CHAPTER III.

THE CHILDREN ARE BROUGHT TO ENGLAND.

Landing in England was dolorous. Grandmamma Baker inflated her

nostrils, and, delighted at escaping from those _crapauds_ and their

kickshaws, quoted with effusion her favourite Cowper, "England, with

all thy faults, I love thee still." The children scoffed. The air

of Brighton, full of smoke and blacks, appeared to them unfit for

breathing. The cold grey seas made them shudder. In the town everything

appeared so small, so prim, so mean, the little one-familied houses

contrasting in such a melancholy way with the big buildings of Tours

and Paris. We revolted against the coarse and half-cooked food, and,

accustomed to the excellent Bordeaux of France, we found port, sherry,

and beer like strong medicine; the bread, all crumb and no crust,

appeared to be half baked, and milk meant chalk and water. The large

joints of meat made us think of Robinson Crusoe, and the vegetables

_cuite à l'eau_, especially the potatoes, which had never heard of

_"Maître d'hôtel"_ suggested the roots of primitive man. Moreover,

the national temper, fierce and surly, was a curious contrast to the

light-hearted French of middle France. A continental lady of those

days cautioned her son, who was about to travel, against ridicule in

France and the _canaille_ in England. The little children punched one

another's heads on the sands, the boys punched one another's heads

in the streets, and in those days a stand-up fight between men was

not uncommon. Even the women punched their children, and the whole

lower-class society seemed to be governed by the fist.

[Sidenote: _School at Richmond._]

My father had determined to send his boys to Eton to prepare for

Oxford and Cambridge. In the mean time some blundering friend had

recommended him a preparatory school. This was kept by the Rev.

Charles Delafosse, who rejoiced in the title of Chaplain to the Duke

of Cumberland, a scion of royalty, who had, apparently, very little

to do with the Church. Accordingly, the family went to Richmond, the

only excitement of the journey being the rage of the post-boys, when we

boys on the box furtively poked their horses with long sticks. After

sundry attempts at housing themselves in the tiny doll-rooms in the

stuffy village, they at last found a house, so called by courtesy,

in "Maids of Honour Row," between the river and the Green, a house

with a strip of garden fronting it, which a sparrow could hop across

in thirty seconds. Opening upon the same Green, stood that horror of

horrors, the school, or the "Establishment," as it would _now_ be

called. It consisted of a large block of buildings (detached), lying

between the Green and the Old Town, which has long been converted into

dwelling-houses. In those days it had a kind of paling round a paddock,

forming a long parallelogram, which enclosed some fine old elm trees.

One side was occupied by the house, and the other by the school-room.

In the upper stories of the former, were the dormitories with their

small white beds, giving the idea of the Lilliput Hospital; a kind of

outhouse attached to the dwelling was the place where the boys fed

at two long tables stretching the whole length of the room. The only

decoration of the palings were names cut all over their inner surfaces

and rectangular nails at the top, acting as _chevaux de frise_. The

school-room was the usual scene of hacked and well-used benches and

ink-stained desks, everything looking as mean and uncomfortable as

possible.

This was the kind of Dotheboys Hall, to which, in those days, gentlemen

were contented to send their sons, paying a hundred a year, besides

"perquisites" (plunder): on the Continent the same treatment would be

had for £20.

The Rev. Charles was a bluff and portly man, with dark hair and short

whiskers, whose grand aquiline nose took a prodigious deal of snuff,

and was not over active with the rod; but he was no more fit to be a

schoolmaster than the Grand Cham of Tartary. He was, however, rather a

favourite with the boys, and it was shrewdly whispered, that at times

he returned from dining abroad half-seas over. His thin-lipped wife

took charge of the _ménage_, and looked severely after the provisions,

and swayed with an iron sceptre the maid-servants, who had charge of

the smaller boys. The ushers were the usual consequential lot of those

days. There was the handsome and dressy usher, a general favourite with

the fair; the shabby and mild usher, despised by even the smallest boy;

and the unfortunate French usher, whose life was a fair foretaste of

Purgatory.

Instead of learning anything at this school, my brother and I lost much

of what we knew, especially in French, and the principal acquisitions

were, a certain facility of using our fists, and a general development

of ruffianism. I was in one perpetual scene of fights; at one time I

had thirty-two affairs of honour to settle, the place of meeting being

the school-room, with the elder boys sitting in judgment. On the first

occasion I received a blow in the eye, which I thought most unfair, and

having got my opponent down I proceeded to hammer his head against the

ground, using his ears by way of handles. My indignation knew no bounds

when I was pulled off by the bystanders, and told to let my enemy stand

up again. "Stand up!" I cried, "after all the trouble I've had to get

the fellow down." At last the fighting went on to such an extent, that

I was beaten as thin as a shotten herring, and the very servant-maids,

when washing me on Saturday night, used to say, "Drat the child! what

has he been doing? he's all black and blue." Edward fought just as well

as I did, but he was younger and more peaceable. Maria says that I was

a thin, dark little boy, with small features and large black eyes, and

was extremely proud, sensitive, shy, nervous, and of a melancholy,

affectionate disposition. Such is the effect of a boys' school after a

few months' trial, when the boys learn to despise mother and sisters,

and to affect the rough as much as possible, and this is not only in

England, but everywhere where the boy first escapes from petticoat

government. He does not know what to do to show his manliness. There is

no stronger argument in favour of mixed schools, up to a _certain age_,

of boys and girls together.

At the little Richmond theatre we were taken to see Edmund Kean, who

lived in a cottage on the Green. He had gentle blood in his veins,

grandson (illegitimate) of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, and

that accounted for his Italian, or rather un-John-Bull appearance,

and for his fiery power. I saw him in his famous Richard III. _rôle_,

and remember only what old Colley Grattan described, "Looks bloated

with brandy, nose red, cheeks blotched, and eyes blood-shot." He was

drinking himself to death. His audience appeared not a little afraid of

him; perhaps they had heard of the Guernsey scene, where he stood at

the footlights and flashed out, "Unmannered dogs! stand ye where _I_

command."

Our parents very unwisely determined to correct all personal vanity

in their offspring by always dwelling upon our ugliness. My nose was

called cocked; it was a Cross which I had to carry, and was a perpetual

plague to me; and I was assured that the only decent feature in my face

was my teeth. Maria, on account of her fresh complexion, was called

Blousabella; and even Edward, whose features were perfect, and whom

Frenchmen used to stop and stare at in the streets, and call him "Le

petit Napoleon," was told to nauseousness that "handsome is as handsome

does." In later life we were dressed in a marvellous fashion; a piece

of yellow nankin would be bought to dress the whole family, like three

sticks of barley sugar. Such was the discipline of the day, and nothing

could be more ill-judged; it inflicted an amount of torment upon

sensitive children which certainly was not intended, but which had the

very worst effect.

If we children quarrelled, and turned up our noses at the food in

English hotels, what must have been our surprise at the food of an

English school? Breakfast at 8 a.m., consisting of very blue milk and

water, in chipped and broken-handled mugs of the same colour. The

boys were allowed tea from home, but it was a perpetual battle to get

a single drink of it. The substantials were a wedge of bread with a

glazing of butter. The epicures used to collect the glazing to the end

of the slice in order to convert it into a final _bonne bouche_. The

dinner at one o'clock began with stickjaw (pudding) and ended with

meat, as at all second-rate schools. The latter was as badly cooked as

possible, black out and blue inside, gristly and sinewy. The vegetables

were potatoes, which could serve for grapeshot, and the hateful carrot.

Supper was a repetition of breakfast, and, at an age when boys were

making bone and muscle, they went hungry to bed.

Occasionally the pocket-money and tips were clubbed, and a "room"

would go in for a midnight feed of a quartern loaf, ham, polony, and

saveloys, with a quantity of beer and wine, which generally led to

half a dozen fights. Saturday was a day to be feared on account of its

peculiar pie, which contained all the waifs and strays of the week.

On the Sunday there was an attempt at plum-pudding of a peculiarly

pale and leaden hue, as if it had been unjustly defrauded of its

due allowance of plums. And this dull routine lasted throughout the

scholastic year. School hours were from seven till nine, and ten to

one, and three to five, without other changes, save at the approach

of the holidays, when a general burst of singing, locally called

"challenging," took place. Very few were the schoolfellows we met in

after life. The ragged exceptions were Guildford Onslow, the Claimant's

friend. Tuckey Baines, as he was called on account of his exploits

on Saturday pie, went into the Bombay army, and was as disagreeable

and ill-conditioned as when he was a bully at school. He was locally

celebrated for hanging the wrong Mahommad, and for his cure for Sindee

litigiousness, by making complainant and defendant flog each other in

turn. The only schoolboy who did anything worthy, was Bobby Delafosse

(who was appointed to the 26th Regiment, N.I.), who showed immense

pluck, and died fighting bravely in the Indian Mutiny. I met him in

Bombay shortly before I went off to the North-West Provinces, but my

remembrances of the school were so painful, that I could not bear to

recognize him. In fact, that part of life, which most boys dwell upon

with the greatest pleasure, and concerning which, most autobiographers

tell the longest stories--school and college--was ever a nightmare to

us. It was like the "Blacking-shop" of Charles Dickens.

[Sidenote: _Measles disperse the School._]

Before the year concluded, an attack of measles broke out in the

school, several of the boys died, and it was found necessary to

disperse the survivors. We were not hard-hearted, but we were delighted

to get home. We worked successfully on the fears of Aunt G., which was

assisted by my cadaverous appearance, and it was resolved to move us

from school, to our infinite joy. My father had also been thoroughly

sick of "Maids of Honour Row" and "Richmond Green." He was sighing for

shooting and boar-hunting in the French forests, and he felt that he

had done quite enough for the education of the boys, which was turning

out so badly. He resolved to bring us up abroad, and picked up the

necessary assistance for educating us by tutor and governess. Miss

Ruxton, a stout red-faced girl, was thoroughly up in the three R's, and

was intended to direct Maria's education. Mr. Du Pré, an undergraduate

at Exeter College, Oxford, son of the Rector of Berkhampstead, wanted

to see life on the Continent, and was not unwilling to see it with a

salary. He was an awkward-looking John Bull article, with a narrow

forehead, eyes close together, and thick lips, which secured him a

perpetual course of caricaturing. He used to hit out hard whenever he

found the caricatures, but only added bitterness to them. Before he had

been in the family a week, I obliged him with a sketch of his tomb and

the following inscription:--

"Stand, passenger! hang down thy head and weep,

A young man from Exeter here doth sleep;

If any one ask who that young man be,

'Tis the Devil's dear friend and companion--Du Pré"--

which was merely an echo of Shakespeare and John à Combe, but it showed

a fine sense of independence.

I really caught the measles at school, and was nursed by Grandmamma

Baker in Park Street. It was the only infantine malady that I ever

had. The hooping-cough only attacked me on my return from Harar, when

staying with my friend Dr. Steinhaüser at Aden, in 1853. As soon as

I was well enough to travel, the family embarked at the Tower Wharf

for Boulogne. We boys scandalized every one on board. We shrieked,

we whooped, we danced for joy. We shook our fists at the white

cliffs, and loudly hoped we should never see them again. We hurrah'd

for France, and hooted for England, "The Land on which the Sun ne'er

sets--nor rises," till the sailor who was hoisting the Jack, looked

upon us as a pair of little monsters. In our delight at getting away

from school and the stuffy little island, we had no idea of the

disadvantages which the new kind of life would inflict on our future

careers. We were too young to know. A man who brings up his family

abroad, and who lives there for years, must expect to lose all the

friends who could be useful to him when he wishes to start them in

life. The conditions of society in England are so complicated, and

so artificial, that those who would make their way in the world,

especially in public careers, must be broken to it from their earliest

day. The future soldiers and statesmen must be prepared by Eton and

Cambridge. The more English they are, even to the cut of their hair,

the better. In consequence of being brought up abroad, we never

thoroughly understood English society, nor did society understand us.

