THE DIARY 
 DR. JOHN WIIXIAM POUDOR 
 
 WILUAM MICHAEL ROSSETTi 
 
/9/; 
 
 ^(i 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/diaryofdrjohnwilOOpolirich 
 
The Diary of 
 Dr. John William Polidori 
 
The Diary of 
 
 Dr. John WilHam PoHdori 
 
 1816 
 
 Relating to Byron, Shelley, etc. 
 
 Edited and Elucidated by 
 William Michael Rossetti 
 
 "Mi fur mostrati gli spiriti magni 
 Che del vederli in me stesso n'esalto." — Dante. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 ELKIN MATHEWS 
 
 VIGO STREET 
 
 MCMXI 
 
Richard Clav & Sons, Limited, 
 
 brkad street hill, e.c., and 
 
 bungay, suffolk. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO MY TWO DAUGHTERS 
 
 HELEN AND MARY 
 
 WHO WITH MY LITTLE GRAND-DAUGHTER IMOGENE 
 
 KEEP THE HOME OF MY CLOSING YEARS 
 
 STILL IN GOOD CHEER 
 
The Diary of 
 Dr. John William Polidori 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A PERSON whose name finds mention in the 
 books about Byron, and to some extent in those 
 about Shelley, was John William Polidori, M.D. ; he 
 was Lord Byron's travelling physician in 1816, when 
 his Lordship quitted England soon after the separa- 
 tion from his wife. I, who now act as Editor of his 
 Diary, am a nephew of his, born after his death. 
 Dr. Polidori figures not very advantageously in the 
 books concerning Byron and Shelley. He is exhibited 
 as overweening and petulant, too fond of putting 
 himself forward face to face with those two heroes of 
 our poetical literature, and too touchy when either of 
 them declined to take him at his own estimation, I 
 will allow that this judgment of Polidori is, so far as it 
 goes, substantially just ; and that some of the recorded 
 anecdotes of him prove him deficient in self-knowledge, 
 lacking prudence and reserve, and ignoring the dis- 
 
2 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 tinction between a dignified and a quarrelsome 
 attitude of mind. He was, in fact, extremely young 
 when he went abroad in April 1816 with Byron, to 
 whom he had been recommended by Sir Henry 
 Halford ; he was then only twenty years of age (born 
 on September 7, 1795), Byron being twenty-eight, 
 and Shelley twenty-three. The recommendation 
 given to so very young a man is a little surprising. 
 It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that 
 Polidori was without some solid attainments, and 
 some considerable share of talent. He was the son 
 of Gaetano Polidori, a Tuscan man of letters who, 
 after being secretary to the celebrated dramatist 
 Alfieri, had settled in London as a teacher of Italian, 
 and of his English wife, a Miss Pierce ; the parents 
 (my maternal grand-parents) survived to a great age, 
 only dying in 1853. John Polidori, after receiving 
 his education in the Roman Catholic College of 
 Ampleforth (Yorkshire), studied medicine in Edin- 
 burgh, and took his doctor's degree at a singularly 
 early age — I believe almost unexampled — the age of 
 nineteen. His ambition was fully as much for literary 
 as for professional distinction ; and he published, 
 besides The Vampyre to which I shall have to recur, 
 a prose tale named Ertiestus Bercktold, a volume of 
 verse containing a drama entitled Ximenes^ and some 
 other writings. 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 One of these writings is the text to a volume, 
 published in 182 1, entitled Sketches Illustrative of the 
 Manners and Costumes of France^ Switzerland^ and 
 Italy, by R. Bridgens. The name of Polidori is not 
 indeed recorded in this book, but I know as a 
 certainty that he was the writer. One of the 
 designs in the volume shows the costume of women 
 at Lerici just about the time when Shelley was 
 staying there, in the closing months of his life, 
 and a noticeable costume it was. Polidori himself 
 — though I am not aware that he ever received 
 any instruction in drawing worth speaking of — had 
 some considerable native gift in sketching faces and 
 figures with lifelike expression ; I possess a few 
 examples to prove as much. The Diary shows that 
 he took some serious and intelligent interest in works 
 of art, as well as in literature ; and he was clearly a 
 rapid and somewhat caustic judge of character — 
 perhaps a correct one. He was a fine, rather romantic- 
 looking young man, as evidenced by his portrait in 
 the National Portrait Gallery, accepted from me by 
 that Institution in 1895. 
 
 Dr. Polidori's life was a short one. Not long after 
 quitting Lord Byron in 18 16 he returned to London, 
 and in Norwich continued his medical career, but 
 eventually relinquished this, and began studying for 
 the Bar. It is said that Miss Harriett Martineau was 
 
4 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 rather in love with him in Norwich. In August 
 1 82 1 he committed suicide with poison — having, 
 through losses in gambling, incurred a debt of 
 honour which he had no present means of clearing 
 off. That he did take poison, prussic acid, was a fact 
 perfectly well known in his family ; but it is curious 
 to note that the easy-going and good-naturedly 
 disposed coroner's jury were content to return a 
 verdict without eliciting any distinct evidence as to 
 the cause of death, and they simply pronounced that 
 he had " died by the visitation of God." 
 
 The matter was reported in two papers. The 
 Traveller and The New Times. I possess a copy, 
 made by my mother at the time, of the reports ; and 
 it may perhaps be as well inserted here- 
 
 Copied from The Traveller. 
 
 Monday Evening \_August Tjthy 182 1]. 
 
 Melancholy Event. — Mr. Polidori, residing in Great 
 Pulteney Street, retired to rest about his usual time on 
 Thursday night ; the servant, not finding him rise at 
 the usual hour yesterday, went to his room between 
 eleven and twelve o'clock, and found him groaning, 
 and apparently in the last agonies of death. An 
 alarm was given and medical aid was immediately 
 called, but before the arrival of Surgeons Copeland 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 and Davies, he was no more. His father was at the 
 time on his journey to London to see his son, and 
 arrived about three hours after the event. We under- 
 stand the deceased was about twenty-six years of 
 age, and had for some time accompanied Lord Byron 
 in Italy. A Coroner's Inquest will sit this day to 
 ascertain the cause of his death. 
 
 Copied from The New Times. 
 
 Tuesday {September iith, 1821]. 
 
 Coroner's Inquest on John Polidori, Esquire. — 
 An Inquisition has been taken before T. Higgs, 
 Esquire, Deputy Coroner, at the residence of the 
 father of the above unfortunate gentleman, in Great 
 Pulteney Street, Golden Square, who was discovered 
 lying on his bed in a state nearly approaching to 
 death, and soon afterwards expired. 
 
 Charlotte Reed, the servant to Mr. Gaetano Poli- 
 dori, the father of the deceased, said her master's son 
 lived in the house, and for some time had been 
 indisposed. On Monday the 20th of August last he 
 returned from Brighton, since which his conduct mani- 
 fested strong symptoms of incoherence, and he gave 
 his order for dinner in a very strange manner. On the 
 Thursday following the deceased dined with a gentle- 
 man residing in the same house, and on that occasion 
 
6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 he appeared very much depressed in his spirits. 
 About nine o'clock the same evening he ordered 
 witness to leave a glass (tumbler) in his room ; this 
 was unusual, but one was placed as he desired. 
 Deceased told her he was unwell ; if therefore he did 
 not get up by twelve o'clock the next day, not to 
 disturb him. Witness, however, a few minutes before 
 twelve, went into his room to open the shutters, and 
 on her return saw the deceased lying in bed ; he was 
 not in any unusual position, but seemed extremely 
 ill. Witness immediately left the room, went up- 
 stairs, and communicated what she had observed to a 
 gentleman, who instantly came down. Witness then 
 went for medical assistance. The deceased was about 
 twenty-six years of age. — Mr. John Deagostini, the 
 gentleman alluded to by the last witness, corroborated 
 her statement on his giving him the invitation to 
 dine, which he accepted in a way quite different from 
 his usual conduct. Witness also observed that, some 
 time since, the deceased had met with an accident — 
 was thrown out of his gig, and seriously hurt in the 
 head. On Thursday at dinner he spoke in half 
 sentences ; the conversation was on politics and a 
 future state. The deceased observed rather harshly 
 that witness would see more than him ; he appeared 
 to be deranged in his mind, and his countenance was 
 haggard. At dinner he ate very little : soon after left 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 the room, but joined again at tea ; hardly spoke a 
 word, and retired at nine o'clock. After breakfast 
 next morning, witness inquired of the servant whether 
 Mr. Polidori had gone out. She replied no, and that 
 he had desired her not to disturb him. About twelve 
 o'clock the servant came to him very much alarmed. 
 Witness went immediately to the apartment of the 
 deceased, and observed a tumbler on the chair, which 
 contained nothing but water, and did not perceive 
 any deleterious substance that the deceased might 
 have taken ; he was senseless, and apparently in a 
 dying state. — Mr. Thomas Copeland, a surgeon 
 residing in Golden Square, was sent for suddenly to 
 attend the deceased, and attempted to discharge the 
 contents of the stomach without effect. He lingered 
 for about ten minutes, and expired. Another medical 
 gentleman soon after arrived, but his assistance was 
 also unavailing. — There being no further evidence 
 adduced to prove how the deceased came to his 
 death, the jury, under these circumstances, returned a 
 verdict of — Died by the visitation of God. 
 
 Medwin, in his Conversations witk Lord Byron^ 
 gives the following account of how the poet received 
 the news of Dr. Polidori's death. " I was convinced " 
 (said Byron) " something very unpleasant hung over 
 me last night : I expected to hear that somebody I 
 knew was dead. So it turns out — poor Polidori is 
 
8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 gone. When he was my physician he was always 
 talking of prussic acid, oil of amber, blowing into 
 veins, suffocating by charcoal, and compounding 
 poisons ; but for a different purpose to what the 
 Pontic monarch did, for he has prescribed a dose 
 for himself that would have killed fifty Mithridates 
 — a dose whose effect, Murray says, was so instan- 
 taneous that he went off without a spasm or struggle. 
 It seems that disappointment was the cause of this 
 rash act." — The evidence of the servant at the inquest 
 shows that death did not come so very suddenly ; and 
 in my own family I always heard the poison spoken 
 of as simply prussic acid. 
 
 This is all that I need say at present to explain 
 who Dr. Polidori was; but I must add a few words 
 regarding his Diary. 
 
