“My dear Charlotte,—I was much gratified with your last and in all its parts, but in return for so many bits of good news I have really nothing to say, except that I have settled to take a steamboat at Civita Vecchia on the 29th of this month, and it promises to reach Marseilles in twenty-seven hours. I need not hurry myself as to the French part of my journey, and will probably bestow a day or two on objects of interest as yet unvisited by me; but I shall soon (D.V.) get to Paris (Hôtel Windsor, Rue de Rivoli), and I hope to find H. Ellis and wife there or thereabouts; having spent a few days with whom, I may expect to cross to Old England and occupy once more, though for the last time and not for long, my customary quarters in Sussex Place.
“I have found that several acquaintances go by the
boat I mention; particularly William
Osborne and his wife, who will to the best of their power help
me. She was Caroline Montagu of Rokeby,
an old
| 380 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“When tolerably well I have made various little expeditions to see celebrated places within a day’s drive, and mostly with the two Kemble ladies, and an artist or two of their suite. Next Saturday the like is to happen if the sun shines, and before I quit Civita Vecchia I shall, I believe, contrive to spend three or four days in that vicinity, where Etruscan antiquities (Cornato, Tarquinii, &c.) abound. But I am at best very uncertain in any arrangements of this nature, for I am subject to seizures that lay me quite on my back for two or three days. I am to-day better than I have usually been for some weeks: but the constant recurrence of most wearisome symptoms is enough to break one’s spirit, even if one had any left to be broken. I am entirely satisfied that travel is insanity for a sick creature; and once established again in a home, however humble, I shall not be likely to quit it on any such speculation.
“Hope and you will be sorry to hear that R. Monteith and all his family have been laid
up with ‘Roman fever,’ so called, ending in what we call typhus.
One little girl died on Saturday, and I greatly fear my next intelligence may
be the death of another of them, with that of poor R.
Monteith himself. William
Lockhart (the monk), known to you, sees them hourly, and lets me
know daily.
| WILLIAM LOCKHART | 381 |
“You both, I think, were acquainted with the Bishop of Salisbury. I am sorry for his death. My old master, Jenkyns, too, has dropt. I wonder who will be the new Bishop; but I do not look for Milman. More likely Whewell; Hallam is, I hear, mending decidedly.
“The day I touch a bit of well-dressed cod or salmon, with a slice of roast beef or mutton, and glass of sound ale or port, I fancy I shall feel greatly comforted. There is nothing wholesome or refreshing to be had in this infernal place for love or money. Wherefore, may perdition attend the population, from Pope Pio to the beggar on the stairs.
“My chief companion and next-door neighbour (in the
house) is old Lord Stanhope—occupied
mostly with the spirit-rapping—I fancy a prime victim of the mediums. He
says there is much preaching here on the subject, the tone being that the facts
are all correct, but the whole the work
| 382 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