And, lastly, it is a _real_ advantage to belong to some parish. It is a

great thing, when you have won a battle, or explored Central Africa, to

be welcomed home by some little corner of the Great World, which takes

a pride in your exploits, because they reflect honour upon itself. In

the contrary condition you are a waif, a stray; you are a blaze of

light, without a focus. Nobody outside your own fireside cares.

No man ever gets on in the world, or rises to the head of affairs,

unless he is a representative of his nation. Taking the marking

characters of the last few years--Palmerston, Thiers, Cavour, and

Bismarck--what were they but simply the types of their various

nationalities? In point of intellect Cavour was a first-rate man,

Thiers second-rate, Palmerston third-rate, whilst Bismarck was

strength, Von Moltke brain. Their success in life was solely owing to

their representing the failings, as well as the merits of their several

nationalities. Thiers, for instance, was the most thoroughbred possible

_épicier_, and yet look at his success. And his death was mourned even

in England, and yet he was the bitterest enemy that England ever had.

His Chauvinism did more than the Crimean War to abolish the prestige

of England. Unhappily for his Chauvinism, it also thoroughly abolished

France.

Mr. Du Pré, the tutor, and Miss Ruxton, the governess, had their work

cut out for them. They attempted to commence with a strict discipline;

for instance, the family passing through Paris lodged at the Hôtel

Windsor, and they determined to walk the youngsters out school fashion.

The consequence was that when the walk extended to the boulevards, the

young ones, on agreement, knowing Paris well, suddenly ran away, and

were home long before the unfortunate strangers could find their way,

and reported that their unlucky tutor and governess had been run over

by an omnibus. There was immense excitement till the supposed victims

walked in immensely tired, having wandered over half Paris, not being

able to find their way. A scene followed, but the adversaries respected

each other more after that day.

The difficulty was now where to colonize. One of the peculiarities of

the little English colonies was the unwillingness of their denizens to

return to them when once they had left them. My father had been very

happy at Tours, and yet he religiously avoided it. He passed through

Orleans--a horrid hole, with as many smells as Cologne--and tried to

find a suitable country house near it, but in vain; everything seemed

to smell of goose and gutter. Then he drifted on to Blois, in those

days a kind of home of the British stranger, and there he thought

proper to call a halt. At last a house was found on the high ground

beyond the city, which, like Tours, lies mainly on the left bank of

the river, and where most of the English colonists dwelt. There is no

necessity of describing this little bit of England in France, which

was very like Tours. When one describes one colony, one describes them

all. The notables were Sir Joseph Leeds, Colonel Burnes, and a sister

of Sir Stamford Raffles, who lived in the next-door villa, if such a

term may be applied to a country house in France in 1831. The only

difference from Tours was, there was no celebrated physician, no pack

of hounds, and no parson. Consequently service on Sundays had to be

read at home by the tutor, and the evening was distinguished by one of

Blair's sermons. This was read out by us children, each taking a turn.

The discourse was from one of Blair's old three volumes, which appeared

to have a soporific effect upon the audience. Soft music was gradually

heard proceeding from the nasal organs of father and mother, tutor and

governess; and then we children, preserving the same tone of voice,

entered into a conversation, and discussed matters, until the time came

to a close.

[Sidenote: _Education at Blois._]

At Blois we were now entering upon our teens; our education was

beginning in real earnest. Poor Miss Ruxton soon found her task

absolutely impossible, and threw up the service. A schoolroom

was instituted, where time was wasted upon Latin and Greek for

six or seven hours a day, besides which there was a French

master--one of those obsolete little old men, who called themselves

_Professeurs-ès-lettres_, and the great triumph of whose life was that

he had read Herodotus in the original. The dancing-master was a large

and pompous oldster, of course an _ancien militaire_, whose kit and

whose capers were by contrast peculiarly ridiculous, and who quoted at

least once every visit, "Oh, Richard! oh, mon roi!" He taught, besides

country dances, square and round, the Minuet de la Cour, the Gavotte

de Vestris, and a Danse Chinoise, which consisted mainly in turning

up thumbs and toes. The only favourite amongst all those professors

was the fencing-master, also an old soldier, who had lost the thumb

of his right hand in the wars, which of course made him a _gauché_ in

loose fencing. We boys gave ourselves up with ardour to this study,

and passed most of our leisure hours in exchanging thrusts. We soon

learned not to neglect the mask: I passed my foil down Edward's throat,

and nearly destroyed his uvula, which caused me a good deal of sorrow.

The amusements consisted chiefly of dancing at evening parties, we

boys choosing the tallest girls, especially a very tall Miss Donovan.

A little fishing was to be had, my father being a great amateur. There

were long daily walks, swimming in summer, and brass cannons, bought in

the toy shops, were loaded to bursting.

The swimming was very easily taught; in the present day boys and

girls go to school and learn it like dancing. In our case Mr. Du Pré

supported us by a hand under the stomach, taught us how to use our arms

and legs, and to manage our breath, after which he withdrew his hand

and left us to float as we best could.

This life lasted for a year, till all were thoroughly tired of it.

Our father and mother were imperceptibly lapsing into the category

of professed invalids, like people who have no other business in

life, except to be sick. This was a class exceptionally common in the

unoccupied little English colonies that studded the country. It was

a far robuster institution than the Parisian invalid, whose object

in life was to appear _maladive et souffrante_. The British _malade_

consumed a considerable quantity of butcher's meat, but although he

or she always saw death in the pot, they had not the moral courage to

refuse what disagreed with them. They tried every kind of drug and

nostrum known, and answered every advertisement, whether it agreed

with their complaint or not. Their _table de nuit_ was covered with

bottles and gallipots. They dressed themselves three or four times a

day for the change of climate, and insensibly acquired a horror of

dining out, or passing the evening away from home. They had a kind

of rivalry with other invalids; nothing offended them more than to

tell them that they were in strong health, and that if they had been

hard-worked professionals in England, they would have been ill once a

year, instead of once a month. Homœopathy was a great boon to them, and

so was hydropathy. So was the grape-cure and all the humbug invented

by non-professionals, such as hunger-cure and all that nonsense.

Our parents suffered from asthma, an honest and respectable kind of

complaint, which if left to itself, allows you, like gout, to last till

your eightieth year, but treated systematically, and with the aid of

the doctor, is apt to wear you out. Grandmamma Baker, who came over to

Blois, compared them in her homely Scotch fashion to two buckets in a

well. She was very wroth with my father, when, remembering the days of

his youth, he began to hug the idea of returning to Italy and seeing

the sun, and the general conclusion of her philippics ("You'll kill

your wife, sir") did not change his resolution. She even insinuated

that in the olden day there had been a Sicilian young woman who

received the Englishman's pay, and so distributed it as to keep off

claims. So Grandmamma Baker was sent off to her beloved England, "whose

faults she still loved."

[Sidenote: _They leave Blois for Italy._]

The old yellow chariot was brought out of the dusty coach-house once

more, and furbished up, and, after farewell dinners and parties all

round, the family turned their back on Blois. The journey was long,

being broken by sundry attacks of asthma, and the posting and style

of travel were full of the usual discomforts. In crossing over the

Tarare a drunken postilion nearly threw one of the carriages over the

precipice, and in shooting the Pont de St. Esprit the steamer nearly

came to grief under one of the arches. We stayed a short time in Lyons,

in those days a perfect den of thieves. From Avignon my tutor and I

were driven to the Fountain of Vaucluse, the charming blue well in

the stony mountain, and the memories of Petrarch and Laura were long

remembered. The driver insisted upon a full gallop, and the protests of

the unfortunate Englishman, who declared every quarter of an hour that

he was the father of a large family, were utterly disregarded.

The first view of Provence was something entirely new, and the escape

was hailed from the flat fields and the long poplar avenues of Central

France. Everything, even the most squalid villages, seemed to fall

into a picture. It was something like a sun that burst upon the rocks.

The olive trees laden with purple fruit were a delight after the

apples and pears, and the contrast between the brown rock and the blue

Mediterranean, was quite a new sensation. At Marseilles we embarked

for Leghorn, which was then, in Italy, very much what Lyons was in

France. It was the head-quarters of brigands. Indeed it was reported

that a society existed, whose members were pledged to stab their

fellow-creatures, whenever they could do it safely. And it was brought

to light by the remorse of a son, who had killed his father by mistake.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany, with his weak benevolence, was averse to

shedding blood, and the worst that these wretches expected was to be

dressed in the red or the yellow of the Galeotti, and to sweep the

streets and to bully the passenger for _bakshish_. Another unpleasant

development was the quantity of vermin,--even the washerwoman's head

appeared to be walking off her shoulders. Still there was a touch of

Italian art about the place, in the days before politics and polemics

had made Italian art, with the sole exception of sculpture, the basest

thing on the Continent: the rooms were large, high, and airy, the

frescoes on the ceiling were good, and the pictures had not been sold

to Englishmen, and replaced by badly coloured daubs, and cheap prints

of the illustrated paper type.

[Sidenote: _Pisa._]

After a few days, finding Leghorn utterly unfit to inhabit, my father

determined to transfer himself to Pisa. There, after the usual delay,

he found a lodging on the wrong side of the Arno--that is to say, the

side which does not catch the winter sun--in a huge block of buildings

opposite the then highest bridge. Dante's old "Vituperio delle gante"

was then the dullest abode known to man, except perhaps his sepulchre.

The climate was detestable (Iceland on the non-sunny, Madeira on the

sunny side of the river), but the doctors thought it good enough

for their patients; consequently it was the hospital of a few sick

Britishers upon a large scale. These unfortunates had much better

have been left at home instead of being sent to die of discomfort in

Tuscany, but there they would have died upon the doctor's hands. The

dullness of the place was something preternatural.

The Italians had their own amusements. The principal one was the opera,

a perfect den of impurity, where you were choked by the effluvia of

_pastrane_ or the brigands' cloaks, which descended from grandfather to

grandson. The singing, instrumentation, and acting were equally vile,

but the Pisani had not the critical ferocity of the Livornesi, who

were used to visit the smallest defect with "Torni in iscena, bestia!"

The other form of amusement was the conversazione. Here you entered

about six o'clock, and found an enormous room, with a dwarf sofa and an

avenue of two lines of chairs projecting from it perpendicularly. You

were expected to walk through the latter, which were occupied by the

young women, to the former, upon which sat the dowagers, and after the

three _saluts d'usage_ and the compliments of the season, you backed

out by the way you came in, and then passed the evening leaning over

the back of the chair of the fair dame whose _cavaliere servente_ you

were supposed to be. Refreshments were an occasional glass of cold

water; in luxurious houses there were water ices and sugared wafers.

They complain that we English are not happy in society without eating,

and I confess that I prefer a good beefsteak to cold water and water

ices.

There was no bad feeling between the Italians and English; they simply

ignored one another. Nothing could be shadier than the English colony

at Pisa. As they had left England, the farther they were the more

wretched they became, till they reached the climax at Naples. They

had no club, as at Tours, and they met to read their _Gagliani_ at a

grocer's shop on the Lung' Arno. They had their parson and doctor and

their tea-caddies, but the inhospitable nature of the country--and

certainly Italy is the least given to the savage virtue--seemed to have

affected the strangers. Equally unknown were the dinner-parties of

Tours and the hops of Blois. No one shot and no one fished. A madman

used to plunge through the ice on the Lung' Arno in midwinter, but most

of them contented themselves with promenading the Quai and basking in

its wintry sun till they returned to their stuffy rooms. A good many of

them were half-pay officers. Others were Jamaican planters, men who had

made their fortunes in trade; the rest were nondescripts whom nobody

knew. At times some frightful scandal broke out in consequence of some

gentleman who had left his country for his country's good.

The discomforts of Pisa were considerable. The only fireplace in

those days was a kind of brazier, put in the middle of the room. The

servants were perfect savages, who had to be taught the very elements

of service, and often at the end of the third day a great burly peasant

would take leave, saying, "Non mi basta l'anima!" My father started a

fearful equipage in the shape of a four-wheeled trap, buying for the

same a hammer-headed brute of a horse which at once obtained the name

of "Dobbin." Dobbin was a perfect demon steed, and caused incalculable

misery, as every person was supposed to steal his oats. One of us

boys was sent down to superintend his breakfast, dinner, and supper.