 The day when the young doctor obtained the post 
 of travelling physician to the famous poet and man of 
 fashion. Lord Byron, about to leave England for the 
 Continent, must, no doubt, have been regarded by him 
 and by some of his family as a supremely auspicious 
 one, although in fact it turned out the reverse. The 
 article on Polidori written in The Dictionary of National 
 Biography by my valued friend, the late Dr. Garnett, 
 speaks of him as "physician and secretary to Lord 
 Byron " ; but I never heard that he undertook or per- 
 formed any secretarial work worth speaking of, and 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 I decidedly believe that he did not. The same state- 
 ment occurs in the inscription on his likeness in 
 the National Portrait Gallery. Polidori's father had 
 foreseen, in the Byronic scheme, disappointment as 
 only too likely, and he opposed the project, but with- 
 out success. To be the daily companion and intimate 
 of so great a man as Byron, to visit foreign scenes in 
 his society, to travel into his own father's native land, 
 which he regarded with a feeling of enthusiasm, and 
 with whose language he was naturally well acquainted, 
 to be thus launched upon a career promising the 
 utmost development and satisfaction to his literary as 
 well as professional enterprise — all this may have 
 seemed like the realization of a dream almost too 
 good to be true. To crown all, Mr. Murray, Byron's 
 publisher, had offered Polidori no less a sum than 
 ;^5oo (or 5CX) guineas) for an account of his 
 forthcoming tour. Polidori therefore began to keep 
 a Diary, heading it Journal of a Journey through 
 Flanders etc. ^ from April 24, 1816, /<? ; 
 
 and the blank was eventually filled in with the 
 date "December 28, 1816"; it should rather stand 
 " December 30." Portions of the Diary are written 
 with some detail, and a perceptible aim at literary 
 effect — Murray's ;^500 being manifestly in view ; in 
 other instances the jottings are slight, and merely 
 enough for guiding the memory. On this footing the 
 
lo THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Journal goes on up to June 30, 18 16. It was then 
 dropped, as Polidori notes "through neglect and 
 dissipation," for he saw a great deal of company. On 
 September 5 he wrote up some summarized reminis- 
 cences; and from September 16, the day when he 
 parted company with Byron at Cologny, near Geneva, 
 and proceeded to journey through Italy on his own 
 account, he continued with some regularity up to 
 December 30, when he was sojourning in Pisa. That 
 is the latest day of which any record remains ; but it 
 is known from other evidence that Dr. Polidori con- 
 tinued in Italy up to April 14, 1817 : he then left 
 Venice in company with the new Earl of Guilford and 
 his mother — being their travelling physician. Whether 
 the Journal is in any fair degree interesting or brightly 
 written is a question which the reader will settle for 
 himself; as a document relevant to the life of two 
 illustrious poets, it certainly merits some degree of 
 attention. 
 
 My own first acquaintance with the Diary of Dr. 
 Polidori dates back to 1 869, when I was preparing the 
 Memoir of Shelley which preludes my edition of his 
 poems, published in 1870; I then availed myself of 
 the Shelleian information contained in the Diary, and 
 even gave two or three verbatim extracts from it. 
 The MS. book was at that time the property of a 
 sister of his. Miss Charlotte Lydia Polidori, a lady of 
 
INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 advanced age. I regret to say that my aunt, on 
 receiving the MS. back from me, took it into her 
 head to read it through — a thing which I fancy she 
 had never before done, or certainly had not done for 
 very many years, and that she found in it some few 
 passages which she held to be " improper," and, with 
 the severe virtue so characteristic of an English 
 maiden aunt, she determined that those passages 
 should no longer exist. I can remember one about 
 Byron and a chambermaid at Ostend, and another, 
 later on, about Polidori himself. My aunt therefore 
 took the trouble of copying out the whole Diary, 
 minus the peccant passages, and she then ruthlessly 
 destroyed the original MS. After her death — which 
 occurred in January 1890, when she had attained the 
 age of eighty-seven years — her transcript came into 
 my possession. Its authority is only a shade less 
 safe than that of the original, and it is from the 
 transcript that I have had to work in compiling my 
 present volume. 
 
 I will now refer in some detail to the matter 
 of Dr. Polidori's romantic tale, The Vampyre ; 
 not only because this matter is of some literary 
 interest in itself, but more especially because the 
 account of it given in The Dictionary of National 
 Biography treats Polidori, in this regard, with no 
 indulgence, and I believe (however unintentionally on 
 
12 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the part of the late Dr. Garnett) with less than 
 justice. He says.: "In April 1819 he [Polidori] 
 published in The New Monthly Magazine, and also in 
 pamphlet- form, the celebrated story of TJu Vampyre^ 
 which he attributed to Byron. The ascription was 
 fictitious. Byron had in fact, in June 1816, begun to 
 write at Geneva a story with this title, in emulation 
 of Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein ; but dropped it before 
 reaching the superstition which it was to have illus- 
 trated. He sent the fragment to Murray upon the 
 appearance of Polidori's fabrication, and it is inserted 
 in his works. He further protested in a carelessly 
 good-natured disclaimer addressed to Galignanfs 
 Messenger'.' 
 
 The facts of the case appear to be as follows. As 
 we shall see in the Diary, Polidori began, near Geneva, 
 a tale which (according to Mrs. Shelley) was about a 
 "skull-headed lady," and he was clearly aware that 
 Byron had commenced a story about a vampyre. 
 After quitting Byron, Polidori, in conversation with 
 the Countess of Breuss, mentioned in his Journal, 
 spoke (unless we are to discredit his own account) of 
 the subject of the great poet's tale ; the Countess 
 questioned whether anything could be made of such 
 a theme, and Polidori then tried his hand at carrying 
 it out. He left the MS. with the Countess, and 
 thought little or no more about it. After his depart- 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 ure from that neighbourhood some person who was 
 travelling there (one might perhaps infer a lady) 
 obtained the MS. either from the Countess of Breuss 
 or from some person acquainted with the Countess : 
 this would, I suppose, be the Madame Gatelier who is 
 named in the Journal along with the Countess. The 
 traveller then forwarded the tale to the Publisher, 
 Colburn, telling him — and this statement was printed 
 by Colburn as an Extract of a Letter from Geneva — 
 that certain tales were " undertaken by Lord B[yron], 
 the physician [Polidori], and Miss M. W. Godwin," 
 and that the writer received from her female friend 
 "the outline of each of these stories." She did not say 
 that the completed Vampyre was the production of 
 Byron ; but Colburn inferred this, and in the 
 magazine he attributed it to Byron, printing his name 
 as author. 
 
 Among the papers which were left by Dr. Polidori 
 at the time of his death, and which have come into 
 my possession, are the drafts of two letters of his — 
 one addressed to Mr. Henry Colburn, and the other to 
 the Editor of The Morning Chronicle, These letters 
 were actually dispatched, and (having no sort of 
 reason to suspect the contrary) I assume that they 
 contain a truthful account of the facts. If so, they 
 exonerate Polidori from the imputation of having 
 planned or connived at a literary imposture. In his 
 
14 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 letter to Mr. Colburn he affirms (as will be seen) that 
 the following incidents in his tale were borrowed from 
 Byron's project : the departure of two friends from 
 England, one of them dying in Greece [but it is in 
 fact near Ephesus] after exacting from his companion 
 an oath not to mention his death ; the revival of the 
 dead man, and his then making love to the sister of 
 his late companion. The story begun by Byron and 
 published along with Mazeppa contains the incidents 
 above named, except only the important incident of 
 the dead man's revival and his subsequent love- 
 making. Byron's extant writing, which is a mere 
 fragment, affords no trace of that upshot; but 
 Polidori must have known that such was the intended 
 sequel. It may be added that the resemblance 
 between these productions of Byron and of Polidori 
 extends only to incidents : the form of narrative is 
 different. 
 
 I proceed to give the letter of Dr. Polidori to Mr. 
 Colburn, followed by the letter to the Editor of The 
 Morning Chronicle. This latter goes over a good deal 
 of the same ground as the letter to Colburn, so I 
 shorten it very considerably. 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 John Polidori to Henry Colburn. 
 
 [London], April 2 [1S19]. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I received a copy of the magazine of last 
 April (the present month), and am sorry to find that 
 your Genevan correspondent has led you into a 
 mistake with regard to the tale of Tke Vampyre — 
 which is not Lord Byron's, but was written entirely 
 by me at the request of a lady, who (upon my men- 
 tioning that his Lordship had said that it was his 
 intention of writing a ghost story, depending for 
 interest upon the circumstances of two friends leaving 
 England, and one dying in Greece, the other finding 
 him alive, upon his return, and making love to his 
 sister) saying that she thought it impossible to work 
 up such materials, desired I would write it for her, 
 which I did in two idle mornings by her side. These 
 circumstances above mentioned, and the one of the 
 dying man having obtained an oath that the survivor 
 should not in any way disclose his decease, are the 
 only parts of the tale belonging to his Lordship. I 
 desire, therefore, that you will positively contradict 
 your statement in the next number, by the insertion 
 of this note. 
 
 With regard to my own tale, it is imperfect and 
 unfinished. I had rather therefore it should not 
 
i6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 appear in the magazine ; and, if the Editor had sent 
 his communication, as he mentions, he would have 
 been spared this mistake. 
 
 But, sir, there is one circumstance of which I must 
 request a further explanation. I observe upon the 
 back of your publication the announcement of a 
 separate edition. Now, upon buying this, I find 
 that it states in the title-page that it was entered 
 into Stationers' Hall upon March 27, consequently 
 before your magazine was published. I wish there- 
 fore to ask for information how this tale passed 
 from the hands of your Editor into those of a 
 publisher. 
 
 As it is a mere trifle, I should have had no 
 objection to its appearing in your magazine, as I 
 could, in common with any other, have extracted it 
 thence, and republished it. But I shall not sit 
 patiently by and see it taken without my consent, 
 and appropriated by any person. As therefore it 
 must have passed through your hands (as stated 
 in the magazine) from a correspondent, I shall 
 expect that you will account to me for the publishers, 
 Messrs. Sherwood and Neely, having possession of it 
 and appropriating it to themselves ; and demand either 
 that a compensation be made me, or that its separate 
 publication be instantly suppressed. 
 
 Hoping for an immediate answer, which will 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 save me the trouble of obtaining an injunction, I 
 remain, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 John Polidori. 
 
