ITALY.

REMARKS MADE IN SEVERAL VISITS

FROM THE YEAR 1816 TO 1854.

Switzerland

CHAPTER I.

Chamouni- Byron

- Schlegel

Shelley Madame de Staël Bonstetten, his account of Voltaire - Departure for

Italy La Ripaille General Duppa - Meillerie-Lago Mag

giore Isola Bella.

IN the summer of 1816 I visited Switzerland for the first time, and remained there until early in the following October. I passed those happy days with Lord Byron, chiefly at the villa Diodati, on the Savoy side of the lake of Geneva, but, occasionally, in short journeys to some of the spots usually visited by strangers. One was to Chamouni, another to the Grindelwald. Of the latter Lord Byron recorded short notices in a journal which he sent to his sister, and which Mr. Moore published in his Life. It was on our visit to Chamouni that a circumstance occurred which has been so entirely distorted, and represented directly contrary to the fact, that I feel bound to mention it. At an inn on the road the travellers' book was put before us, and Lord Byron, having written his name, pointed out to me the name of Mr.

VOL. I.

B

Shelley, with the words atheist and philanthropist written in Greek opposite to it; and observing "Do you not think I shall do Shelley a service by scratching this out?" he defaced the words with great care. This was the fact the fiction afterwards printed and published was, that Lord Byron wrote the word "atheist " after his own name in that book; and Mr. Southey, although he does not repeat that absurd story, nevertheless endeavours to make Lord Byron answerable for Mr. Shelley's inscription.

During my residence at Diodati I had the satisfaction of renewing my acquaintance with Madame de Staël, and seeing her where she was best seen-at home. I have elsewhere (in page 271 of this volume) attempted to show her in the light in which she appeared at Coppet. There, indeed, she gave full play to a disposition most engaging and unaffected. In the artificial existence of Paris and London some foibles were forced into life which were dormant in her native Switzerland. In the society of cities she was not always satisfied with waiting for the approaches of the "little people called the great," but was impatient and rather too persevering in her advances. Not so at Coppetthere she was impartially attentive to all, or, if her civilities were directed to one more than to another, they were pointed to the guest whose inferior pretensions made them the more acceptable to him. In the exercise of her polite hospitalities, she forgot former injuries; and one of the company whom we met at her

table was the wife of a French marshal, who, in the days of Napoleon, would not willingly be seen in the same room with Madame de Staël. In contrast, somewhat, with this behaviour, was her reception of another guest, a serene highness, to whom she was sufficiently polite, as others thought, but not submissive enough to suit the taste and habits of a German friend, who thus reproved her indifference: "Ne connoissez-vous pas, madame," said he, "que c'est un Prince de Mecklenburgh Schwerin ?" Those who remember the most learned and very eccentric person who gave her this admonition will admit that Mr. Schlegel afforded her many opportunities for the exercise of her social qualities. With him she was engaged in a perpetual controversy, playful and good-humoured on her side, but conducted by him in terms which gave very little grace to opinions in themselves far from popular. According to him, Canova knew nothing of sculpture, and had no merit of any kind as an artist. "Have you seen his group of Filial Piety?" asked Lodovico di Breme. "Have you seen my bust by Tieck?" was the reply. He contended that the Italian was a dialect of the German language; and, on another occasion, having asserted that Locke was unsatisfactory because he did not account for the phenomena of the human mind, and a person present having remarked "that Locke had accounted for the phenomena as well as human reason would allow," Mr. Schlegel exclaimed, “La raison! je me moque de la raison." Yet, in spite of these extrava

gances, Mr. Schlegel was long a much-cherished guest at Coppet; and Madame de Staël, who respected his vast erudition, had too much good sense and good feeling, whilst availing herself of the learning of the scholar, to sport with the infirmities of the friend.

At Coppet we saw Mr. de Bonstetten, famous for his friendships with remarkable men, and valuable on his own account. The associate of Gray, and Müller, and Voltaire, had much to tell, and told it with the vivacity of youth rather than the garrulity of old age. One evening, returning with us from Coppet to Genthod, he gave us a short account of his first introduction to Gray. They met by accident at a London assembly, and after a good deal of conversation the poet said to him, "I see you can do better than be a man of fashion-come to Cambridge ;" an invitation which Bonstetten accepted, and accompanied his new friend the next day to the University. In answer to a question from Lord Byron, Bonstetten told us that Gray was not esteemed as a poet so much at that time as afterwards, but was treated with much personal deference. He had the "esprit gai" and the "humeur triste,"—a lively wit, but a melancholy turn of mind. He used to talk of his intended lectures on history; but when asked why he did not do something more than he had done, he answered only with a sigh.

Mr. Bonstetten confirmed to us all the usual accounts of Voltaire. He was unlike any other human being: what he said, on whatever subject, important or trivial,

was quite in his own way, and yet without the offensive singularity of a professed humourist. The whole country, that is, the country on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, was in a tremor of anxiety at every movement of his pen; and his theatre contributed not a little to the uneasiness of his very sensitive neighbours, for he occasionally amused himself with interpolating Molière with allusions to existing follies. He was, so at least said our informant, habitually kind and considerate in his intercourse with his dependants. The person who had been his secretary for twenty years declared that in all that time Voltaire had never used a harsh word to him, and never required duties more than ordinary without expressions of apology and regret. Bonstetten denied positively the truth of the story which originated with one of Voltaire's medical attendants, namely, that he died a death of terror and despair; and he added, that the physician himself confessed the pious imposture —and, what is more strange, excused it. Nothing is more injudicious, nothing more prejudicial to the cause of religion itself, than such inventions. The detection of the falsehood is almost inevitable; but, even supposing the story to be uncontradicted, to what does it amount? These terrors may assail the most pious and best conducted of Christians; indeed, a truly religious man, not trusting to his own merits, would be much more exposed to the horrors of the hour of death than the most confirmed unbeliever. But in most cases, as in this, we may safely conclude with the charitable curate of St.