On journeys it was the same, and we would have been delighted to see

Dobbin hanged, drawn, and quartered. We tried riding him in private,

but the brute used to plant his forelegs and kick up and down like a

rocking-horse. The trap was another subject of intense misery. The

wheels were always supposed to be wanting greasing, and as the natives

would steal the grease, it was necessary that one of us should always

superintend the greasing. There is no greater mistake than that of

trying to make boys useful by making them do servant's work.

The work of education went on nimbly, if not merrily. To former

masters was added an Italian master, who was at once dubbed "Signor

No," on account of the energy of his negation. The French master

unfortunately discovered that his three pupils had poetic talents; the

consequence was that we were set to write versical descriptions, which

we hated worse than Telemachus and the _Spectator_.

And a new horror appeared in the shape of a violin master. Edward took

kindly to the infliction, worked very hard, and became an amateur

almost equal to a professional; was offered fair pay as member of an

orchestra in Italy, and kept it up after going into the Army, till

the calls of the Mess made it such a nuisance that he gave it up; but

took to it again later in life _con amore_. I always hated my fiddle,

and after six months it got me into a terrible scrape, and brought the

study to an untimely end. Our professor was a thing like Paganini,

length without breadth, nerves without flesh, hung on wires, all hair

and no brain, except for fiddling. The creature, tortured to madness

by a number of false notes, presently addressed his pupil in his

grandiloquent Tuscan manner, "Gli altri scolari sono bestie, ma voi

siete un Arci-bestia." The "Arci" offended me horribly, and, in a fury

of rage, I broke my violin upon my master's head; and then my father

made the discovery that his eldest son had no talent for music, and I

was not allowed to learn any more.

Amongst the English at Pisa we met with some Irish cousins, whose

names had been Conyngham, but they had, for a fortune, very sensibly

added "Jones" to it, and who, very foolishly, were ashamed of it

ever after. There was a boy, whose face looked as if badly cut out

of a half-boiled potato, dotted with freckles so as to resemble a

goose's egg. There was a very pretty girl, who afterwards became

Mrs. Seaton. The mother was an exceedingly handsome woman of the

Spanish type, and it was grand to see her administering correction to

"bouldness." They seemed principally to travel in Italy for the purpose

of wearing out old clothes, and afterwards delighted in telling how

many churches and palaces they had "done" in Rome per diem. The cute

Yankee always travels, when he is quite unknown, in his best bib and

tucker, reserving his old clothes for his friends who appreciate him.

Altogether the C.J.'s were as fair specimens of Northern barbarians

invading the South, as have been seen since the days of Brennus.

[Sidenote: _Siena._]

The summer of '32 was passed at Siena, where a large rambling old house

was found inside the walls. The venerable town, whose hospitality was

confined to an inscription over the city gate, was perhaps one of

the dullest places under heaven. No country in the world shows less

hospitality--even Italians amongst themselves--than Italy, and in the

case of strangers they have perhaps many reasons to justify their

churlishness.

Almost all the English at Siena were fugitives from justice, social

or criminal. One man walked off with his friend's wife, another with

his purse. There was only one old English lady in the place who

was honourable, and that was a Mrs. Russell, who afterwards killed

herself with mineral waters. She lived in a pretty little _quinta_

outside the town, where moonlight nights were delightful, and where

the nightingales were louder than usual. Beyond this amusement we had

little to do, except at times to peep at the gate of Palone, to study

very hard, and to hide from the world our suits of nankin. The weary

summer drew to a close. The long-surviving chariot was brought out, and

then Dobbin, with the "cruelty van," was made ready for the march.

[Sidenote: _Vetturino-Travelling._]

Travelling in _vetturino_ was not without its charm. It much resembled

marching in India during the slow old days. It is true you seldom

progressed along more than five miles an hour, and uphill at three.

Moreover, the harness was perpetually breaking, and at times a horse

fell lame; but you saw the country thoroughly, the _vetturino_ knew

the name of every house, and you went slowly enough to impress

everything upon your memory. The living now was none of the best; food

seemed to consist mostly of omelettes and pigeons. The pigeons, it is

said, used to desert the dove-cotes every time they saw an English

travelling-carriage approaching. And the omelettes showed more hair in

them than eggs usually produce. The bread and wine, however, were good,

and adulteration was then unknown. The lodging was on a par with the

food, and insect powder was not invented or known. Still, taking all in

all, it is to be doubted whether we are more comfortable in the Grand

Hotel in these days when every hotel is grand, when all mutton is _pré

salé_, when all the beer is bitter, when all the sherry is dry.

It was now resolved to pass the Holy Week at Rome, and the only events

of the journey, which went on as usual, were the breaking down of

Dobbin's "cruelty van" in a village near Perugia, where the tutor and

boys were left behind to look after repairs. We long remembered the

peculiar evening which we passed there. The head ostler had informed

us that there was an opera, and that he was the _primo violino_. We

went to the big barn, that formed the theatre. A kind of "Passion

play" was being performed, with lengthy intervals of music, and all

the mysteries of the faith were submitted to the eyes of the faithful.

The only disenchanting detail was, that a dove not being procurable,

its place was supplied by a turkey-cock, and the awful gabbling of the

ill-behaved volatile caused much more merriment than was decorous.

We, who had already examined Voltaire with great interest, were

delighted with the old Etruscan city of Perugia, and were allowed a

couple of hours' "leave" to visit Pietro di Aretino's tomb, and we

loitered by the Lake Thrasimene.

[Sidenote: _Florence._]

The march was short, and the family took a house on the north side of

the Arno, near the Boboli Gardens, in Florence. The City of Flowers

has always had a reputation beyond what it deserved. Though too fair

to be looked upon except upon holidays, it has discomforts of its

own. The cold, especially during the _Tramontana_ blowing from the

Apennines, is that of Scotland. The heat during the dog-days, when the

stone pavements seem to be fit for baking, reminds one of Cairo during

a _Khamsin_, and the rains are at times as heavy and persistent as

in Central Africa. The Italians and the English, even in those days,

despite all the efforts of the amiable Grand Duke, did not mix well.

Colonies go on as they begin, and the Anglo-Florentine flock certainly

has contained, contains, and ever will contain some very black sheep.

They were always being divided into cliques. They were perpetually

quarrelling. The parson had a terrible life. One of the churchwardens

was sure to be some bilious old Indian, and a common character was to

be a half-pay Indian officer who had given laws, he said, to millions,

who supported himself by gambling, and induced all his cronies to drink

hard, the whispered excuse being, that he had shot a man in a duel

somewhere. The old ladies were very scandalous. There were perpetual

little troubles, like a rich and aged widow being robbed and deserted

by her Italian spouse, and resident old gentlemen, when worsted at

cards, used to quarrel and call one another liars. Amongst the number

was a certain old Dr. Harding who had a large family. His son was sent

into the army, and was dreadfully wounded under Sir Charles Napier in

Sind. He lived to be Major-General Francis Pim Harding, C.B., and died

in 1875.

Another remarkable family was that of old Colonel de Courcy. He had

some charming daughters, and I met his son John when he was in the

Turkish Contingent and I was Chief of the Staff of Irregular Cavalry in

the Crimea.

Still Florence was always Florence. The climate, when it was fine, was

magnificent. The views were grand, and the most charming excursions

lay within a few hours' walk or drive. The English were well treated,

perhaps too well, by the local Government, and the opportunities of

studying Art were first-rate. Those wonderful Loggie and the Pitti

Palace contained more high Art than is to be found in all London,

Paris, Berlin, and Vienna put together, and we soon managed to become

walking catalogues. A heavy storm, however, presently broke the

serenity of the domestic atmosphere at Siena.

[Sidenote: _Shooting._]

We boys had been allowed to begin regular shooting with an old

single-barrelled Manton, a hard-hitter which had been changed from

flint to percussion. We practised gunnery in secret every moment we

could, and presently gave our tutor a specimen of our proficiency. He

had been instituting odious comparisons between Edward's length and

that of his gun, and went so far as to say that for sixpence he would

allow a shot at fifty yards. On this being accepted with the firm

determination of peppering him, he thought it better to substitute his

hat, and he got away just in time to see it riddled like a sieve. We

then began to despise shooting with small shot.

Our parents made a grand mistake about the shooting excursions,

especially the mother, who, frightened lest anything should occur, used

to get up quarrels to have an excuse to forbid the shooting parties, as

punishment. It was soon found out and resented accordingly.

We hoarded the weekly francs which each received, we borrowed Maria's

savings, _i.e._ the poor girl was never allowed to keep it for a

day, and invested in what was then known as a "case of pistols."

My father--who, when in Sicily with his regiment, had winged a

brother-officer, an Irishman, for saying something unpleasant, had

carefully and fondly nursed him, and shot him again as soon as ever

he recovered, crippling him for life--saw the turn that matters were

taking, and ordered the "saw-handles" to be ignominiously returned

to the shop. The shock was severe to the _pun d'onor_ of we two Don

Quixotes.

I have a most pleasant remembrance of Maria Garcia, a charming young

girl, before she became wife and "divine devil" to the old French

merchant Morbihan. Both she and her sister (afterwards Madame Viardot)

were going through severe training under the old Tartar of a father

Garcia, who was, however, a splendid musician and determined to see his

girls succeed. They tell me she had spites and rages and that manner of

thing in after life, but I can only remember her as worthy of Alfred de

Musset's charming stanza.

[Sidenote: _Rome in Holy Week._]

After a slow but most interesting drive we reached the Eternal City,

and, like all the world, were immensely impressed by the entrance at

the Porto del Popolo. The family secured apartments in the Piazza di

Spagna, which was then, as it is now, the capital of English Rome.

Everything in it was English, the librarian, the grocer, and all the

other little shops, and mighty little it has changed during the third

of a century. In 1873, when my wife and I stayed there, the only points

of difference observed were the presence of Americans and the large

gilded advertisements of the photographers. The sleepy atmosphere was

the same, and the same was the drowsy old fountain.

At Rome sight-seeing was carried on with peculiar ardour. With "Mrs.

Starke" under the arm, for "Murray" and "Baedeker" were not invented in

those days, we young ones went from Vatican to the Capitol, from church

to palazzo, from ruin to ruin. We managed to get introductions to the

best studios, and made acquaintance with all the shops which contained

the best collections of coins, of cameos, of model temples, in

rosso-antico, and giallo-antico, and of all the treasures of Roman Art,

ancient and modern. We passed our days in running about the town, and

whenever we found an opportunity, we made excursions into the country,

even ascending Mount Soracte. In those days Rome was not what it is

now. It was the ghost of the Imperial City, the mere shadow of the

Mistress of the world. The great Forum was a level expanse of ground,

out of which the half-buried ruins rose. The Coliseum had not changed

for a century. The Palatine hill had never dreamt of excavation. The

greater part of the space within the old walls, that represents the

ancient City, was a waste, what would in Africa be called bush, and it

was believed that turning up the ground caused fatal fevers. It had

no pretensions to be a Capital. It wanted fortifications; the walls

could be breached with six-pounders. The Tiber was not regulated, and

periodically flooded the lower town. The Ghetto was a disgrace. Nothing

could be fouler than the Trastevere: and the Leonine City, with the

exception of St. Peter's and the Vatican, was a piggery.

At Rome there was then very little society. People met when doing the

curiosities, and the principal amusements were conversaziones, when the

only conspicuous object was some old Cardinal sitting in red, enthroned

upon a sofa. Good old Gregory XVI. did not dislike foreigners, and

was even intimate with a certain number of heretics, but _that_ could

not disperse the sleepy atmosphere of the place, whilst the classes

of society were what the satirical French duchesse called, 'une

noblesse de Sacrament'--and yet it was the season of the year. Then,

as now, the wandering world pressed to Rome to see ceremonies of the

Holy Week, to hear the music of the Sistine Chapel, to assist at the

annual conversion of a Jew at St. John of Lateran, to walk gaping

about at the interior of St. Peter's, and to enjoy the magnificent

illuminations, which were spoiled by a high wind, and a flood of rain.