 To THE Editor of The Morning Chronicle. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 As you were the first person to whom I 
 wrote to state that the tale of The Vampyre was 
 not Lord Byron's, I beg you to insert the following 
 statement in your paper. . . . The tale, as I stated 
 to you in my letter, was written upon the foundation 
 of a purposed and begun story of Lord Byron's. 
 . . . Lord Byron, in a letter dated Venice, stated 
 that he knew nothing of the Vampyre story, and 
 hated vampyres ; but, while this letter was busily 
 circulating in all the London and provincial papers, 
 the fragment at the end of Mazeppa was in the 
 hands of his publishers in Albemarle Street, with 
 the date of June 17, 18 16, attached to it, being 
 the beginning of his tale upon this very foundation. 
 My development was written on the Continent, 
 and left with a lady at whose request it was under- 
 taken ; in the course of three mornings by her side 
 
 it was produced, and left with her. From her 
 2 
 
i8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 hands, by means of a correspondent, without my 
 knowledge, it came into those of the Editor of The 
 New Monthly^ with a letter stating it to be an ebauche 
 of Lord Byron's. Mr. Watts, as Editor of that 
 magazine, stated in his notice that the tale which 
 accompanies the letters " we also present to our 
 readers without pledging ourselves for its authenticity 
 as the production of Lord Byron " ; and he continues, 
 " We should suppose it to have been committed to 
 paper rather from the recital of a third person." This, 
 however, after the publication of 700 copies, was 
 cancelled by the p^iblisker^ and another notice in- 
 serted stating it to be decidedly his Lordship's, in 
 direct opposition (as I am informed) to the Editor's 
 will — who has since retired from the conduct of the 
 magazine. 
 
 Immediately it was published I procured a copy ; 
 and, upon finding that it was an almost forgotten 
 trifle of my own, instantly wrote to you as Editor 
 of The Morning Chronicle, stating the little share 
 Lord Byron had in the work. This was upon the 
 Friday evening after its publication. I at the same 
 time wrote to the publishers of the tale in its separate 
 form, and to those of the magazine, to stop its sale 
 under his Lordship's name. On Monday the pub- 
 lishers of the magazine called upon me, and promised 
 it should be instantly announced as mine. . . . When 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 I came to claim my share in the profits, I was offered 
 £$0, instead of nearly ^^300. . . . 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 John Polidori. 
 
 The prefatory note to Tke Vampyre^ in The New 
 Monthly Magazine, runs thus : " We received several 
 private letters in the course of last autumn from a 
 friend travelling on the Continent, and among others 
 the following, which we give to the public on account 
 of its containing anecdotes of an individual concerning 
 whom the most trifling circumstances, if they tend to 
 mark even the minor features of his mind, cannot fail 
 of being considered important and valuable by those 
 who know how to appreciate his erratic but tran- 
 scendent genius. The tale which accompanied the 
 letter we have also much pleasure in presenting to 
 our readers. — Ed." There is also a final note thus : 
 
 " We have in our possession the tale of Dr. , as 
 
 well as the outline of that of Miss Godwin. The latter 
 has already appeared under the title of Frankenstein, 
 or The Modem Prometheus. The former, however, 
 upon consulting with its author, we may probably 
 hereafter give to our readers. — Ed." 
 
 Two questions arise as to that prefatory note : 
 (i) Did the Editor really write it, or did the Publisher 
 Colburn write it ? (2) Is the averment true or false 
 
20 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 that the Editor (or the Publisher) had received in the 
 course of the preceding autumn "several private 
 letters" from the same person who had now for- 
 warded a letter enclosing The Vampyre ? 
 
 Murray wrote to Lord Byron on April 27, 18 19. 
 He speaks of the publication of The Vampyre in The 
 New Monthly Magazine, ^.nA afterwards in book-form, 
 and proceeds: "The Editor of that journal has 
 quarrelled with the Publisher, and has called this 
 morning to exculpate himself from the baseness of 
 the transaction. He says that he received it from 
 Dr. Polidori for a small sum ; Polidori averring that 
 the whole plan of it was yours, and that it was 
 merely written out by him. The Editor inserted it 
 with a short statement to this effect ; but, to his 
 astonishment, Colburn cancelled the leaf . . . He 
 informs me that Polidori, finding that the sale ex- 
 ceeded his expectation and that he had sold it too 
 cheap, went to the Editor and declared that he would 
 deny it." 
 
 This statement by Murray makes it probable that 
 the paragraph purporting to come from the Editor, 
 or some substantial part of it, really emanated from 
 the Publisher, and the same is definitely asserted in 
 Polidori's letter to The Morning Chronicle; but 
 Murray's letter does not settle the question whether 
 the allegation about a traveller at Geneva was true 
 
INTRODUCTION 21 
 
 or false. The Editor's assertion that " he received it 
 from Dr. Polidori for a small sum " does not by any 
 means clear up all the facts. It seems quite possible 
 that there really was a correspondent at Geneva who 
 sent to the Editor the MS. of The Vampyre, along 
 with that of Polidori's other tale, and an outline of 
 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as expressly affirmed in 
 the final note signed " Ed." ; and that the Editor, 
 having no right to publish The Vampyre unless by 
 authority of its writer, spoke to Polidori about it. 
 How could Polidori dispose of it " for a small sum " 
 if he alleged that it was written by Byron, or by any 
 one other than himself? He averred " that the whole 
 plan of it was " Byron's — and this is apparently true ; 
 adding "that it was merely written out by" himself — 
 in the sense not of having written from Byron's 
 dictation, but of having composed a story founded 
 upon Byron's intended incidents. Murray's final 
 phrase — that Polidori " went to the Editor, and de- 
 clared that he would deny it " — is loosely expressed, 
 but seems to mean that he would deny Byron's 
 authorship of The Vampyre — and so in fact he did. 
 
 If we suppose (as did Murray apparently) that 
 Polidori had in the first instance planned a deliberate 
 imposture, and had palmed off upon the Editor The 
 Vampyre as being virtually the writing of Byron, we 
 are encountered by three difficulties left unexplained : 
 
22 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 ( I ) What plea could Polidori advance for having the MS. 
 and the right of publishing it ? (2) Why did he sell for 
 " a small sum " a work which, if written by the world- 
 famous Lord Byron, would be worth a very consider- 
 able sum ? (3) Why did the Editor pay to Polidori a 
 sum, whether small or large, for a book which, accord- 
 ing to this assumption, was avowedly not the writing 
 of himself, but the writing and property of Byron ? 
 All these difficulties are avoided, and no other serious 
 difficulties arise, if we assume that the account given 
 by Polidori is the true one, viz. that he offered the 
 tale to the Editor as being his own composition, 
 strictly modelled upon a series of incidents invented 
 by Byron. 
 
 Polidori's letter, addressed to the Editor of The 
 Morning Chronicle, was, as I have already said, 
 delivered to the office of that paper. It was not 
 however published there, as Messrs. Sherwood, Neely, 
 and Jones, the publishers of The Vampyre in its book- 
 form, represented to Polidori that the appearance of 
 such a letter would tend to compromise them, and he 
 therefore, out of consideration for this firm, withdrew 
 the letter unprinted. This is Polidori's own state- 
 ment, contained in the Introduction to another 
 romantic tale of his, Emestus Berchtold, published in 
 1 8 19; being the tale by Polidori which, as stated by 
 the Editor of The New Monthly Magazine^ had been 
 
INTRODUCTION 23 
 
 sent to him along with The Vampyre and the outline 
 of Frankenstein. Besides all this, the Doctor wrote a 
 brief letter, published in The Courier on May 5, 18 19, 
 saying — what was clearly the fact — "Though the 
 groundwork is certainly Lord Byron's, its development 
 is mine." 
 
 I must now revert for a moment to the " skull- 
 headed lady." In the Introduction above named 
 Polidori asserts that that tale, Emestus Berchtold, was 
 the one which he began at Cologny. It does not 
 contain any sort of mention of any skull-headed lady. 
 There is some supernatural machinery in the story, of 
 a rather futile kind ; it could be excluded without 
 affecting the real basis of the narrative, which relates 
 the love-affair and marriage of a young Swiss patriot 
 with a lady who is ultimately identified as his sister. 
 As to Mrs. Shelley's allegation that the (non-existent) 
 skull-headed lady was punished for " peeping through 
 a keyhole," no such incident exists in Emestus 
 Berchtold; there is, however, a passage where a certain 
 Julia seeks to solve a mystery by looking " through 
 the wainscot of a closet for wood." Her head, after 
 this inspection, remains exactly what it was before. 
 
 The Vampyre was in its way a great success. As 
 stated in The Dictionary of National Biography^ 
 Byron's name gave Polidori's production great cele- 
 brity on the Continent, where The Vampyre was 
 
24 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 held to be quite the thing which it behoved Byron 
 to have written. It formed the groundwork of 
 Marschner's opera, and nearly half a volume of 
 Dumas's Memoirs is occupied by an account of the 
 representation of a French play founded upon it. 
 
THE DIARY 
 
 1816. April 2\. — I left London at 10 in the morn 
 ing, with Lord Byron, Scrope Davies, Esq., and 
 J. Hobhouse, Esq. 
 
 [Mr. Scrope Berdmore Davies had been one of 
 Byron's fellow-students and intimates at Cambridge 
 University, and had continued familiar with him 
 at Newstead Abbey and elsewhere. He has been 
 described as "no less remarkable for elegance of 
 taste than for a generous high-mindedness," Mr. 
 John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards Sir J. C. Hob- 
 house, and ultimately Lord Broughton de Gifford) 
 was, it need hardly be said, a peculiarly close friend 
 of Byron. He had accompanied him in his travels 
 in Greece prior to the commencement of Childe 
 Harold, wrote notes to that poem, and to the 
 last upheld the essential fineness of his Lordship's 
 character. Byron's intention to travel along with 
 Hobhouse in the spring of 18 16 was not a new 
 project conceived in consequence of his separation, 
 only completed on April 22, from his wife. He had 
 entertained this scheme before his daughter Ada was 
 
 25 
 
26 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 born on December lo, 1815, and had announced it 
 to his wife, to whom the notion was not agreeable.] 
 
 The view from Shooter's Hill was extensive and 
 beautiful, being on a much larger scale than the view 
 from Stirling. 
 
 [Polidori mentions Stirling, as being no doubt a 
 reminiscence of his own, from the days when he had 
 been in Edinburgh to take his medical degree.] 
 
 The plain, enamelled with various colours accord- 
 ing to the different growth of the corn, spread far 
 before our sight, was divided irregularly by the river. 
 The Thames next, with its majestic waves, flowed in 
 the plain below, bearing numerous fleets upon its 
 flood. Its banks in many parts were beautiful. The 
 chalky banks were alternated with the swelling hills, 
 rising from the waves, of the pleasing green-brown, 
 the effect of the first dawn of spring on the vegetable 
 creation. 
 
