For a picturesque sketch of Naples during the insurrection of 1647
see Sir Walter's article on Masaniello and the Duke of Guise.--_Foreign
Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. pp. 355-403.
[505] See Appendix iv.: "A former Empress." Sir Walter no doubt means
the mother of Conradin of Suabia, or, as the Italians call him,
Corradino,--erroneously called "Empress," though her husband had
pretensions to the Imperial dignity, disputed and abortive. For the
whole affecting story see _Histoire de la Conquête de Naples_, St.
Priest, vol. iii. pp. 130-185, especially pp. 162-3.
[506] A variation of the lines on Alphonso's capture of the city in
1442:--
"And then he looked on Naples, that great city of the sea, 'O city,'
saith the King, 'how great hath been thy cost, For thee I twenty
years--my fairest years--have lost.'"
--Lockhart's _Spanish Ballads_, "The King of Arragon."
1832.