Nothing could be more curious than the contrast between the sons of

the Holy City and the barbarians from the North, and the far West,

when the Pope stood in the balcony delivering his benediction _urbi et

orbi_; the English and Irish Catholics seemed to be overwhelmed with

awe whilst the Romans delivered themselves of small jokes, very audible

withal, upon the mien and the demeanor of the Vecchierello. Inside the

great cathedral the crowd used to be of the most pushing kind, and

young priests attempted to scale one's shoulders. Protestant ladies

consumed furtive sandwiches, and here and there an aged sightseer was

thrown down and severely trampled upon. In fact, there was a perfect

opposition between the occasion of the ceremony and the way it was

carried out.

It was necessary to leave Rome in time to reach Naples before the hot

season began, and return to summer quarters. In those days the crossing

of the Pontine Marshes was considered not a little dangerous. Heavy

breakfasts were eaten to avoid the possible effect of malaria upon an

empty stomach, and the condemned pistols were ostentatiously loaded to

terrify the banditti, who were mostly the servants and hangers-on of

the foul little inns.

At Terracina we found an Englishman temporarily under arrest. This

was Mr. St. John, who had just shot in a duel Count Controfiani. The

history of the latter was not a little curious. He was a red-haired

Neapolitan, extremely plain in appearance, and awkward in manner, but

touchy and sensitive in the extreme. His friends and his acquaintances

chose to make a butt of him, little fancying how things were going to

end. One day he took leave of them all, saying that he was going to

travel for some years. He disguised himself with a wig, and hid in

the suburbs, practising pistol-shooting, foil, and broadsword. When

satisfied with his own progress, he reappeared suddenly in society,

and was received with a shout of ironical welcome, "Ecco il nostro bel

Controfiani." He slapped the face of the ringleader, and in the duel

which followed cut him almost to pieces. After two or three affairs

of the kind, his reputation was thoroughly made, even in a City where

duelling was so common as Naples. At last, by some mischance, he met

St. John at Rome, and the two became intimate. They used to practise

pistol-shooting together, and popular report declares that both

concealed their game. At last a quarrel arose about some young person,

and Controfiani was compelled to fight at the pleasure of a member of

the Royal family of Naples, of whose suite he was. The duel was to be

_à la barrière_, first shot at twenty-five paces, and leave to advance

twelve, after standing the fire. The delay was so great that the

seconds began to show signs of impatience, when St. John levelled his

pistol, and hit his adversary in the flank, above the hip. Controfiani

had the courage to plug his wound with the forefinger of his left hand,

and had the folly to attempt advancing, mortally wounded as he was. The

movement shook him, his hand was unsteady; his bullet whizzed past St.

John's head, and he was dead a few hours later.

The family halted a short while at Capua, then a quiet little country

town, equally thoughtless of the honours of the past, or the fierce

scenes that waited it in the future; many years afterwards my friend

Blakeley of the Guns, and I, offered the Government of King Francis, to

go out to rifle the cannon, which was to defend them against Garibaldi

and his banditti. Unfortunately the offer came too late, It would have

been curious had a couple of Englishmen managed, by shooting Garibaldi,

to baffle the plans which Lord Pam. had laid with so much astuteness

and perseverance.

[Sidenote: _Sorrento._]

At Naples a house was found upon the Chiaja, and after trying it for

a fortnight, and finding it perfectly satisfactory and agreeing to

take it for the next season, the family went over to Sorrento. This,

in those days, was one of the most pleasant _villegiature_ in Italy.

The three little villages that studded the long tongue of rock and

fertile soil, were separated from one another by long tracts of orchard

and olive ground, instead of being huddled together, as they are now.

They preserved all their rural simplicity, baited buffalo-calves in

the main squares, and had songs and sayings in order to enrage one

another. The villas scattered about the villages were large rambling

old shells of houses, and Aunt G. could not open her eyes sufficiently

wide when she saw what an Italian villa really was. The bathing was

delightful; break-neck paths led down the rocks to little sheltered

bays with the yellowest of sands, and the bluest of waters, and old

smugglers' caves, which gave the coolest shelter after long dips in

the tepid seas. There was an immense variety of excursion. At the

root of the tongue arose the Mountain of St. Angelo, where the snow

harvest, lasting during summer, was one perpetual merry-making. There

were boating trips to Ischia, to Procida, to romantic Capri, with its

blue grotto and purple figs, to decayed Salerno, the splendid ruin,

and to the temples of Pæstum, more splendid still. The shooting was

excellent during the quail season; tall poles and immense nets formed

a _chevaux de frise_ on the hilltops, but the boys went to windwards,

and shot the birds before they were trapped in the nets, in the usual

ignoble way. In fact, nothing could be more pleasant than Sorrento in

its old and uncivilized days. Amongst the amusements at Sorrento, we

indulged ourselves with creeping over the Natural Arch, simply because

the Italians said, "Ma non è possibile, Signorini." It was a dangerous

proceeding, as the crumbling stone was ready at every moment to give

way.

[Sidenote: _Classical Games._]

Amongst other classical fads, we boys determined to imitate Anacreon

and Horace. We crowned ourselves with myrtle and roses, chose the

prettiest part of the garden, and caroused upon the best wine we could

afford, out of cups, disdaining to use glasses. Our father, aware of

this proceeding, gave us three bottles of sherry, upon the principle

that the grocer opens to the young shopboy his drawers of figs and

raisins. But we easily guessed the meaning of the kind present, and

contented ourselves with drinking each half a bottle a day, as long

as it lasted, and then asked for more, to the great disgust of the

donor. We diligently practised pistol-shooting, and delighted in

cock-fighting, at which the tutor duly attended. Of course the birds

fought without steel, but it was a fine game-breed, probably introduced

of old by the Spaniards. It not a little resembles the Derby game-cock,

which has spread itself half over South America.

[Sidenote: _Chess._]

There was naturally little variety in amusements. The few English

families lived in scattered villas. Old Mrs. Starke, Queen of Sorrento,

as she loved to be called, and the authoress of the guide book, was the

local "lion," and she was sketched and caricatured in every possible

way in her old Meg Merrilies' cloak. Game to the last, she died on the

road travelling. An Englishman, named Sparkes, threw himself into one

of the jagged volcanic ravines that seam the tongue of Sorrento; but

there is hardly a place in Italy, high or low, where some Englishman

has not suicided himself. A painter, a Mr. Inskip, brought over an

introduction, and was very tipsy before dinner was half over. The

Marsala wine supplied by Iggulden & Co. would have floored Polyphemus.

The want of excitement out of doors, produced a correspondent increase

of it inside. We were getting too old to be manageable, and Mr. Du

Pré taking high grounds on one occasion, very nearly received a good

thrashing. My father being a man of active mind, and having nothing in

the world to do, began to be unpleasantly chemical; he bought Parke's

"Catechism;" filled the house with abominations of all kinds, made

a hideous substance that he called soap, and prepared a quantity of

filth that he called citric acid, for which he spoiled thousands of

lemons. When his fit passed over it was succeeded by one of chess, and

the whole family were bitten by it. Every spare hour, especially in

the evening, was given to check and checkmating, and I soon learned

to play one, and then two games, with my eyes blindfolded. I had the

sense, however, to give it up completely, for my days were full of

Philidor, and my dreams were of gambits all night.

The dull life was interrupted by a visit from Aunt G. She brought

with her a Miss Morgan, who had been governess to the three sisters,

and still remained their friend. She was a woman of good family in

Cornwall, but was compelled, through loss of fortune, to take service.

Miss Morgan was very proud of her nephew, the Rev. Morgan Cowie, who

was senior Wrangler at Cambridge. He had had the advantage of studying

mathematics in Belgium, where in those days the entering examination of

a College was almost as severe as the passing examination of an English

College. She was also very well read, and she did not a little good in

the house. She was the only one who ever spoke to us children as if we

were reasonable beings, instead of scolding and threatening with the

usual parental brutality of _those days_. That unwise saying of the

wise man, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," has probably done more

harm to the junior world than any other axiom of the same size, and

it is only of late years that people have begun to "spoil the rod and

spare the child." So Miss Morgan could do with the juniors what all the

rest of the house completely failed in doing. The only thing that was

puzzling about her was, that she could not play at Chess. Aunt G. waxed

warm in defence of her friend, and assured the scoffers that "Morgan,

with her fine mind, would easily learn to beat the whole party." "Fine

mind!" said the scoffers. "Why, we would give her a Queen."

[Sidenote: _Naples._]

Naples after Sorrento was a Paris. In those days it was an exceedingly

pleasant City, famous as it always has been for some of the best cooks

in Italy. The houses were good, and the servants and the provisions

were moderate. The Court was exceedingly gay, and my father found a

cousin there, old Colonel Burke, who was so intimate with the King,

known as "Old Bomba," as to be admitted to his bedroom. There was also

another Irish cousin, a certain Mrs. Phayre, who for many years had

acted duenna to the Miss Smiths (Penelope and Gertrude). Penelope had

always distinguished herself in Paris by mounting wild horses in the

Bois de Boulogne, which ran away with her, and shook her magnificent

hair loose. She became a favourite at the Court of Naples, and amused

the dull royalties with her wild Irish tricks. It is said that, on

one occasion, she came up with a lift instead of the expected _vol au

vent_, or pudding. She ended by marrying the Prince of Capua, greatly

to the delight of the King, who found an opportunity of getting rid

of his brother, and put an end to certain scandals. It was said that

the amiable young Prince once shot an old man, whom he found gathering

sticks in his grounds, and on another occasion that he was soundly

thrashed by a party of English grooms, whom he had insulted in his

cups. The happy pair had just run away and concluded the "triple

alliance," as it was called (this is a marriage in three different

ways, in order to make sure of it; Protestant, Catholic, and Civil),

when our family settled in Naples, and they found Mrs. Phayre and

Gertrude Smith, the other sister, in uncomfortable State, banished

by the Court, and harassed by the police. All their letters had been

stopped at the post-office, and they had had no news from home for

months. My father saw them carefully off to England, where Gertrude,

who had a very plain face and a very handsome figure, presently married

the rich old Lord Dinorben. Poor Miss Morgan also suffered considerably

at Naples from the stoppage of all her letters; she being supposed

at least to be a sister of Lady Morgan, the "wild Irish girl," whose

writings at that time had considerably offended the Italian Court.

Naples was perhaps the least strict of all the Italian cities, and

consequently it contained a colony, presided over by the Hon. Mrs.

Temple, Lady Eleanor Butler, Lady Strachan, and Berkeley Craven, who

would somewhat have startled the proprieties of another place. The

good-natured Minister was the Hon. Mr. Temple, Lord Palmerston's

brother, who cared nothing for a man's catechism provided he kept

decently clear of scandal. The Secretary of Legation was a Mr.

Kennedy, who married a Miss Briggs, and died early. These were great

friends of the family. On the other hand, the Consul, Captain Galway,

R.N., was anything but pleasant. He was in a perpetual state of rile

because his Consular service prevented his being received at Court;

moreover, he heard (possibly correctly) that Mrs. Phayre and her two

_protégées_ were trying to put Colonel Burton in his place. He was also

much troubled by his family, and one of them (the parson) especially

troubled him. This gentleman having neglected to provide for a young

Galway whose mamma he had neglected to marry, the maternal parent took

a position outside the church, and as the congregation streamed out,

cried in a loud voice, pointing to the curate, "Him the father of my

child." Another element of confusion at Naples was poor Charley Savile,

Lord Mexborough's son, who had quarrelled himself out of the Persian

Legation. He was a good hand with his sword, always ready to fight, and

equally ready to write. He always denied that he had written and sent

about some verses which all Naples attributed to him, and they were

certainly most scandalous. Of one lady he wrote--

"Society courts her, wicked old sinner,

Yet what won't man do for the sake of a dinner?"