 At Canterbury we saw the Cathedral. I know not 
 how it was, whether my mind had been prepared by 
 the previous sight of glorious nature to receive 
 pleasing impressions, but the spot where the high 
 altar and Thomas a Becket's tomb stood seemed to 
 me one of the most beautiful effects that I had ever 
 seen arising from Saxo-Gothic architecture; for, 
 though it had not all the ^airiness and awe-inspiring 
 height that I had seen in other cathedrals, yet its 
 
DOVEK 37 
 
 simple beauty pleased me more than anything I had 
 yet seen. 
 
 Remounting, we soon arrived at Dover, where we 
 slept, when the packet-boat captain had sufficiently 
 disturbed us. 
 
 April 25. — This day was spent at Dover The 
 greater part was occupied in procuring what had 
 been neglected in London, and in seeing the carriage 
 well packed up. After dinner, however, we went in 
 search of Churchill's tomb, raised, we had learned, to 
 his memory by his friend Wilkes. Arrived at the 
 house of the sexton, he led us to a ruined church, 
 passing through which we came into a churchyard, 
 where children, heedless and unconscious of what 
 they trampled on, sportively ran amid the raised turf 
 graves. He pointed out to us a tombstone, un- 
 distinguished from those of the tradesmen near him, 
 having merely, like them, a square tablet stuck into 
 the ground, whereon was written, " Here lie the 
 remains of the celebrated Churchill. 
 
 " Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies. 
 
 Candidate.^'' 
 
 [By Churchill.] The green turf was beginning already 
 to decay upon his tomb, which when the sexton heard 
 us lamenting he assured us that his grave, as well as 
 the rest, would be newly decked as soon as Nature 
 
28 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 had vested its fullest green — for that was an old custom. 
 Churchill owed, then, only to a common hand what 
 the pride of a friend refused — the safety of his burial- 
 place. Wilkes only sought the gratification of his 
 vanity. While he consigned his friend's last relics to 
 the keeping of a tablet, he consigned his own pride in 
 such a friend to the keeping of a column in his own 
 grounds. Yet I do not know whether the scene was 
 not more moving, though no vainly pompous inscrip- 
 tion pointed out the spot where this poet was buried. 
 
 There were two authors ; one, the most distin- 
 guished of his age ; another, whose name is rising 
 rapidly ; (and a third, ambitious for literary dis- 
 tinction). What a lesson it was for them when, 
 having asked the sexton if he knew why so many 
 came to see this tomb, he said : " I cannot tell ; I had 
 not the burying of him." 
 
 [Byron, after settling in the Villa Diodati near 
 Geneva, recorded this same incident in a composition 
 entitled ChurchilVs Grave, a Fact Literally Rendered. 
 He wrote a memorandum to say that in this poem he 
 had intentionally imitated the style of Wordsworth, 
 "its beauties and its defects." The composition 
 therefore is essentially un-Byronic in method, and 
 perhaps Wordsworth would not have recognized in 
 it many of his own "beauties." The Hues are as 
 follows — 
 
DOVER 29 
 
 I stood beside the grave of him who blazed 
 
 The comet of a season, and I saw 
 The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed 
 
 With not the less of sorrow and of awe 
 On that neglected turf and quiet stone, 
 With name no clearer than the names unknown 
 Which lay unread around it. And I ask'd 
 
 The gardener of that ground why it might be 
 That for this plant strangers his memory task'd, 
 
 Through the thick deaths of half a century. 
 And thus he answered : ' Well, I do not know 
 Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so : 
 He died before my day of sextonship, 
 
 And I had not the digging of this grave.' 
 And is this all? I thought; and do we rip 
 
 The veil of immortality, and crave 
 I know not what of honour and of light 
 Through unborn ages, to endure this blight 
 So soon and so successless ? As I said. 
 The architect of all on which we tread 
 (For earth is but a tombstone) did essay 
 To extricate remembrance from the clay 
 Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought. 
 
 Were it not that all life must end in one, 
 Of which we are but dreamers. As he caught 
 
 As 'twere the twilight of a former sun, 
 Thus spoke he : ' I believe the man of whom 
 You wot, who lies in this selected tomb. 
 Was a most famous writer in his day; 
 And therefore travellers step from out their way 
 To pay him honour ; — and myself whate'er 
 Your honour pleases.' Then most pleased I shook 
 From out my pocket's avaricious nook 
 Some certain coins of silver, which (as 'twere 
 Perforce) I gave this man— though I could spare 
 So much but inconveniently. Ye smile 
 (I see ye, ye profane ones, all the while) 
 
30 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. 
 You are the fools, not I ; for I did dwell 
 With a deep thought and with a softened eye 
 On that old sexton's natural homily, 
 In which there was obscurity and fame — 
 The glory and the nothing of a name." 
 
 Charles Churchill the satirist, a clergyman who 
 had given up his standing in the Church, had 
 died in 1764 at Boulogne, aged only thirty-three. 
 It is clear that his renown was still considerable 
 in 1 8 16; it is now barely more than a literary 
 reminiscence.] 
 
 We then returned home, where, having delivered 
 my play into their hands, I had to hear it laughed at 
 — (an author has always a salvo) partly, I think, 
 from the way in which it was read. One of the party, 
 however — to smoothe, I suppose, my ruffled spirits — 
 took up my play, and apparently read part with 
 great attention, drawing applause from those who 
 before had laughed. He read on with so much 
 attention that the others declared he had never been 
 so attentive before. 
 
 [Further on it would appear that this play was 
 named Cajetan. I know nothing about it. The name 
 Cajetan is in Italian Gaetano, which was the Christian 
 name of Polidori's father.] 
 
 I afterwards went out, and did a very absurd thing, 
 which I told ; and found I had not only hurt myself 
 
THE CHANNEL 31 
 
 but might possibly hurt others for whom I cared 
 much more. 
 
 April 26. — We embarked at 9 o'clock, much 
 hurried, with three servants. 
 
 [This means, to judge from a published letter by- 
 Byron, 9 o'clock on the evening of April 25. The 
 three servants were Berger (a Swiss), William 
 Fletcher, and Robert Rushton. Mr. Davies and Mr. 
 Hobhouse, it will be understood, remained ashore.] 
 
 When at a distance, we waved our hands and hats, 
 bidding adieu. The wind was completely in our 
 teeth, but we made the passage in sixteen hours. 
 The coast of Dover is very striking, though miserably 
 barren-looking. The cliff is steep, though not such 
 as Shakespear paints. The castle — at a distance, 
 which is the only way I viewed it — is miserable. 
 Sailing from England, I for a long time kept my eye 
 upon its stern white cliffs, thinking on her who bade 
 me join her remembrance with the last sight of my 
 native soil. 
 
 [This points pretty clearly to a love-passage, perhaps 
 a matrimonial engagement. As a fact Polidori never 
 married. The lady may possibly have been Eliza 
 Arrow, a relative in India, with whom he, at a rather 
 earlier date, had interchanged various letters.] 
 
 They at last faded from my sight, and all on board 
 looked dreary ; the sea dashed over us, and all wore 
 
32 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 an aspect of grief. Towards night a most beautiful 
 spectacle was seen by myself, who alone remained on 
 deck. The stars shedding merely a twilight enabled 
 me to see the phosphoric light of the broken foam in 
 all its splendour. But the most beautiful moment was 
 that of its first appearance : no sound around save the 
 sullen rushing of the vessel, and the hoarse cries of 
 the heaving sailor ; no light save a melancholy 
 twilight, which soothed the mind into forgetfulness of 
 its grief for a while — a beautiful streak following the 
 lead through the waves. We arrived at Ostend at 
 2 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 [Polidori's chronology is a little confusing here. If 
 the party left Dover at 9 p.m. on April 25, and 
 took sixteen hours in the sea-passage, they must have 
 reached Ostend at i in the afternoon. There is also 
 a confusion immediately afterwards, for he repeats 
 the date for which he has already accounted, viz.] 
 
 April 26. — We passed through the gates, paying 
 a franc a head, and went to the Cour Imp^riale. We 
 were astonished at the excellent inn and good treat- 
 ment, except that I got a dreadful headache from 
 the smell of paint in my bedroom, and that the tea 
 was perfumed. 
 
 [It was, I believe, at this point of the narrative that 
 my aunt Charlotte Polidori cut out a peccant passage. 
 I seem to remember the precise diction of it, which 
 
OSTEND 33 
 
 was this : " As soon as he reached his room, Lord 
 Byron fell like a thunderbolt upon the chambermaid." 
 Such at any rate was the substance of the statement. 
 The other statement which my aunt excluded came 
 somewhat further on, when Dr. Polidori was staying 
 near Geneva. He gave some account of a visit of his 
 to some haunt of the local Venus Pandemos. I think 
 the police took some notice of it. The performance 
 was not decorous, but was related without any verbal 
 impropriety.] 
 
 Arising in the morning, I went upon a stroll round 
 the town. Saw little girls of all ages with head- 
 dresses ; books in every bookseller's window of the 
 most obscene nature ; women with wooden shoes ; 
 men of low rank basking in the sun as if that would 
 evaporate their idleness. The houses generally good 
 old style, very like a Scotch town, only not quite so 
 filthy. Very polite custom-house officers, and very 
 civil waiters. Fine room painted as a panorama, all 
 French-attitudinized. Went into a shop where no one 
 spoke French. Tried German ; half-a-dozen women 
 burst out laughing at me. Luckily for myself, in a 
 good humour ; laughed with them. Obliged to buy 
 two books I did not want, because I let a quarto fall 
 upon a fine girl's head while looking at her eyes. 
 Coaches of the most horrid construction ; apparently 
 some fine horses, others small. Fortifications look 
 3 
 
34 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 miserable. Once stood a fine siege, when 40,000 on one 
 side and 80 on the other fed fowls and manured the 
 fields. What for? For religion? No — for money. 
 There was the spring of all. As long as only religion 
 and rights were affected, bigoted religionists and wild 
 republicans were alone concerned ; but a step too far, 
 and all was ruined. 
 
 [The allusion here is to the great siege of Ostend, 
 1 60 1 to 1604.] 
 
