While my eighty-fourth year has commenced I look back over more than
sixty years to the time when studies had ceased to be obligatory. I then
took a survey of my stock of knowledge: it was small, but it embraced the
rudiments of all that was necessary to progress. A classical education
gave me access to the ancients, but I wanted French, which was the key
to modern science. This determined me to pass some time on the Continent,
and to get acquainted with other literatures than our own, as well as
with other manners and customs.
I returned to London by stage; it was in the cold of the spring season.
Two things only left a permanent impression on my mind of that journey.
One is that I travelled with Mr. Orby Hunter, and that we were the only
two inside passengers on the route. He was a neighbour of my mother;
she, after a long visit to her beloved and hated Exeter had grown sick
of it and of every one there, and had gone back to town, taking up her
residence with my sister and brother in a small house, No. 49, Grosvenor
Place.
Mr. Orby Hunter, a great politician of the day, was a gentleman of
high caste, which made all he said the more impressive. He was greatly
disturbed at the course events were taking. It was the eve of a general
election, and a reform bill was hanging in the balance of parties.
From Mr. Orby Hunter I learnt much of the state of feeling in the
country, the resolute fight against Peel, Wellington, and the Tories,
conducted by Grey and John Russell.
I did not remain long in town, but soon made my way to Italy, remaining
the best part of a year at Florence, visiting Paris, Geneva, Milan, and
other cities on my way there and back. I shall not give an account of
my journey, but only my experiences of it, such as having learned what
coffee was for the first time in my life, and what _fricandeau de veau
lardé_ meant, at Calais. As to the latter, I have not tasted the equal of
it since. In those days there was not a railroad on the Continent, and
one travelled by diligence, vetturino, or post.
My sensations were new as I trod on the pavement of Paris for the first
time. I felt myself somewhat great, and I entered a glover’s shop and
bought an elegant pair of gloves to add to my delusion.
I stayed at Meurice’s hotel in the Rue Rivoli. There I got acquainted
with Colonel de Courcy, to whom I had a letter of introduction in my
portmanteau for Florence, not knowing it then, but there are persons who
can make friends with each other without the assistance of a third party.
Colonel de Courcy was one of the few extremely charming men that one
meets with in the course of a long life, by which I mean gay, amusing,
good-natured, gentlemanlike, free from reserve; men who after a few
minutes you seem to have known always and would wish to go on knowing to
the end.
The late Earl of Albemarle was such a man; I refer to him later in these
pages.
Colonel de Courcy was the brother of Lord Kinsale, whose patent of
nobility was over seven hundred years old, the most ancient in the Dublin
College of Arms. George IV., on hearing about it, greatly desired to see
the treasured document, but so precious was it that the heralds would
only entrust it to certain commissioners, who were not allowed to part
with it for an hour.
The colonel was on his way to England, but lingered at Paris for his
pleasure, the invitation to which also detained me, in the company of my
new acquaintance.
Leaving Paris in a dreadful diligence by way of Dijon and the golden
grapes, I traversed the Jura range and entered Geneva. I stayed there
too, for of course I had to set myself up in a musical box that played
the “Parisienne” and the “Marseillaise,” as well as in a watch and chain,
besides looking at Mont Blanc and sailing on the lake to see where the
Rhone rushed in, and to visit Lausanne in memory of Gibbon. Nor did I
fail to see the prison of Chillon in compliment to the poet Byron.
My jeweller at Geneva was a very earnest mechanic. He had studied the
art of watchmaking in London and in Paris, he had made a chronometer
to compete for some great prize and had failed, entirely to his own
satisfaction, assuring himself that his work was of the best, but that it
was impossible to make allowance for the wear and tear of the sun!
The journey from Geneva to the Simplon I found very romantic. The valley,
in which lies Martigny, was marked by driftways that looked like roads
excavated from solid snow, cut out from the heights to the level, and
which, never traversed by travellers, appeared to lead to lands unknown.
At Martigny there had been a deluge, by which every house was dislocated
with the exception of the church. The flood was caused by the bursting
of a mountain lake; the clever priests, foreseeing what would one day
happen, so constructed the church, with a prow towards the threatening
lake, as to enable it to resist a torrent.
I passed over the Simplon; I saw the Borromean Islands on the other side,
and, proceeding to Milan, paid their old owner, the great cardinal, a
visit in the cathedral. He was lying, as so many have beheld him, in his
comfortable coffin.
Milan even then was a most elegant city, and most tastefully paved. I was
so fortunate as to have a letter from Sir James Clark to Dr. Ciceri, who
showed me everything, and there is no guide like a native one; but I say
now that all I care for in the Lombard capital is the fresco of Leonardo
da Vinci.