Of another he wrote--

"You look so demure, ma'am,

So pious, so calm,

Always chanting a hymn,

Or singing a psalm.

Yet your thoughts are on virtue and heav'n no more

Than the man in the moon--you dreadful young bore."

This pasquinade led to some half-dozen challenges and duels. It was

severe, but not worse than society deserved. Naples has never been

strict; and about the forties it was, perhaps, the most dissolute City

on the Continent. The natives were bad, but the English visitors were

worse. In fact, in some cases their morals were unspeakable.

There was a charming family of the name of Oldham. The father, when

an English officer serving in Sicily, had married one of the beauties

of the island, a woman of high family and graceful as a Spaniard. The

children followed suit. The girls were beautiful, and the two sons

were upwards of six feet in height, and were as handsome men as could

well be seen. They both entered the army. One, in the 2nd Queen's, was

tortured to death by the Kaffirs when his cowardly soldiers ran away,

and left him wounded. The other, after serving in the 86th in India,

was killed in the light cavalry charge of Balakalava. The families

became great friends, and I met them both in India.

Naples was a great place for excursions. To the north you had Ischia

and the Solfatara, a miniature bit of Vulcanism somewhat like the

Geyser ground in Iceland, where ignoramuses thought themselves in the

midst of untold volcanic grandeur. Nothing could be more snobbish than

the visit to the Grotto del Cane, where a wretched dog was kept for

the purpose of being suffocated half a dozen times a day. There I was

determined to act dog, and was pulled up only in time to prevent being

thoroughly asphyxiated. The Baths of Nero are about equal to an average

Turkish _Hammám_, but nothing more. To the south the excursions were

far more interesting.

Beyond Herculaneum, dark and dingy, lay Pompeii, in those days very

different from the tame Crystal Palace affair that it is now. You

engaged a cicerone as best you could; you had nothing to pay because

there were no gates; you picked up what you liked, in shapes of bits

of mosaic, and, if you were a swell, a house or a street was opened

up in your honour. And overlaying Pompeii stood Vesuvius, which was

considered prime fun. The walking up the ash cone amongst a lot of

seniors, old men dragged up by _lazzaroni_, and old women carried up

in baskets upon _lazzaroni's_ backs, was funny enough, but the descent

was glorious. What took you twenty minutes to go up took four minutes

to go down. Imagine a dustbin magnified to ten thousand, and tilted up

at an angle of thirty-five degrees; in the descent you plunged with

the legs to the knees, you could not manage to fall unless you hit a

stone, and, arrived at the bottom, you could only feel incredulous that

it was possible to run at such a rate. We caused no end of trouble,

and I was found privily attempting to climb down the crater, because

I had heard that an Englishman had been let down in a basket. Many of

these ascents were made; on one occasion during an eruption, when the

lava flowed down to the sea, and the Neapolitans with long pincers were

snatching pieces out of it to stamp and sell, we boys, to the horror of

all around, jumped on the top of the blackening fire stream, burnt our

boots, and vilely abused all those who would not join us.

At Naples more was added to the work of education. Caraccioli, the

celebrated marine painter, was engaged to teach oil-painting; but he

was a funny fellow, and the hours which should have been spent in

exhausting palettes passed in pencil-caricaturing of every possible

friend and acquaintance. The celebrated Cavalli was the fencing-master;

and in those days the Neapolitan school, which has now almost died out,

was in its last bloom. It was a thoroughly business-like affair, and

rejected all the elegances of the French school; and whenever there was

a duel between a Neapolitan and a Frenchman, the former was sure to

win. We boys worked at it heart and soul, and generally managed to give

four hours a day to it. I determined, even at that time, to produce

a combination between the Neapolitan and the French school, so as to

supplement the defects of the one by the merits of the other. A life of

very hard work did not allow me any leisure to carry out my plan; but

the man of perseverance stores up his resolve, and waits for any number

of years till he sees the time to carry it out. The plan was made in

1836, and was completed in 1880 (forty-four years).[1]

My father spared no pains or expense in educating his children. He

had entered the army at a very early age. Volunteers were called for

in Ireland, and those who brought a certain number into the field

received commissions gratis. The old Grandmamma Burton's tenants'

sons volunteered by the dozen. They formed a very fair company, and

accompanied the young master to the wars; and when the young master got

his commission, they all, with the exception of one or two, levanted,

bolted, and deserted. Thus my father found himself an officer at the

age of seventeen, when he ought to have been at school; and recognizing

the deficiencies of his own education, he was determined that his

children should complain of nothing of the kind. He was equally

determined they none of them should enter the army; the consequence

being that both the sons became soldiers, and the only daughter married

a soldier. Some evil spirit, probably Mr. Du Pré, whispered that the

best plan for the boys would be to send them to Oxford, in order that

they might rise by literature, an idea which they both thoroughly

detested. However, in order to crush their pride, they were told that

they should enter "Oxford College as sizars, poor gentlemen who are

supported by the alms of the others." Our feelings may be imagined.

We determined to enlist, or go before the mast, or to turn Turks,

banditti, or pirates, rather than undergo such an indignity.

Parthenope was very beautiful; but so true is English blood, that

the most remarkable part of it was "Pickwick," who happened to make

his way there at the time of the sojourn of our family. We read with

delight the description of the English home. We passed our nights, as

well as our days, devouring the book, and even "Ettore Fieramosca" and

the other triumphs of Massimo d'Azelio were mere outsiders compared

with it; but how different the effect of the two books--"Pickwick,"

the good-humoured caricature of a boy full of liquor and good spirits,

and the "Disfida di Barletta," one of the foundation-stones of Italian

independence.

At last the house on the Chiaja was given up, and the family took a

house inside the City for a short time. The father was getting tired

and thinking of starting northwards. The change was afflicting. The

loss of the view of the Bay was a misfortune. The only amusement was

prospecting the streets, where the most extraordinary scenes took

place. It was impossible to forget a beastly Englishman, as he stood

eating a squirting orange surrounded by a string of gutter-boys. The

dexterity of the pickpockets, too, gave scenes as amusing as a theatre.

It was related of one of the Coryphæi that he had betted with a friend

that he would take the pocket-handkerchief of an Englishman, who had

also betted that no man born in Naples could pick his pocket. A pal

walked up to the man as he was promenading the streets, flower in

button-hole, solemnly spat on his cravat, and ran away. The principal,

with thorough Italian politeness, walked up to the outraged foreigner,

drew his pocket-handkerchief and proceeded to remove the stain,

exhorted the outraged one to keep the fugitive in sight, and in far

less time than it takes to tell, transferred the handkerchief to his

own pocket, and set out in pursuit of the _barbaro_.

[Sidenote: _Cholera._]

The _lazzaroni_, too, were a perpetual amusement. We learned to eat

maccaroni like them, and so far mastered their dialect, that we could

exchange chaff by the hour. In 1869 I found them all at Monte Video

and Buenos Ayres, dressed in _cacciatore_ and swearing "M'nnaccia

l'anima tua;" they were impressed with a conviction that I was myself a

_lazzarone_ in luck. The shady side of the picture was the cholera. It

caused a fearful destruction, and the newspapers owned to 1300 a day,

which meant say 2300. The much-abused King behaved like a gentleman.

The people had determined that the cholera was poison, and doubtless

many made use of the opportunity to get rid of husbands and wives and

other inconvenient relationships; but when the mob proceeded to murder

the doctors, and to gather in the market square with drawn knives,

declaring that the Government had poisoned the provisions, the King

himself drove up in a phaeton and jumped out of it entirely alone, told

them to put up their ridiculous weapons, and to show him where the

poisoned provisions were, and, seating himself upon a bench, ate as

much as his stomach would contain. Even the _lazzarone_ were not proof

against this heroism, and viva'd and cheered him to his heart's content.

My brother and I had seen too much of cholera to be afraid of it. We

had passed through it in France, it had followed us to Siena and Rome,

and at Naples it only excited our curiosity. We persuaded the Italian

man-servant to assist us in a grand escapade. He had procured us the

necessary dress, and when the dead-carts passed round in the dead of

the night, we went the rounds with them as some of the _croquemorts_.

The visits to the pauper houses, where the silence lay in the rooms,

were anything but pleasant, and still less the final disposal of the

bodies. Outside Naples was a large plain, pierced with pits, like the

silos or underground granaries of Algeria and North Africa. They were

lined with stone, and the mouths were covered with one big slab, just

large enough to allow a corpse to pass. Into these flesh-pots[2] were

thrown the unfortunate bodies of the poor, after being stripped of the

rags which acted as their winding-sheets. Black and rigid, they were

thrown down the apertures like so much rubbish, into the festering heap

below, and the decay caused a kind of lambent blue flame about the

sides of the pit, which lit up a mass of human corruption, worthy to

be described by Dante.

Our escapades, which were frequent, were wild for strictly brought up

Protestant English boys--they would be nothing now, when boys do so

much worse--but there were others that were less excusable. Behind the

Chiaja dwelt a multitude of syrens, who were naturally looked upon as

the most beautiful of their sex. One lady in particular responded to

the various telegraphic signs made to her from the flat terrace of the

house, and we boys determined to pay her a visit. Arming ourselves with

carving-knives, which we stuffed behind our girdles, we made our way

jauntily into the house, introduced ourselves, and being abundant in

pocket-money, offered to stand treat, as the phrase is, for the whole

neighbourhood. The orgie was tremendous, and we were only too lucky

to get home unhurt, before morning, when the Italian servant let us

in. The result was a correspondence, consisting in equal parts of pure

love on our side and extreme debauchery on the syrens'. These letters,

unfortunately, were found by our mother during one of her Sunday

visitations to our chambers. A tremendous commotion was the result. Our

father and his dog, Mr. Du Pré, proceeded to condign punishment with

the horsewhip; but we climbed up to the tops of the chimneys, where the

seniors could not follow us, and refused to come down till the crime

was condoned.

This little business disgusted our father of Naples, and he resolved to

repair to a pure moral air. Naples is a very different place now; so

is all the Italy frequented by travellers, and spoiled by railways and

officialdom.

In 1881 a distinguished officer, and a gentleman allied to Royalty,

wrote as follows: "You threw some doubts on the efficiency of the

Italian posts, and I believe you; I don't think I was ever so glad

to get home. At Malta it looks so clean after the filth of Naples. I

think Italy, the Italians, their manners, customs, and institutions,

more damnable every time I see them, and feel sure you will meet with

less annoyance during your travels on the Gold Coast, than I met with

coming through Italy. Trains crowded, unpunctual; starvation, filth,

incivility, and extortion at every step; and, were it not that there

are so many works of art and of interest to see, I doubt if any one

would care to visit the country a second time."

(Here is an account of a purchase made to transfer home.) "A small

table was packed in a little case, and firmly nailed down. At the

station they refused to let it go in the luggage van, unless it were

corded, _lest it might be opened en route_. The officials offered to

cord it for _bakshish_, which was paid, but the cord not put on. They

cut open my leather bag, and tried to open my portmanteau, but when I

called this fact to the notice of the station-master at Rome, he simply

turned on his heel and declined to answer. At Naples they opened the

little case, because furniture was subject to octroi; and, on leaving,

the case was again inspected, lest it might contain a picture (they

were not allowed to leave the country)." It is no longer the classical

Italy of Landor, nor the romantic Italy of Leigh Hunt, nor the ideal

Italy of the Brownings, nor the spiritualized Italy of George Eliot,

nor the everyday Italy of Charles Lever. They thought they were

going to be everything when they changed Masters, but they have only

succeeded in making it a noisy, vulgar, quarrelsome and contentious,

arrogant, money-grasping Italy, and the sooner it receives a sound

drubbing from France or Austria the better for it. It will then reform

itself.