 We set off at 3, with four horses. Postillion with 
 boots to his hips, nankeens, leather hat with quaker 
 brim, only neatly rounded with black riband ; a blue 
 and red coat, joined to which a most rascally face, with 
 lips that went a few lines beyond the brijn of his hat. 
 A dreadful smacker of his whip, and a driver of four 
 horses from the back of one of the hindermost. We 
 were obliged to hire a caleche to send with our lug- 
 gage. The rascal made us pay three times too much 
 at each of his barriers ; but, after having (on account 
 of the horses not being ready at the next post) gone 
 beyond his beat, he allowed the toll-keepers to be 
 honest, and only take a few centimes instead of a 
 franc. The country very flat, highly cultivated ; sand, 
 no waste. Roads paved in the middle, with trees on 
 each side. Country, from the interspersion of houses, 
 spires, cottages, etc., delightful ; everything comfort- 
 able, no appearance of discontent. 
 
BRUGES 35 
 
 We got out of our carriage at a place where the 
 horses ate bread and hay, and walked on to a church- 
 yard, where we found no tombstones, no funeral-pomp, 
 no flattering eulogy, but simply a wooden cross at 
 each grave's head and foot. On the side of the church- 
 steeple, at a little height, was made a niche wherein 
 statues formed a crucifixion, as an object to excite 
 reverence and adoration of God in every passenger. 
 We passed on, and arrived at Bruges at the fall of 
 the evening. Our passports were dispensed with on 
 our mentioning that we were not stopping. We 
 entered one of the most beautiful towns I ever saw ; 
 every house seemed substantial — had some ornament 
 either of fretwork or lines — all seem clean and neat. 
 We stopped at the post. We were shown into the 
 postmaster's parlour on our asking for something to 
 eat — well furnished — better even than a common 
 middleman's house in London. N.B. — Everywhere 
 6 francs for a bottle of Rhenish. Women generally 
 pretty. Flemish face has no divinity — all pleasing 
 more than beautiful — a sparkling eye in a full round. 
 Their pictures of every age have the mark of their 
 country. 
 
 As we went from Bruges, twilight softened all the 
 beauty, and I do not know how to describe the feel- 
 ing of pleasure we felt in going through its long roof- 
 fretted streets, bursting on to spots where people were 
 
36 THE DIARY OF POLIDORl 
 
 promenading amidst short avenues of trees. We 
 passed on. At the gates I saw a boy with sand in 
 his hand let it through his fingers laughingly, heed- 
 less of the myriads whose life hung upon each sand. 
 We passed on at lo. We came to a village where we 
 heard the sound of music. The innkeeper, on our 
 enquiring what it was, asked us politely in to hear a 
 concert of amateurs. We descended, and were grati- 
 fied and surprised at hearing, in a village of 5000 souls, 
 a full band playing difficult though beautiful music. 
 One march particularly struck us. But what was 
 our surprise, when the door opened, to view the 
 group : none apparently above the rank of labourers, 
 yet they met three times a week. In our country the 
 amusement is to reel drunk as many. There was 
 one figure manifestly consumptive, yet he was blowing 
 an enormous trombone. 
 
 Within a few miles of Gand, I was wakened from 
 a pleasant fireside in England by my companion say- 
 ing *• They have lost their way " ; and, seeing a house 
 near me, I jumped out to enquire, when to my great 
 fear I saw it was deserted. I immediately suspected 
 something, and went back for a pistol, and then 
 thundered at the door ; no one came. Looking 
 round, I saw other houses ; towards which upon my 
 moving the postillion got off, and, telling me in 
 French, as a consolation, that he could not under- 
 
GHENT 37 
 
 stand it, went with me towards a house where there 
 was light, and suddenly ran off. I immediately went 
 to the carriage, and we gave sabres to the servants ; 
 when he ran back from out of sight, and knocked 
 again at the door and roused two, who told us the 
 way. By the by, we had crossed several times the 
 bridge, and from the road and back again, whereas 
 we had nothing to do but to go straight on, instead of 
 which he crossed over and was going back in the 
 direction of Bruges, when our servant stopped him. 
 I cannot explain his conduct ; he was dreadfully 
 frightened. 
 
 We arrived at Ghent at 3 in the morning, and 
 knocked some time at the gates, but at last, by means 
 of a few francs, got through — passports not asked for. 
 Got to the Hotel des Pays Bas, where Count Artois 
 resided while at Ghent. We were ushered into a 
 splendid room, got excellent Rhenish, butter, cheese, 
 etc., and went to bed. 
 
 April 27. — At Gand Charles the 1st of Spain was 
 born. It was here he really showed the insufficiency of 
 ambition and all the joys of manhood. After having 
 at Brussels resigned to Philip his extensive dominions, 
 he came here, and enjoyed many days while passing 
 over the scenes of his youth, which neither the splen- 
 dour attached to a European or an Indian crown nor 
 to the conquests of his powerful and noble views could 
 
38 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 efface. He did not seek Pavia ; no, it was at Gand 
 that he sought for his last draught of worldly joy. 
 The town was worthy of it, if beauty and antiquity, if 
 riches and liberty with all their train, could render it 
 worthy of him. This town has all the beauty ot 
 Bruges, but more extensive : finer houses perhaps, 
 fine cathedral, fine paintings, fine streets, fine canal. 
 The streets are perhaps the finest I have seen ; not so 
 unpleasantly regular as London, not so high, but more 
 rich in outside. 
 
 We visited the Cathedral ; and, after having been 
 accustomed to the tinselly ornaments of our Catholic 
 chapels, and the complete want of any in the Scotch 
 and English churches, we were much pleased with the 
 Cathedral's inside dress : paintings that were by the 
 hand of masters ; the fortune of a bishop expended 
 in building the part near the altar in marble and 
 statues not contemptible, united with the airy, high 
 fretted roof and little light, impressive of awe. Under 
 this Cathedral is the first Belgian church that was 
 built in the reign of Charlemagne, 800 years, I think, 
 after Christ. It is low-roofed, but so strong it bears 
 the weight of the Cathedral upon it. There were 
 several paintings preserved in it (before the date of 
 oil-painting), where the colours are mixed with white 
 of egg. Some curious tombs, where the different 
 styles are evident. In the earliest tomb some of the 
 
GHENT 39 
 
 draperies on the relief are in a bold fine style. One 
 of the earliest has a bishop, where all his robes are 
 carved out, with almost the threads of his vest. 
 Others, however, are for general effect. We mounted 
 450 steps to the top of the steeple; whence we saw 
 a complete horizon of plain, canals, intersecting trees, 
 and houses and steeples thrown here and there, with 
 Gand below at our feet. The sea at a distance, bound 
 by the hands of man, which pointed " So far shall ye 
 go and no farther." Bruges held in the horizon its 
 steeples to our view, and many hamlets raised from 
 out their surrounding wood their single spires to 
 sight. 
 
 Treading again the iron-plated 450 stairs, we came 
 into the street ; and, mounting into a fiacre, we went 
 to the Ecole de Dessin, where we found a well-provided 
 gallery of paintings, with two students, unmoved by 
 the visitors around, painting with the patience if not 
 the genius of Dutch masters. They were rather a 
 nuisance on the present occasion, as one covered with 
 his machine a chef d'oeuvre of Rubens, the St. Rock 
 amongst the Sick of the Plague. There were two more 
 by the same, of St. Roch and his Dog, etc. They 
 were in a different style of colouring — sombre and 
 grey ; none of his gay draperies that I, no connoisseur, 
 thought were constituents of Rubens. I saw — I do not 
 remember whose, but — a picture that struck me much, 
 
40 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 The Beheading of St. Jean^ where all the interest and 
 
 beauty consisted in a dog smelling the dead body. 
 
 There were two of Van Eyck, the first (according to 
 
 the Flemish) who invented painting in oil ; where the 
 
 colouring was splendid and very like the stiffness of 
 
 glass, but the faces were very good. Kruger had 
 
 many here in honour of Charles the Vth. Amongst 
 
 the others, one rather (though probably not meant as 
 
 such) satirical : Charles, landing, takes hold of Dame 
 
 Africa, who quietly points to a lion at her feet. Query 
 
 — to drive him away ? There was a Judgment of 
 
 Solomon by the same, where the child was painted 
 
 dead with most perfect nature ; so much so that my 
 
 companion, who is a father, could not bear its sight. 
 
 Teniers has here a Temptation of St. Anthony : strange 
 
 caricature — what a satire ! If mere deceit is the acme 
 
 of perfection, some Dutchmen may snatch the palm 
 
 from either Apelles or Parrhasius. They paint boards 
 
 with an engraving upon them, or a door,^ or aught 
 
 else, so inimitably that it deceived my friend. We 
 
 went into the Academy of Casts, of Design, etc. 
 
 There are generally 400 pupils in this town : many 
 
 fall off annually without great advancement, and are 
 
 trod on the heels by others. 
 
 1 The word, as written by Charlotte Polidori, seems to be 
 " dole " rather than anything else. It looks as if she had copied 
 the form of Dr. Polidori's word without understanding what it 
 was, I substitute " door," but this is done faute de mieux, 
 
GHENT 41 
 
 We thence proceeded to another (we might say) 
 cathedral. The steeple is not yet finished : the model 
 is exhibited, with the curses of the Flemish exhibitors 
 upon the "grande nation " for having taken the funds 
 for its finishing. There are more good pictures than 
 even in the Cathedral : the columns also please me 
 more, being round, with a Gothic approach to Corinth- 
 ian capital. The most beautiful painting I have yet 
 seen is here (though I probably shall not be held out 
 in my opinion by connoisseurs) — by Pollent, repre- 
 senting the trial of the true Cross upon a sick lady. 
 The harmony of colouring, the soberness (without 
 the commonly accompanying dulness) of the colour- 
 ing, the good design and grouping, are, in my 
 opinion, beautiful. Not even the splendid colouring 
 of Rubens can make his pictures, in my eyes, equal 
 to it. 
 
 [I do not know who is the painter termed Pollent 
 by Polidori : on p. 50 there is the name Polenck, 
 which may designate the same painter. Neither of 
 these names can be traced by me in a catalogue of 
 pictures in the Museum of Antwerp.] 
 
 There is one standing by it, of Vandyck, which has 
 some sublimity in it, perhaps arising from indistinct- 
 ness. It represents the effect of Christ's last sigh. By 
 this altar stood twelve small pictures, hung out at this 
 time for people to tread the " way of Calvary," repre- 
 
42 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 senting the different stages of our Saviour's sufferings. 
 There were many more pictures, but I cannot re- 
 member ; seeing so many crowded in the Gallery put 
 others out of my head. But there were painted in the 
 Cathedral of St. Bavon, on the marble in the style 
 of reliefs, different subjects of Scripture in a most 
 masterly style ; and so well were the shades managed 
 that we could hardly believe the cicerone when he 
 assured us they were paintings. 
 