[Sidenote: _Marseille._]

The family left Naples in the spring of 1836. The usual mountain of

baggage was packed in the enormous boxes of the period, and the Custom

House officers never even opened them, relying, as they said--and did

in those good old days--upon the word of an Englishman, that they

contained nothing contraband. How different from the United Italy,

where even the dressing-bag is rummaged to find a few cigars, or an

ounce of coffee. The voyage was full of discomforts. My mother, after

a campaign of two or three years, had been persuaded to part with her

French maid Eulalie, an old and attached servant, who made our hours

bitter, and our faces yellow. The steamer of the day was by no means

a floating palace, especially the English coasting steamers, which

infested the Mediterranean. The machinery was noisy and offensive.

The cabins were dog-holes, with a pestiferous atmosphere, and the

food consisted of greasy butter, bread which might be called dough,

eggs with a perfume, rusty bacon, milkless tea and coffee, that might

be mistaken for each other, waxy potatoes, graveolent greens _cuite

à l'eau_, stickjaw pudding, and cannibal haunches of meat, charred

without, and blue within.

The only advantage was that the vessels were manned by English crews,

and in those days the British sailor was not a tailor, and he showed

his value when danger was greatest.

We steamed northwards in a good old way, puffing and panting, pitching

and rolling, and in due time made Marseille.

The town of the Canebière was far from being the splendid City that

it is now, but it always had one great advantage, that of being in

Provence. I always had a particular propensity for this bit of Africa

in Europe, and in after life in India for years, my greatest friend,

Dr. Steinhaüser, and myself indulged in visions of a country cottage,

where we would pass our days in hammocks, and our nights in bed, and

never admit books or papers, pens or ink, letters or telegrams. This

retreat was intended to be a rest for middle age, in order to prepare

for senility and second childhood. But this vision passed into the

limbo of things imagined (in fact, the vision of two hard-working and

overworked men), and I little thought that at fifty-five I should be a

married man, still in service, still knocking about the world, working

hard with my wife, and poor Steinhaüser dead fifteen years ago.

To return. However agreeable Provence was, the change from Italians

to French was not pleasant. The subjects of Louis Philippe, the

Citizen-King, were rancorous against Englishmen, and whenever a

fellow wanted to get up a row he had only to cry out, "These are the

_misérables_ who poisoned Napoleon at St. Helena." This pleasant little

scene occurred on board a coasting steamer, between Marseille and

Cette, when remonstrance was made with the cheating steward, backed

by the rascally captain. Cette was beginning to be famous for the

imitation wines composed by the ingenuity of Monsieur Guizot, brother

of the _austère intrigant_. He could turn out any wine, from the

cheapest Marsala to the choicest Madeiran Bual.

But he did his counterfeiting honestly, as a little "G" was always

branded on the bottom of the cork, and Cette gave a good lesson about

ordering wines at hotels. The sensible traveller, when in a strange

place, always calls for the _carte_, and chooses the cheapest; he knows

by sad experience, by cramp and acidity of stomach, that the dearest

wines are often worse than the cheapest, and at best that they are

the same with different labels. The proprietor of the hotel at Cette,

had charged his _dame de comptoir_ with robbing the till. She could

not deny it, but she replied with a _tu quoque_: "If I robbed you I

only returned tit for tat. You have been robbing the public for the

last quarter of a century, and only the other day you brought a bottle

of ordinaire and _escamoté'd_ it into sixteen kinds of _vins fin_."

The landlord thought it better to drop the proceedings. From Cette we

travelled in hired carriages (as Dobbin and the carriages had been

sold at Naples) to Toulouse. We stayed at Toulouse for a week, and I

was so delighted with student life there, that I asked my father's

leave to join them. But he was always determined on the Fellowship at

Oxford. Our parents periodically fell ill with asthma, and we young

ones availed ourselves of the occasion, by wandering far and wide over

the country. We delighted in these journeys, for though the tutor was

there, the books were in the boxes. My chief remembrances of Toulouse

were, finding the mistress of the hotel correcting her teeth with

_table d'hôte_ forks, and being placed opposite the model Englishman

of Alexandre Dumas and Eugène Sue. The man's face never faded from my

memory. Carroty hair, white and very smooth forehead, green eyes, a

purple-reddish lower face, whiskers that had a kind of crimson tinge,

and an enormous mouth worn open, so as to show the protruding teeth.

[Sidenote: _Pau--Bagnières de Bigorres._]

In due time we reached Pau in the Pyrenees, the capital of the Basses

Pyrénées, and the old Bearnais. The little town on the Gave de Pau was

no summer place. The heats are intense, and all who can, rush off to

the Pyrénées, which are in sight, and distant only forty miles. Our

family followed suit, and went off to Bagnières de Bigorres, where we

hired a nice house in the main Square. There were few foreigners in

the Bagnières de Bigorres; it was at that time a thoroughly French

watering-place. It was invaded by a mob of Parisians of both sexes, the

men dressed in fancy costumes intended to be "truly rural," and capped

with Basque bonnets, white or red. The women were more wonderful still,

especially when on horseback; somehow or other the Française never

dons a riding-habit without some solecism. Picnics were the order of

the day, and they were organized on a large scale, looking more like a

squadron of cavalry going out for exercise than a party of pleasure.

We boys obtained permission to accompany one of those caravans to the

Brêche de Roland, a nick in the mountain top clearly visible from the

plains, and supposed to have been cut by the good sword "Joyeuse."

[Sidenote: _Contrabandistas._]

Here we boys were mightily taken with, and tempted to accept the offer

made to us by, a merry party of _contrabandistas_, who were smuggling

to and fro chocolate, tobacco, and _aguardienta_ (spirits). Nothing

could be jollier than such a life as these people lead. They travelled

_au clair de la lune_, armed to the teeth; when they arrived at the

hotels the mules were unloaded and turned out to grass, the guitar,

played _à la Figaro_, began to tinkle, and all the young women, like

"the Buffalo girls," came out to dance. Wine and spirits flowed freely,

the greatest good humour prevailed, and the festivities were broken

only sometimes by "knifing or shooting."

We also visited Tarbes, which even in those days was beginning to

acquire a reputation for "le shport;" it presently became one of the

centres of racing and hunting in France, for which the excellent

climate and the fine rolling country admirably adapted it. It was no

wonder that the young French horse beat the English at the same age.

In the Basque Pyrénées a colt two years old is as well grown as a

Newmarket weed at two and a half.

When the great heat was over, the family returned to Pau, where they

found a good house over the arcade in the Place Gramont. Pau boasts of

being the birthplace of Henry IV., Gaston de Foix, and Bernadotte.

Strangers go through the usual routine of visiting the Castle, called

after the Protestant-Catholic King, Henry IV.; driving to Ortez, where

Marshal Soult fought unjustifiably the last action of the Peninsular

War; and of wandering about the flat, moor-like _landes_, which not

a little resemble those about Bordeaux. The society at Pau was an

improvement upon that of Naples. The most remarkable person was Captain

(R.N.) Lord William Paget, who was living with his mother-in-law

(Baroness de Rothenberg), and his wife and children, and enjoying

himself as usual. Though even impecunious, he was the best of boon

companions, and a man generally loved. But he could also make himself

feared, and, as the phrase is, would stand no nonsense. He had a

little affair with a man whom we will call Robinson, and as they were

going to the meeting-place he said to his second, "What's the fellow's

pet pursuit?" "Well!" answered the other, "I don't know--but, let me

see--ah, I remember, a capital hand at waltzing." "Waltzing!" said

Lord William, and hit him accurately on the hip-bone, which spoilt his

saltations for many a long month. Years and years after, when both were

middle-aged men, I met at Shepherd's Hotel, Cairo, his son, the boy

whom I remembered straddling across a diminutive donkey--General Billy

Paget. He had also entered the Anglo-Indian army, and amongst other

things had distinguished himself by getting the better (in an official

correspondence) of General John Jacob, the most obstinate and rancorous

of men. "Billy" had come out to Egypt with the intention of returning

to India, but the Red Sea looked so sweltering hot and its shores so

disgustingly barren, that he wrote to Aden to recall his luggage, which

had been sent forward, then and there retired from the service, married

a charming woman, and gave his old friends a very excellent dinner in

London.

There were also some very nice L'Estranges, one of the daughters a very

handsome woman, some pretty Foxes, an old Captain Sheridan, with two

good-looking daughters, and the Ruxtons, whom we afterwards met at Pisa

and the Baths of Lucca. Certain elderly maidens of the name of Shannon

lived in a house almost overhanging the Gave de Pau. Upon this subject

O'Connell, the Agitator, produced a _bon mot_, which is, however, not

fit for the drawing-room. Pau was still a kind of invalid colony for

consumptives, although the native proverb about its climate is, "that

it has eight months winter, and four of the Inferno." Dr. Diaforus acts

upon the very intelligible system of self-interest. He does not wish

his patients to die upon his hands, and consequently he sends them

to die abroad. In the latter part of the last century he sent his

moribunds to Lisbon and to Montpellier, where the _vent de bise_ is as

terrible as a black east wind is in Harwich.

Then he packed them off to Pisa, where the tropics and Norway meet, and

to damp, muggy, reeking Madeira, where patients have lived a quarter

of a century with half a lung, but where their sound companions and

nurses suffer from every description of evil which attend biliousness.

They then found out that the dry heat of Teneriffe allowed invalids to

be out after sunset, and, lastly, they discovered that the dry cold

of Canada and Iceland, charged with ozone, offers the best chance

of a complete cure. I proposed to utilize the regions about the

beautiful Dead Sea, about thirteen hundred feet below the level of

the Mediterranean, where oxygen accumulates, and where, run as hard

as you like, you can never be out of breath. This will be the great

Consumptive Hospital of the future.

[Sidenote: _Pau Education._]

At Pau the education went on merrily. I was provided with a French

master of mathematics, whose greasy hair swept the collar of the

_redingote_ buttoned up to the chin. He was a type of his order. He

introduced mathematics everywhere. He was a red republican of the

reddest, hating rank and wealth, and he held that _Le Bon Dieu_ was not

proven, because he could not express Him by a mathematical formula, and

he called his fellow-men _Bon-Dieusistes_. We were now grown to lads,

and began seriously to prepare for thrashing our tutor, and diligently

took lessons in boxing from the Irish groom of a Captain Hutchinson,

R.N. Whenever we could escape from study we passed our hours in the

barracks, fencing with the soldiers, and delighting every _piou-piou_

(recruit) by our powers of consuming the country spirit (the white and

unadulterated cognac). We also took seriously to smoking, although, as

usual with beginners in those days, we suffered in the flesh. In the

later generation, you find young children, even girls, who, although

their parents have never smoked, can finish off a cigarette without the

slightest inconvenience, even for the first time.

Smoking and drinking led us, as it naturally does, into trouble. There

was a Jamaica Irishman with a very dark skin and a very loud brogue,

called Thomas, who was passing the winter for the benefit of his chest

at Pau. He delighted in encouraging us for mischief sake. One raw snowy

day he gave us his strongest cigars, and brewed us a bowl of potent

steaming punch, which was soon followed by another. Edward, not being

very well, was unusually temperate, and so I, not liking to waste it,

drank for two. A walk was then maliciously proposed, and the cold air

acted as usual as stimulant to stimulant. Thomas began laughing aloud,

Edward plodded gloomily along, and I got into half a dozen scrimmages

with the country people. At last matters began to look serious, and

the too hospitable host took his two guests back to their home. I

managed to stagger upstairs; I was deadly pale, with staring eyes, and

compelled to use the depressed walk of a monkey, when I met my mother.

She was startled at my appearance, and as I pleaded very sick she put

me to bed. But other symptoms puzzled her. She fetched my father, who

came to the bedside, looked carefully for a minute at his son and heir,

and turned upon his heel, exclaiming, "The beast's in liquor." The

mother burst into a flood of tears, and next morning presented me with

a five-franc piece, making me promise to be good for the future, and

not to read Lord Chesterfield's "Letters to his Son," of which she had

a dreadful horror. It need hardly be said that the five francs soon

melted away in laying in a stock of what is popularly called "a hair of

the dog that bit."