 In the Gallery of Casts there were the statues of 
 two English ladies of London by an artist who resided 
 thirty years there, and upon his return bestowed these 
 as his finest works. The faces, though not perfect or 
 Grecian, I must say for my countrywomen, pleased 
 me almost as much as any Venus de' Medici. 
 
 I have found the people polite, so far as showing 
 the way and then not waiting for a reward — taking 
 off their hats as if^ou had done them the favour. 
 
 April 28. — We set off at 8 this morning to go to 
 Anvers ; but, after having proceeded some way, one 
 of the wheels refused to turn, and, after at the next 
 village hammering a long while, I rode off in a passing 
 caleche to Ghent, where I put a marechal with his 
 assistant into a voiture, and, mounting myself on 
 horseback, returned to the coach. My horse was par- 
 ticularly fond of the shade ; and, a house being near 
 one of the barriers, he kindly stopped there to cool 
 
GHENT 43 
 
 me. I, after waiting some time, began to press him 
 to go forward, when he kicked etc. We went, while 
 the carriage was being repaired, into a cottage, where 
 all was extremely neat, and we saw two pictures in 
 it that certainly would not shame the collection of 
 many of our soi-disant cognoscenti. The old man 
 was sick of a fever ; and, upon giving him medicine, 
 his kind half sympathetically fell ill of a toothache. 
 Never did I see such chips of the old block as his two 
 daughters. They were very kind. It being Sunday, 
 we saw all the women of the village — all ugly : indeed, 
 I have not seen a pretty woman since I left Ostend. 
 
 [This reference to April 28 as being a Sunday puts 
 a stop to any preceding question as to the right day 
 of the month, for in fact April 28, 18 16, was a Sunday.] 
 
 On proceeding on our journey, we were stopped for 
 oul: passports, and the fellow began bullying us, think- 
 ing we were French ; but, when he heard we were 
 English, he became cap in hand, and let us go : in- 
 deed, we have not yet shown our passports. 
 
 Having eaten, I issued forth in search of the Pro- 
 menade, and found the canal with walks called La 
 Copeure. Many ladies, all ugly without exception — 
 the only pretty woman being fat and sixty. It very 
 much resembled the Green Basin, where our West-end 
 cits trot on one another's heels with all possible care : 
 not quite so crowded. Coming back, I tourized to the 
 
44 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Roi d'Espagne, where, as in a coffee-house, I found 
 a room full of disreputable women and card-tables. 
 This, instead of the streets, is the lounge for such 
 women. I went to the Cafe Grand, where by means 
 of mirrors some excellent effects are produced. 
 There also were billiards, cards, dice, etc. A cup of 
 coffee, some centimes ; a glass of lemonade, two sous : 
 a woman presides at the end of the room. 
 
 " Lord Byron " was in the Ghent Gazette. Lord 
 Byron encouraged me to write Cajetan, and to con- 
 tinue being a tragedian. Murray offered i^iSO for 
 two plays, and ;^500 for my tour. 
 
 April 29. — Looking from my window, I saw a 
 native dashing about in a barouche and four. There 
 is in the town a society of nobles, and another of 
 literati. Mr. Scamp has a fine collection of pictures, 
 which I did not see. In Ghent, as well as in all other 
 places where I have been, the barber's sign is Mam- 
 brino's helm. On the Sunday mornings there is a 
 market for flowers in pot in the Place des Armes. 
 
 We set off at 11 in the morning, and passed 
 through some fine villages : one of which, St. 
 Nicholas, the mistress of the inn told me Buonaparte 
 made into a town — " mais il n'y a pas des postes." 
 The country is tiresomely beautiful. Fine avenues, 
 which make us yawn with admiration ; not a single 
 variation; no rising ground — yes, one spot raised 
 
BELGIUM 45 
 
 for a windmill. The landscape is as unchangeable 
 as the Flemish face. The houses white-washed, 
 with a row of trees before them ; the roofs tiled, and 
 the windows large. Indeed, the appearance of com- 
 fort in the places we have passed through is much 
 greater than any I have seen in England. We 
 have only seen one country-villa, and that very Eng- 
 lish : its pasture had the only firs we have yet seen. 
 The avenues are sometimes terminated by a church 
 or a house — the church very ugly; and both very 
 tiresome, as they always prove much farther off than 
 is at first expected. The ground cultivated, and with- 
 out a weed — no waste ground. The plough moves as 
 if cutting water, the soil is so light a sand. Women 
 work in the fields as well as men. No more difference 
 is found in the face of the inhabitants than in the face 
 of the country. Nothing striking, all evenness, no 
 genius, much stupidity. They seemed to spend all 
 their fund of cleanliness upon their fields and houses, 
 for they carry none about them. 
 
 An oldish man wears a three-cornered cocked hat, 
 capacious breeches, black or blue stockings, buckles, 
 and a great-coat ; young, fancy travelling-caps. The 
 women wear enormous gold ear-rings, large wooden 
 shoes. Their dress is a kind of bed-gown, like the 
 Scotch. Young girls of eight in town have their hair 
 dressed with a net or cap. In towns and villages 
 
46 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the better peasant-women wear a black silk mantle 
 with a hood, that looks well. Multitudes of children 
 everywhere, who tumble and run by the side of the 
 carriage to gain a few centimes. In the larger villages 
 the market-places are splendidly large, with a little 
 square place in the middle, with pollards and a statue. 
 The houses seem comfortable everywhere. Going 
 into the house of a postmaster, we saw some English 
 prints. At another, our servants having got down 
 and comfortably seated themselves to a bottle of 
 wine etc., the postmistress, on our getting out, took 
 us for the servants, and told us " the messieurs Anglais 
 were in yon room " — and then made us a thousand 
 apologies. At every posthorse place there is kept 
 a book of the posts : many barriers — every \\ mile. 
 
 At Gand they had told us we could not reach 
 Anvers without passing the Scheldt at 2 o'clock — 
 we passed it at 6|. 
 
 The town of Antwerp makes a good figure at a 
 distance, chiefly on account of its Cathedral, which 
 has a very airy appearance, the steeple showing the 
 sky between its meeting arches. About five steeples. 
 The fortifications, which enabled Carnot to make such 
 a defence, produce no great effect on the sight. 
 
 [The defence by Carnot was, when Polidori wrote, 
 a quite recent event, 1814.] 
 
 The Scheldt is a fine river, not so large as our 
 
ANTWERP 47 
 
 Thames, and covered with ugly Dutch vessels. We 
 passed our coach in a boat. 
 
 [This coach was a formidable affair. According 
 to Mr. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, it was "copied from 
 the celebrated one of Napoleon taken at Genappe, 
 with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained a 
 library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for dining."] 
 
 On landing, twenty porters ran off with our things 
 to a cart. As they were passing, one in all the pomp 
 of office stopped us, and asked for our passports, which 
 (on handing to him) he detained, giving his directions 
 to the police. 
 
 The older parts of Antwerp have a novel and 
 strange effect by the gable-ends being all to the 
 street, ornamented — very acute angles. The Place de 
 Meer is fine. The old street, the finest I ever saw, 
 has some fine houses. Many of the houses have 
 English labels on them. In our sitting-room are two 
 beds. Indeed, the towns are beautiful : their long 
 streets, their houses all clean-stuccoed or white- 
 washed, with strange old-fashioned fronts, the frequent 
 canals, the large places and venerable cathedrals. 
 Their places are much finer than our squares, for they 
 contain trees, and are open without railing. 
 
 Went to the caf^, and saw all playing at dominoes. 
 Read The Times till the 23rd. Fine furniture, every- 
 where of cherry-tree. 
 
48 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 At Gand in the Cathedral the cicerone laid great 
 stress on the choir-seats being all made of solid acajou. 
 The master of the inn at Ghent assures me the 
 carriage of Buonaparte was made in Paris — the body- 
 carriage at Brussels : no English work. Plenty of 
 Americans in the town. 
 
 April 30. — Got up late, and went to look at the 
 carriage, and found that the back had been not of the 
 best-made. Called a mardchal, who assured me it 
 could not be better. Breakfasted. Then looked at 
 an old caleche, for which asked 60 naps. Refused it. 
 
 Got, with a guide, a caleche to see the lions. The 
 town is large : apparently, not a proportionable 
 quantity of misery. Women better-looking. At all 
 the fountains. Madonnas — and upon all the corners 
 of the streets, with lamps before them. Lamps with 
 reverberators strung on ropes into the middle of the 
 streets. Went to the Cathedral. Everywhere we 
 have been, dreadful complaints of French vandalism. 
 In this chapel it has been shameless : once crowded 
 with altars of marble, now there are about five — only 
 two marble, the others painted in imitation. Pictures 
 were stolen — altars sold by auction — only one saved, 
 bought by a barber for a louis. The others, with all 
 the tombs, monuments, everything, broken by these 
 encouragers of the fine arts. So great was the ruin 
 that there were five feet of fragments over the church 
 
ANTWERP 49 
 
 — even the columns that support the roof were so 
 much defaced that they were obliged, in restoring it, 
 to pare them all much thinner. Some pictures were 
 carried to Paris, of which some are now about to be 
 replaced. It was the feast of St. Anthony, and many 
 candles were burning about, and some relics were 
 fixed above the doors. In many parts of the chapel 
 were frames containing silver representations, very 
 small, of bad limbs etc., offered by the devout. Many 
 images over altars, dressed out in silk and taffeta : 
 most common one, the Virgin Mary. Though the 
 French acted with all the spirit of Vandals and true 
 Gauls, yet to their very mischief is owing the greatest 
 beauty of the Cathedral, the choir not being divided 
 from the church, so that from one end to the other 
 there is a complete perspective and one of the finest 
 effects I have seen, the airiness and length being now 
 proportionate. There is one great defect in the internal 
 decorations — that they are Greek. What bad taste 
 it is to ornament Gothic with Corinthian columns 
 must be evident : to make it also more glaring, the 
 marble is all coloured. There is here a fine marble 
 altar-railing. Indeed, in all the churches we have 
 here seen they are beautiful — especially where boys, 
 called in Italian " puttini," are sculptured. The con- 
 fessionals are of wood, with evangelical figures, nearly 
 as large as life, between each box — not badly carved. 
 4 
 
so THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 We went to see another church, wherein is the 
 tomb of Rubens. 
 
 [This is the Church of St. Jaques.] 
 