What we learnt last at Pau was the Bearnais dialect. It is a charmingly

naïve dialect, mixture of French, Spanish, and Provençale, and

containing a quantity of pretty, pleasant songs. The country folk were

delighted when addressed in their own lingo. It considerably assisted

me in learning Provençale, the language of Le Geysaber; and I found

it useful in the most out-of-the-way corners of the world, even in

Brazil. Nothing goes home to the heart of a man so much as to speak to

him in his own _patois_. Even a Lancashire lad can scarcely resist the

language of "Tummas and Mary."

[Sidenote: _Argélés._]

At length the wheezy, windy, rainy, foggy, sleety, snowy winter passed

away, and the approach of the warm four months, warned strangers to

betake themselves to the hills. This time the chosen place was Argélés.

In those days it was a little village, composed mainly of one street,

not unlike mining Arrayal in Brazil, or a negro village on the banks

of the Gaboon. But the scenery around it was beautiful. It lay upon a

brawling stream, and the contrast of the horizontal meadow-lands around

it, with the backing of almost vertical hills and peaks, thoroughly

satisfied the eye. It had cruel weather in winter time, and a sad

accident had just happened. A discharged soldier had reached it in

midwinter, when the snow lay deep and the wolves were out, and the

villagers strongly dissuaded him from trying to reach his father's

home in the hills. He was armed with his little _briquet_, the little

curved sword then carried by the French infantry soldiers, and he

laughed all caution to scorn. It was towards nightfall; he had hardly

walked a mile, before a pack came down upon him, raging and ravening

with hunger. He put his back to a tree, and defended himself manfully,

killing several wolves, and escaped whilst the carcases were being

devoured by their companions; but he sheathed his sword without taking

the precaution to wipe it, and when he was attacked again it was glued

to the scabbard. The wolves paid dearly for their meal, for the enraged

villagers organized a battue, and killed about a score of them as an

expiatory sacrifice for the poor soldier.

We two brothers, abetted by our tutor, had fallen into the detestable

practice of keeping our hands in by shooting swifts and swallows, of

which barbarity we were afterwards heartily ashamed. Our first lesson

was from the peasants. On one occasion, having shot a harmless bird

that fell among the reapers, the latter charged us in a body, and being

armed with scythes and sickles, caused a precipitous retreat. In those

days the swallow seemed to be a kind of holy bird in the Bearnais,

somewhat like the pigeons of Mecca and Venice. I can only remember that

this was the case with old Assyrians and Aramæans, who called the swift

or devilling the destiny, or foretelling bird, because it heralded the

spring.

[Sidenote: _The Boys fall in Love._]

There was a small society at Argélés, consisting chiefly of English and

Spaniards. The latter were mostly refugees, driven away from home by

political changes. They were not overburdened with money, and of course

looked for cheap quarters. They seemed chiefly to live upon chocolate,

which they made in their own way, in tiny cups so thick and gruelly,

that sponge-cake stood upright in it. They smoked cigarettes with

maize-leaf for paper, as only a Spaniard can. The little cylinder hangs

down as if it were glued to the smoker's lower lip. He goes on talking

and laughing, and then, by some curious movement of a muscle developed

in no other race, he raises the weed to the horizontal and puffs out

a cloud of smoke. They passed their spare time in playing the guitar

and singing party songs, and were very much disgusted when asked to

indulge the company with Riego el Cid. There was a marriage at Argélés,

when a Scotch maiden of mature age married M. Le Maire, an old French

_mousquetaire_, a man of birth, of courtly manners, and who was the

delight of the young ones, but his _plaisanteries_ are utterly unfit

for the drawing-room. There was also a Baron de Meydell, his wife, her

sister, and two very handsome daughters. The eldest was engaged to a

rich young planter in the Isle of Bourbon. We two lads of course fell

desperately in love with them, and the old father, who had served in

the Hessian Brigade in the English army, only roared with laughter when

he saw and heard our _polissoneries_. The old man liked us both, and

delighted in nothing more than to see us working upon each other with

foil and sabre. The parting of the four lovers was something very sad,

and three of us at least shed tears. The eldest girl was beyond such

childishness.

As the mountain fog began to roll down upon the valley, our father

found that his poor chest required a warmer climate. This time we

travelled down the Grand Canal du Midi in a big public barge, which

resembled a Dutch _trekschuyt_. At first, passing through the locks was

a perpetual excitement, but this very soon palled. The L'Estranges were

also on board, and the French part of the company were not particularly

pleasant. They were mostly tourists returning home, mixed with a fair

proportion of _commis-voyageurs_, a class that corresponds with, but

does not resemble, our commercial traveller. The French species seems

to have but two objects in social life: first, to glorify himself, and

secondly, to glorify Paris.

Monsieur Victor Hugo has carried the latter mania to the very verge of

madness, and left to his countrymen an example almost as bad as bad can

be. The peculiarity of the _commis-voyageur_ in those days, was the

queer thin varnish of politeness, which he thought it due to himself

to assume. He would help himself at breakfast or dinner to the leg,

wing, and part of the breast, and pass the dish to his neighbour when

it contained only a neck and a drumstick, with a pleased smile and a

ready bow, anxiously asking "Madame, veut elle de la volaille?" and he

was frightfully unprogressive. He wished to "let sleeping dogs lie,"

and hated to move quiet things. It almost gave him an indigestion to

speak of railways. He found the diligence and the canal boat quite fast

enough for his purpose. And in this to a certain extent he represented

the Genius of the Nation.

With the excellent example of the Grand Canal du Midi before them, the

French have allowed half a century to pass before they even realized

the fact that their rivers give them most admirable opportunities for

inland navigation, and that by energy in spending money they could have

a water line leading up from Manches to Paris, and down from Paris

to the Mediterranean. In these days of piercing isthmuses, they seem

hardly to have thought of a canal that would save the time and expense

of running round Spain and Portugal, when it would be so easy to cut

the neck that connects their country with the Peninsula. The rest of

the journey was eventless as usual. The family took the steamer at

Marseille, steamed down to Leghorn, and drove up to Pisa. There they

found a house on the south side of the Lung' Arno, belonging to a widow

of the name of Pini. It was a dull and melancholy place enough, but it

had the advantage of a large garden that grew chiefly cabbages. It was

something like a return home; a number of old acquaintances were met,

and few new ones were made.

[Sidenote: _Drawing._]

The studies were kept up with unremitting attention. I kept up drawing,

painting, and classics, and it was lucky for me that I did. I have

been able to make my own drawings, and to illustrate my own books.

It is only in this way that a correct idea of unfamiliar scenes can

be given. Travellers who bring home a few scrawls and put them into

the hands of a professional illustrator, have the pleasure of seeing

the illustrated paper style applied to the scenery and the people of

Central Africa and Central Asia and Europe. Even when the drawings

are carefully done by the traveller-artist, it is hard to persuade

the professional to preserve their peculiarities. For instance, a

sketch from Hyderabad, the inland capital of Sind, showed a number of

mast-like poles which induced the English artist to write out and ask

if there ought not to be yards and sails. In sending a sketch home of a

pilgrim in his proper costume, the portable Korán worn under the left

arm narrowly escaped becoming a revolver. On the chocolate-coloured

cover of a book on Zanzibar, stands a negro in gold, straddling like

the Colossus of Rhodes. He was propped crane-like upon one leg,

supporting himself with his spear, and applying, African fashion, the

sole of the other foot to the perpendicular calf.

[Sidenote: _Music._]

But music did not get on so well. We all three had good speaking

voices, but we sang with a "_voce di gola_," a throaty tone which

was terrible to hear. It is only in England that people sing without

voices. This may do very well when chirping a comic song, or

half-speaking a ballad, but in nothing higher. I longed to sing, began

singing with all my might at Pau in the Pyrenees, and I kept it up at

Pisa, where Signor Romani (Mario's old master) rather encouraged me,

instead of peremptorily or pathetically bidding me to hold my tongue.

I wasted time and money, and presently found out my mistake and threw

up music altogether. At stray times I took up the flageolet, and other

simple instruments, as though I had a kind of instinctive feeling how

useful music would be to me in later life. And I never ceased to regret

that I had not practised sufficiently, to be able to write down music

at hearing. Had I been able to do so, I might have collected some two

thousand motives from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and have

produced a musical note-book which would have been useful to a Bellini,

or Donizetti, or a Boito.

We had now put away childish things; that is to say, we no longer broke

the windows across the river with slings, or engaged in free fights

with our coevals. But the climate of Italy is precocious, so, as the

Vicar of Wakefield has it, "we cocked our hats and loved the ladies."

And our poor father was once appalled by strange heads being put out of

the windows, in an unaccustomed street, and with the words, "Oh! S'or

Riccardo, Oh! S'or Edoardo."

Madame P----, the landlady, had three children. Sandro, the son, was a

tall, gawky youth, who wore a _cacciatore_ or Italian shooting-jacket

of cotton-leather, not unlike the English one made loose, with the

tails cut off. The two daughters were extremely handsome girls, in

very different styles. Signorina Caterina, the elder, was tall, slim,

and dark, with the palest possible complexion and regular features.

Signorina Antonia, the younger, could not boast of the same classical

lines, but the light brown hair, and the pink and white complexion,

made one forgive and forget every irregularity. Consequently I fell in

love with the elder, and Edward with the latter. Proposals of marriage

were made and accepted. The girls had heard that, in her younger days,

mamma had had half a dozen strings to her bow at the same time, and

they were perfectly ready to follow parental example. But a serious

obstacle occurred in the difficulty of getting the ceremony performed.

As in England there was a popular but mistaken idea that a man could

put a rope round his wife's neck, take her to market, and sell her like

a quadruped, so there was, and perhaps there is still, in Italy, a

legend that any affianced couple standing up together in front of the

congregation during the elevation of the Host, and declaring themselves

man and wife, are very much married. Many inquiries were made about

this procedure, and at one time it was seriously intended. But the

result of questioning was, that _promessi sposi_ so acting, are at once

imprisoned and punished by being kept in separate cells, and therefore

it became evident, that the game was not worth the candle. This is

like a Scotch marriage, however--with the Italian would be binding in

religion, and the Scotch in law.

Edward and I made acquaintance with a lot of Italian medical students,

compared with whom, English men of the same category were as babes,

and they did us no particular good. At last the winter at Pisa ended,

badly--very badly. The hard studies of the classics during the day,

occasionally concluded with a revel at night. On one hopeless occasion

a bottle of Jamaica gin happened to fall into the wrong hands. The

revellers rose at midnight, boiled water, procured sugar and lemons,

and sat down to a steaming soup tureen full of punch. Possibly it was

followed by a second, but the result was that they sallied out into the

streets, determined upon what is _called_ a "spree." Knockers did not

exist, and Charleys did not confine themselves to their sentry-boxes,

and it was vain to ring at bells, when every one was sound asleep.

Evidently the choice of amusements was limited, and mostly confined to

hustling inoffensive passers-by. But as one of these feats had been

performed, and cries for assistance had been uttered, up came the watch

at the double, and the revellers had nothing to do but to make tracks.

My legs were the longest, and I escaped; Edward was seized and led

off, despite his fists and heels, ignobly to the local _violon_, or

guard-house. One may imagine my father's disgust next morning, when he

was courteously informed by the prison authorities that a _giovinotto_

bearing his name, had been lodged during the night at the public

expense. The father went off in a state of the stoniest severity to the

guard-house, and found the graceless one treating his companions in

misfortune, thieves and ruffians of every kind, to the contents of a

pocket-flask with which he had provided himself in case of need. This

was the last straw; our father determined to transfer his head-quarters

to the Baths of Lucca, and then to prepare for breaking up the family.

The adieux of Caterina and Antonia were heartrending, and it was agreed

to correspond every week. The journey occupied a short time, and a

house was soon found in the upper village of Lucca.