 It is in a chapel by itself, where annually a mass 
 is said for his soul. It is worthy of him : ornamented 
 by a painting, by himself, of St. George, and a statue 
 he brought with him from Rome of the Holy Virgin. 
 The church in which he is buried was saved from 
 pillage by the priests belonging to it revolutionizing. 
 It is crowded with altars and pictures — some Rubens, 
 some Polenck, and others. There is a painting by 
 Metsys, who originally was a marechal, and who with 
 his mere hammer formed the decorations to a pump, 
 which are not bad. The Latin inscription on his 
 monumental stone refers to a story related of him : 
 that, upon courting the daughter of Francis Floris, 
 the artist with indignation talked about the dirty 
 rascal's impudence, he being merely a blacksmith ; 
 on which Metsys set off for Rome, and upon his 
 return asked the daughter to introduce him to her 
 father's room of painting : where, finding a picture 
 not finished, he painted a bee — that excited the in- 
 dignation of Floris's pocket-handkerchief, and gained 
 him his daughter. I have seen the picture, and it 
 might be true. The pump is not bad, being merely 
 beaten into shape. On the top is a giant who used 
 to cut off merchants' gains by means of tolls, and 
 
ANTWERP 51 
 
 their hands by means of axes. He used to throw an 
 iron band into the scales of his tradesmen ; and from 
 thence, 'tis said, Antwerp got its name. 
 
 [This may be " said " : but a less legendary deriva- 
 tion of the Flemish name Antwerpen is " aent werf," 
 or " on the wharf."] 
 
 The sides of this church all along are lined with 
 confessionals. 
 
 In the Church des Augustins we saw Rubens's 
 Assembly of the Saints^ from Paris ; where he has 
 shown how weak he could be in composition, and in 
 vanity — for it is the third picture in which he has 
 put himself in St. George's armour. The composition 
 is confused, without an object to fix the attention. 
 A Vandyck near him is much superior. 
 
 [Polidori's observations about Flemish paintings 
 are generally indicative of liking, more or less : but 
 Byron went dead against them. In a letter of his 
 to his half-sister, Mrs. Leigh, written from Brussels 
 on May i, 1816, we find: "As for churches and 
 pictures, I have stared at them till my brains are 
 like a guide-book : the last (though it is heresy to 
 say so) don't please me at all. I think Rubens a 
 very great dauber, and prefer Vandyck a hundred 
 times over — but then I know nothing about the 
 matter. Rubens's women have all red gowns and 
 red shoulders ; to say nothing of necks, of which 
 
52 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 they are more liberal than charming. It may all 
 be very fine, and I suppose it may be art, for 'tis not 
 nature." Again, in a letter to John Murray from 
 Milan, October 15, 1816: "The Flemish school, 
 such as I saw it in Flanders, I utterly detested, 
 despised, and abhorred."] 
 
 Here is also the famous picture of Jordaens, of The 
 Martyrdom of St. Apollonia. Colouring approaches 
 Rubens ; but abominable composition — crowded, large, 
 numerous figures in a small space. There were some 
 modern paintings of existing artists — meagre statue- 
 compositions. 
 
 In the Musee we saw many Rubenses. The famous 
 Descent from the Cross : the effect of the white sheet 
 is wonderfully beautiful. Picture's drawing I do not 
 like. The Christ seems not dead, as there is certainly 
 action ; but the colouring is splendidly rich. The 
 Crucifixion near it, inferior in all. In a sketch near 
 it he has not succeeded so well in the white sheet, it 
 being not so splendidly white. We could only see 
 the side-pieces of the great Crucifixion, as the large 
 piece was being framed. In these there is much 
 caricature drawing : a woman rising from the dead— 
 surely a woman large as Guy Warwick giant's wife, 
 if ever he had one : caricature physiognomies, and 
 most hellish egregious breasts, which a child refuses, 
 with horror in its face. His horses have much spirit — 
 
ANTWERP 53 
 
 true Flemish size. Indeed, divest Rubens of his rich 
 apparel, and he is a mere dauber in design. There 
 is a Mary going to Elizabeth^ looking more like a 
 cardinal : indeed, my companion, Lord Byron, took 
 her for one of the red-vested nobles. No divinity 
 about his Christs ; putrefaction upon his Gods ; ex- 
 aggerated passion about his men and women, painted 
 not all-concealing. In his picture of The Adoration 
 of the Magi, query did he not intend to play upon 
 the people by passing off a caricature for a religious 
 painting? The royal personage in green seems as if 
 his eyes had grown big after dinner. He has no 
 costume properly applied : the Virgin in the manger 
 is dressed meretriciously in silks and lace. Then 
 look at our blessed Saviour showing His wounds. 
 His finest painting is his Crucifixion in which is the 
 white sheet : but there are defects. What then must 
 be the power of colouring which causes you to view 
 his paintings with pleasure ! It is like melodious 
 music which makes you forget the absurd words of 
 an old English song. 
 
 Vandyck, in my opinion, was much superior to 
 Rubens. His colouring, near his, is sombre ; but 
 then his design is more perfect, his impressions 
 remain longer in the mind distinct, and do not fade 
 away into ideas of red and blue round white. A 
 little Crucifix of his is worth his rival's largest 
 
54 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 paintings. His Christ Dead is beautiful, wherein are 
 contained the Blessed Virgin, St. Mary Magdalene, 
 and St. John weeping: the different expressions of 
 grief, the unison of colouring with the subject, the 
 composition, all excellent. 
 
 From the Cathedral we went to see the works 
 of Napoleon. We first saw the Basins. They are 
 not so large as our West India Docks — square — but 
 are capable of holding ships of the line; there are 
 two. Between them is what was formerly the 
 Hanseatic Hall, now magazines. When the English 
 were last here they threw bombs, but this was of no 
 avail ; dung was put upon the ships, and men were 
 at hand in case of fire. From the Basins we went 
 along the quays — very long, along the labouring 
 Scheldt ; then into the places for marine arsehals, 
 where the vessels were on the stocks — the finest works 
 I ever saw, now useless through our jealousy. The 
 rope-house, quite finished, is enormously long, and is 
 to be pulled down. The timbers for the ship were 
 numbered, and carried to Amsterdam. The citadel 
 was mean-looking, though so strong. The chief 
 batteries are as old as Alva's time — there was one 
 pointed out as erected by Colonel Crawford. Before 
 Napoleon's time there was little done towards the 
 formation of these basins and others ; but, said our 
 guide, "he decreed they should be made, and they 
 
ANTWERP 55 
 
 appeared." They are all surrounded with high walls 
 to hinder the escape of the employed. Carnot has 
 commanded here twice. He was rather disliked, yet 
 they had rather have him than any other. They all 
 agree in his genius. In the time of the Walcheren 
 business the English were expected with open arms : 
 only three hundred soldiers — Bernadotte was general. 
 The siege was not very strict on the last occasion, 
 and no mischief was done on either side. In the 
 Basins there have been twenty-six line. In the dread 
 of a siege all the suburbs were destroyed and all the 
 trees around. The suburbs rose immediately, the 
 trees in years. In the citadel there are 1500 forgats. 
 Sometimes the number exceeds 2000. 
 
 Having seen thus much, we returned, lunched, and 
 rode off. Hardly gone a little way when our carriage 
 broke down. The trees are more various — vegetation 
 more advanced — more inequality of ground — more 
 pollards — more apparent misery — more villas, some 
 pretty — more clipped hedges — more like England — 
 fine, large, town-like villages. Carriage broke again — 
 walked to Malines — arrived there at ten. Women 
 improve. 
 
 At Antwerp, in one church on the outside, saw a 
 supposed exact imitation of the Sepulchre, though I 
 do not know how it came seated " in purgatory " ; as 
 there certainly is a place so called round it, full of 
 
56 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the damned and flames. The place is grotto-work. 
 Within there is a representation of our Lord swathed 
 in linen. All over there are statues, so so. David is 
 at a respectable distance from purgatory : this makes 
 it the more remarkable that the Sepulchre is seated 
 in purgatory. Indeed, indeed, there is much absurdity. 
 
 There is an academy for drawing and painting, 
 with a museum. The Place is in a garden. 
 
 On arriving at Malines we found Mr. Pradt gone 
 from his bishopric amongst his brethren ; and we are 
 assured he was a " vraiment frangais," and that he 
 was not a " Catholique," and that this town wanted a 
 " vraiment Catholique." 
 
 [The Abb^ de Pradt, born in Auvergne in 1759, 
 had been a champion of the monarchy in the Con- 
 stituent Assembly of 1789-91. Napoleon made him 
 Archbishop of Malines towards 1809, but afterwards 
 viewed him with disfavour. He resigned the Arch- 
 bishopric in 1 8 16, receiving a pension. He wrote a 
 number of books on political and public matters, and 
 died in 1837.] 
 
 The country from Antwerp to Malines becomes 
 more and more like England : trees more various, 
 not the same dead flat but varied with gentle swells, 
 many pollards, and more miserable cottages. 
 
 There is in the Cathedral [in Antwerp] a painting 
 by Floris — the one on which is the bee — where he has 
 
BRUSSELS 57 
 
 shown great imagination and fire in the devils. It is 
 the victory of the angels when fighting against the 
 devils. 
 
 Maj/ I. — As soon as up, I went to the Cathedral, 
 which has a fine tower. On entering I saw many 
 pictures. None that I saw seemed particularly good. 
 The church was pretty full of people, who really 
 seemed devout. They were not the old and weak, 
 but there was of every age. The young maiden was 
 seen by the side of decrepit age, beauty by deformity, 
 childhood by manhood. The effect on the mind is 
 contagious. Many masses were going on at the 
 same time. A woman went round for money for the 
 chairs. Here I saw the first Christian caryatides. 
 
 We soon set off for Brussels. Between V. and 
 that town the road is beautiful ; a canal on one side, 
 fine trees forming a long avenue diversified with 
 glimpses of a rich country. We passed the Castle of 
 Lac, the former residence of Buonaparte. It has a 
 fine front upon an eminence, but the dome stands 
 forth in glaring ugliness. We entered Brussels by 
 the Allee Verte, a fine promenade. 
 
 Brussels, the old town, is not so fine as Antwerp, 
 Ghent, or Bruges. The Grand Marche is very beauti- 
 ful, only the buildings seem to be neglected. Fine 
 public offices, with a tall spire, on one side — the Mairie 
 opposite. The Place Royale is very fine ; the fronts 
 
58 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 of the houses and hotels around seeming together 
 to form parts of one great palace ; and the church on 
 one side, with the housy wings, has a fine effect in 
 spite of the ugly tower at the top. The gardens are 
 beautiful with green, and well laid out in walks, 
 with groups and termites — the Palace opposite. The 
 entrance from the Place Royale presents a fine front, 
 and the suburbs round it are also good. We are at 
 the Hotel d'Angleterre. Saw Morning Chronicles, 
 which are again dutysied. 
 