[Sidenote: _The Baths of Lucca._]

In those days, the Lucchese baths were the only place in Italy that

could boast of a tolerably cool summer climate, and a few of the

comforts of life. Sorrento, Montenero, near Leghorn, and the hills

about Rome, were frequented by very few; they came under the category

of "cheap and nasty." Hence the Bagni collected what was considered to

be the distinguished society. It had its parson from Pisa, even in the

days before the travelling continental clergyman was known, and this

one migrated every year to the hills, like the flight of swallows, and

the beggars who desert the hot plains and the stifling climate of the

lowlands. There was generally at least one English doctor who practised

by the kindly sufferance of the _then_ Italian Government. The Duke

of Lucca at times attended the balls; he was married, but his gallant

presence and knightly manner committed terrible ravages in the hearts

of susceptible English girls.

The queen in ordinary was a Mrs. Colonel Stisted, as she called

herself, the "same Miss Clotilda Clotworthy Crawley who was" so rudely

treated by the wild Irish girl, Lady Morgan. I was also obliged to

settle an old score with her in after years in "Sinde, or the Unhappy

Valley." And so I wrote, "She indeed had left her mark in literature,

not by her maudlin volume, 'The Byeways of Italy,' but by the abuse of

her fellow authors." She was "the sea goddess with tin ringlets and

venerable limbs" of the irrepressible Mrs. Trollope. She also supplied

Lever with one of the characters which he etched in with his most

corrosive acid. In one season the Baths collected Lady Blessington,

Count D'Orsay, the charming Lady Walpole, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett

Browning, the poetess, whose tight _sacque_ of black silk gave us

youngsters a series of caricatures. There, too, was old Lady Osborne,

full of Greek and Latin, who married her daughter to Captain Bernal,

afterwards Bernal Osborne. Amongst the number was Mrs. Young, whose

daughter became Madame Matteucci, wife of the celebrated scientist and

electrician of Tuscany. She managed, curiously to say, to hold her

own in her new position. Finally, I remember Miss Virginia Gabriell,

daughter of old General Gabriell, commonly called the "Archangel

Gabriel." Virginia Gabriell, "all white and fresh, and virginally

plain," afterwards made a name in the musical world, composed beautiful

ballads, published many pieces, and married, and died in St. George's

Hospital by being thrown from a carriage, August 7, 1877. She showed

her _savoir faire_ at the earliest age. At a ball given to the Prince,

all appeared in their finest dresses and richest jewellery. Miss

Virginia was in white, with a single necklace of pink coral. They

danced till daylight; and when the sun arose, Miss Virginia was like a

rose amongst faded dahlias and sunflowers.

There was a very nice fellow of the name of Wood, who had just married

a Miss Stisted, one of the nieces of the "Queen of the Baths," with

whom all the "baths" were in love. Another marking young person was

Miss Helen Crowley, a girl of the order "dashing," whose hair was the

brightest auburn, and complexion the purest white and red. Her father

was the Rev. Dr. Crowley, whose Jewish novel "Salathiel" made a small

noise in the world; but either he or his wife disliked children, so

Miss Helen had been turned over to the charge of aunts. These were

two elderly maiden ladies, whose agnosticism was of the severest

description. "Sister, what is that noise?" "The howling of hymns,

sister." "The beastly creatures," cried she, as "Come across hill and

dale" reached her most irreverent ears. I met both of these ladies

in later life, and it was enough to say that all three had terribly

changed.

Amongst the remarkable people we knew were the Desanges family, who

had a phenomenon in the house. A voice seemed to come out of it of

the very richest volume, and every one thought it was a woman's. It

really belonged to Master Louis, who afterwards made for himself so

great a name for battle-scenes (The Desanges' Crimea and Victoria Cross

Gallery) and also for portraits.[3] The voice did not recover itself

thoroughly after breaking, but sufficient remained for admirable comic

songs, and no man who ever heard them came away from "Le Lor Maire" and

"Vilikens et sa Dinah" without aching sides. There was another learned

widow of the name of Graves, whose husband had been a kinsman of my

father. Her daughter prided herself upon the breadth of her forehead

and general intellectuality. She ended by marrying the celebrated

historian Von Ranke. Intellectual Englishwomen used to expect a kind

of intellectual paradise in marrying German professors. They were to

share their labours, assist in their discoveries, and wear a kind of

reflected halo or gloria, as the moon receives light from the sun; but

they were perfectly shocked when they were ordered to the kitchen, and

were addressed with perhaps "Donner--Wetter--Sacrament" if the dinner

was not properly cooked.

These little colonies like the "Baths of Lucca" began to decline

about 1850, and came to their Nadir in 1870. Then they had a kind

of resurrection. The gambling in shares and stocks and loans lost

England an immense sum of money, and the losses were most felt by that

well-to-do part of the public that had a fixed income and no chance

of ever increasing it. The loss of some five hundred millions of

pounds sterling, rendered England too expensive for a large class, and

presently drove it abroad. It gained numbers in 1881, when the Irish

Land Bill, soon to be followed by a corresponding English Land Bill,

exiled a multitude of landowners. So the little English colonies, which

had dwindled to the lowest expression, gradually grew and grew, and

became stronger than they ever did.

[Sidenote: _The Boys get too Old for Home._]

It was evident that the Burton family was ripe for a break up. Our

father, like an Irishman, was perfectly happy as long as he was the

only man in the house, but the presence of younger males irritated him.

His temper became permanently soured. He could no longer use the rod,

but he could make himself very unpleasant with his tongue. "Senti come

me li rimangia quei poveri ragazzi!" (Hear how he is chawing-up those

poor lads!) said the old Pisan-Italian lady's-maid, and I do think

now that we were not pleasant inmates of a household. We were in the

"Sturm und drang" of the teens. We had thoroughly mastered our tutor,

threw our books out of the window if he attempted to give a lesson in

Greek or Latin, and applied ourselves with ardour to Picault Le Brun,

and Paul de Kock, the "Promessi Sposi," and the "Disfida di Barletta."

Instead of taking country walks, we jodelled all about the hillsides

under the direction of a Swiss scamp. We shot pistols in every

direction, and whenever a stray fencing-master passed, we persuaded him

to give us a few hours of "point." We made experiments of everything

imaginable, including swallowing and smoking opium.

The break-up took place about the middle of summer. It was

comparatively tame. Italians marvelled at the Spartan nature of the

British mother, who, after the habits of fifteen years, can so easily

part with her children at the cost of a lachrymose last embrace, and

watering her prandial beefsteak with tears. Amongst Italian families,

nothing is more common than for all the brothers and sisters to swear

that they will not marry if they are to be separated from one another.

And even now, in these subversive and progressive days, what a curious

contrast is the English and the Italian household. Let me sketch one

of the latter, a family belonging to the old nobility, once lords of

the land, and now simple proprietors of a fair Estate. In a large

garden, and a larger orchard of vines and olives, stands a solid old

house, as roomy as a barrack, but without the slightest pretension of

comfort or luxury. The old Countess, a widow, has the whole of her

progeny around her--two or three stalwart sons, one married and the

others partially so, and a daughter who has not yet found a husband.

The servants are old family retainers. They consider themselves part

and parcel of the household; they are on the most familiar terms with

the family, although they would resent with the direst indignation the

slightest liberty on the part of outsiders. The day is one of extreme

simplicity, and some might even deem it monotonous. Each individual

leaves his bed at the hour he or she pleases, and finds coffee, milk,

and small rolls in the dining-room. Smoking and dawdling pass the hours

till almost mid-day, when _déjeuner à la fourchette_, or rather a young

dinner, leads very naturally up to a siesta. In the afternoon there is

a little walking or driving, and even shooting in the case of the most

energetic. There is a supper after nightfall, and after that dominoes

or cards, or music, or conversazione, keep them awake for half the

night. The even tenor of their days is broken only by a festival or a

ball in the nearest town, or some pseudo Scientific Congress in a City

not wholly out of reach; and so things go on from year to year, and all

are happy because they look to nothing else.

[Sidenote: _Schinznach and England._]

Our journey began in the early summer of 1840. My mother and sister

were left at the Baths of Lucca, and my father, with Mr. Du Pré, and

Edward and I, set out for Switzerland. We again travelled _vetturino_,

and we lads cast longing eyes at the charming country which we were

destined not to see again for another ten years. How melancholy we

felt when on our way to the chill and dolorous North! At Schinznach I

was left in charge of Mr. Du Pré, while my father and brother set out

for England direct. These Hapsburg baths in the Aargau had been chosen

because the abominable sulphur water, as odorous as that of Harrogate,

was held as sovereign in skin complaints, and I was suffering from

exanthémata, an eruption brought on by a sudden check of perspiration.

These eruptions are very hard to cure, and they often embitter a man's

life. The village consisted of a single Establishment, in which all

nationalities met. Amongst them was an unfortunate Frenchman, who had

been attacked at Calcutta with what appeared to be a leprous taint. He

had tried half a dozen places to no purpose, and he had determined to

blow his brains out if Schinznach failed him. The only advantage of the

place was, its being within easy distance of Schaffhausen and the falls

of the Rhine.

When the six weeks' cure was over, I was hurried by my guardian across

France, and Southern England, to the rendezvous. The Grandmother and

the two aunts, finding Great Cumberland Place too hot, had taken

country quarters at Hampstead. Grandmamma Baker received us lads with

something like disappointment. She would have been better contented had

we been six feet high, bony as Highland cattle, with freckled faces,

and cheek-bones like horns. Aunt Georgina Baker embraced and kissed her

nephews with effusion. She had not been long parted from us. Mrs. Frank

Burton, the other aunt, had not seen us for ten years, and of course

could not recognize us.

We found two very nice little girl-cousins, who assisted us to pass

the time. But the old dislike to our surroundings, returned with

redoubled violence. Everything appeared to us so small, so mean, so

ugly. The faces of the women were the only exception to the general

rule of hideousness. The houses were so unlike houses, and more like

the Nuremberg toys magnified. The outsides were so prim, so priggish,

so utterly unartistic. The little bits of garden were mere slices, as

if they had been sold by the inch. The interiors were cut up into such

wretched little rooms, more like ship-cabins than what was called rooms

in Italy. The drawing-rooms were crowded with hideous little tables,

that made it dangerous to pass from one side to the other. The tables

were heaped with nick-nacks, that served neither for use or show. And

there was a desperate neatness and cleanness about everything that

made us remember the old story of the Stoic who spat in the face of

the master of the house because it was the most untidy place in the

dwelling.

[Sidenote: _The Family break up._]

Then came a second parting. Edward was to be placed under the charge

of the Rev. Mr. Havergal, rector of some country parish. Later on, he

wrote to say that "Richard must not correspond with his brother, as

he had turned his name into a peculiar form of ridicule." He was in

the musical line, and delighted in organ-playing. But Edward seemed to

consider the whole affair a bore, and was only too happy when he could

escape from the harmonious parsonage.

In the mean time I had been tried and found wanting. One of my father's

sisters (Mrs. General D'Aguilar, as she called herself) had returned

from India, after an uninterrupted residence of a score of years, with

a large supply of children of both sexes. She had settled herself

temporarily at Cambridge, to superintend the education of her eldest

son, John Burton D'Aguilar, who was intended for the Church, and who

afterwards became a chaplain in the Bengal Establishment. Amongst her

many acquaintances was a certain Professor Sholefield, a well-known

Grecian. My father had rather suspected that very little had been

done in the house, in the way of classical study, during the last two

years. The Professor put me through my paces in Virgil and Homer, and

found me lamentably deficient. I did not even know who Isis was! worse

still, it was found out that I, who spoke French and Italian and their

dialects like a native, who had a considerable smattering of Bearnais,

Spanish, and Provençale, barely knew the Lord's Prayer, broke down in

the Apostles' Creed, and had never heard of the Thirty-nine Articles--a

terrible revelation!

[1] "The Sword," in three large works nobly planned out, when after the

first part was brought out, death frustrated the other two.--I. B.

[2] There are three hundred and sixty-five of these pits, one for every

day in the year.--I. B.

[3] In 1861 he painted Richard's and my portraits as a wedding

gift.--I. B.