 Brussels was not at all fortified in the Waterloo 
 time. The Germans at one time had retreated as far 
 as the gates, which were obliged to be shut against 
 them. In case of a retreat there would have been a 
 pleasant rush, almost as great as at a fashionable 
 rout, as they must all have passed through Brussels. 
 The carriage was put under hand. Crowds of 
 English. 
 
 May 2. — We have seen many, many soldiers. No 
 wonder they were light of foot when not more heavy 
 of age, for none have beards yet except some few 
 cavalry. 
 
 The English women are the only good-looking 
 women in Brussels ; though, with true English 
 Bullism, they vest here a complete Anglomanian 
 costume, preserving their French fashions for the 
 English winds to waft. The women of Brabant and 
 
BRUSSELS 59 
 
 the Netherlands are all ugly to the eye after the 
 piquant begins to pall, for there are no regular 
 beauties or beauty of expression, except that levity 
 which tells of lightness of cares and youth. 
 
 It is not for a foreigner to call a thing absurd 
 because it does not tally with his ideas, or the 
 ladies' costume, except the black mantle, should be 
 put down as such by me. The men also are short 
 and bad-looking, either consummate impudence 
 or complete insignificance — no individuality. The 
 indelicacy of these Belgians is gross ; all kinds of 
 disgusting books publicly sold, and exposed to the 
 eyes of all young damsels — beastliness publicly 
 exhibited on the public monuments — fountains with 
 men vomiting with effort a stream of water — and 
 still worse. The town (Brussels) is situated on an 
 eminence, and is really poor in comparison of the 
 other Belgic towns by us seen. 
 
 After dinner, having dressed, I went, having written 
 two letters, to the theatre. Mounting a voiture, I was 
 soon there. Ascending some stairs, I came to a door 
 where, after some knocking, a man took my money, 
 and gave me tickets, which, changed twice, brought 
 me to the first row of boxes. The first look at the 
 lobbies was sufficient to give me an idea of all the 
 rest — misery, misery, misery, wherever one turned — 
 to the floor, to the ceiling, to the wall, to the box- 
 
6o THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 wall, all garret of the St. Giles style. Most of the 
 doors had Abonnement written on them. I got into 
 one, and what a sight ! boxes dirty with filth. One 
 chandelier was sufficient for the pockets of a Brussels 
 manager, hung from the middle. Pit divided into 
 two parts of different prices, boxes into three, 
 and a gallery. Chairs, not benches, in the boxes. 
 Ladies came and sat and talked, and talked and sat 
 and stood, and went away. Many English ladies. 
 Orchestra began — all violins, seven in all. Curtain 
 up — a farce : no — it did not make me laugh. How 
 call that a theatrical amusement which only seems 
 fitted to excite the pleasurable sensation of yawn- 
 ing? It was French. An actress, the best amongst 
 them, spoke French like a base pig; another con- 
 torted the fine lady into one with a paralytic stroke 
 after sitting up at cards ; the gentlemen like purlieu- 
 bullies; and high life was copied from the waiting- 
 maids of butchers' ladies. I was a little surprised at 
 the applause that a lady actress gained. It moved 
 me astonishingly : not her acting, but the lookers-on 
 acting pleasure. At last came the wind whistling 
 through the reeds, the thunder-hurling cheeks, and lash- 
 ing hands, to my great admiration. It moved phlegm. 
 One who was to act Blondel was vomiting at 
 home. I went behind the scenes, and saw dismay in 
 every face, and terror in every limb. The curtain 
 drew up, and the play began. Hisses hisses, hisses. 
 
BRUSSELS 6i 
 
 It fell, and fear increased. Some time was spent 
 in cogitation. The venturous gold-decked hero 
 advanced, retired, was rebuked by the police and 
 forced to advance. Hisses. He said to the audience 
 he was forced to advance. They listened, and qui- 
 proquos commenced between the players and the 
 audience, with the sonorous hiss of anger. The police 
 saw all was in vain, and ordered the actors off the 
 boards. I in the meantime was chatting with two 
 apparent goddesses, who very concisely explained the 
 trembling of the actors, etc., by telling me of real 
 showers of eggs, etc. As I left the house I heard 
 groans and hollow sounds, and cries of "Give me back 
 my money : I am an abonne\ and have seen nothing." 
 I ran — I and the police pushing on, the mob pushing 
 us back, etc. Going along the lobbies, what was my 
 wonder to stumble on a bookseller's shop, where was 
 an assemblage of delicacies fit for the modest, and 
 wondrous delicate ! 
 
 May 3. — I saw in the street three dogs, of the bull- 
 dog race, dragging up a hill at a good pace what I 
 am sure two men would not have strength to drag. 
 I saw also a goat fastened to a child's car. I went 
 all over the town for a caleche — bought one for 
 75 louis. In the evening, having procured redingotes 
 (which I did not use), we mounted a coach and drove 
 to . Returned home, ate, and slept. 
 
 May 4. — Having risen, foolishly paid 40 naps, to 
 
62 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the coachmaker. My Lord and servant stepped into 
 the caleche. I and a servant got on horseback, and 
 went to Waterloo. We soon entered Soignies, which 
 on both sides formed a beautiful wood (not forest, for 
 it was not wild on either side) for several miles. The 
 avenue it formed varied in length : sometimes the end 
 was formed by a turn of the road, sometimes by the 
 mere perspective effect of narrowing. The trees are 
 all young — none of above thirty years' growth. We 
 then reached Waterloo, where were the head-quarters 
 of Napoleon. An officious host pressed us to order 
 dinner. We ran from his pressing, and advancing 
 came to St. Jean, where the boys continued the offer- 
 ings we first had at Waterloo of buttons, books, etc. 
 This was the village which gave the French name to 
 the battle, I believe, as it was the spot which Napo- 
 leon tried to gain. The view of the plain, as we 
 advanced to the right, struck us as fields formed 
 almost with the hopes that spirit and war would make 
 their havoc here. Gentle risings, sufficient to give 
 advantage to the attacked — few hedges — few trees. 
 There was no sign of desolation to attract the passer- 
 by ; if it were not for the importunity of boys, and 
 the glitter of buttons in their hands, there would be 
 no sign of war. The peasant whistled as blithely, 
 the green of Nature was as deep, and the trees waved 
 their branches as softly, as before the battle. The 
 
WATERLOO 63 
 
 houses were repaired. Only a few spots with white 
 plaster between the bricks pointed out the cannon's 
 ruin ; and in ruins there was only Hougoumont, which 
 was attacked so bravely and defended so easily — at 
 least so I should imagine from the few killed in the 
 garden and the appearance of the whole, while so 
 many French lay dead in the field. In the garden 
 were only 25 English killed, while in the field 15CX); 
 and on the other side 600 French, not counting the 
 wounded, were slain. Indeed, the gallantry, the 
 resolution and courage, which the French displayed 
 in attacking this place, guarded from the heights by 
 our cannon, and by our soldiers through the loop- 
 holes, would alone ennoble the cause in which they 
 fought. Before arriving at Hougoumont, the spots 
 where Hill, Picton, and the Scotch Greys did their 
 several deeds, were pointed out to us. The spot 
 which bore the dreadful charge of cavalry is only 
 marked by a hedge. The cuirassiers advancing, the 
 Scots divided — showed a masked battery, which fired 
 grape into the adverse party's ranks — then it was the 
 Scots attacked. I do not now so much wonder at 
 their victory. The cuirasses which we saw were almost 
 all marked with bullets, lance- and sabre-cuts. Buona- 
 parte and the French, our guide said, much admired 
 the good discipline and undaunted courage of the 
 short-kilted Scot. Going forward, the spot at which 
 
64 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the Prussians, the lucky gainers of the battle, emerged, 
 was pointed out to us — and, a little farther on, we 
 were shown the spot where Colonel Howard, my 
 friend's cousin, was buried before being carried to 
 England. Three trees, of which one is cut down, 
 mark the spot, now ploughed over. At Hougoumont 
 we saw the untouched chapel where our wounded 
 lay, and where the fire consumed the toes of a 
 crucifix. We there inscribed our names amongst 
 cits and lords. We found here a gardener who 
 pointed out the garden — the gate where the French 
 were all burnt — the gap in the hedge where the 
 French attempted, after the loss of 1500 men, to 
 storm the place — the field, quarter of an acre, in 
 which were heaps of Gallic corpses. The gardener 
 and the dog, which we saw, had been detained at 
 Hougoumont by General Maitland in case of a 
 retreat. The peasants declare that from 4 to 5 
 the affair was very, very doubtful, and that at the last 
 charge of the Imperial Guards Napoleon was certain 
 of being in Brussels in quatre heures, Wellington, 
 after the defeat of the Prussians etc., on the 17th 
 went to Waterloo, and determined where he would 
 place each corps. This was a great advantage : but, 
 in spite of the excellence of his position, he would 
 certainly have been defeated had it not been for the 
 fortunate advance of the Prussians. From Hougou- 
 
WATERLOO 65 
 
 mont we went to the red-tiled house which is the 
 
 rebuilding of the house where was Buonaparte's last 
 
 station and head-quarters. It was from this spot that 
 
 he viewed the arrival of the Prussians, under the idea 
 
 of their being the corps of Grouchy. It was here he 
 
 felt first the certainty of defeat, just after he had led 
 
 the old Imperial Guard, in the certainty of victory, to 
 
 his last attack. La Belle Alliance next appeared 
 
 along the road, here where Wellington and Blucher 
 
 met. The name is derived from a marriage in the 
 
 time of peace : it is now applicable to a war-meeting. 
 
 Thence we returned to St. Jean, after going again to 
 
 Hougoumont. There we were shown cuirasses, helms, 
 
 buttons, swords, eagles, and regiment-books. We 
 
 bought the helms, cuirasses, swords, etc., of an officer 
 
 and soldier of cuirassiers, besides eagles, cockades, 
 
 etc. Beggars, the result of English profusion. A 
 
 dinner, measured by some hungry John Bull's hungry 
 
 stomach. We rode off the field, my companion 
 
 singing a Turkish song — myself silent, full gallop 
 
 cantering over the field, the finest one imaginable 
 
 for a battle. The guide told us that the account 
 
 Buonaparte's guide gave of him after the battle was 
 
 that he only asked the road to Paris, not saying 
 
 anything else. 
 
 At Hougoumont various spots were pointed out : 
 amongst the rest the one where Maitland stood 
 5 
 
66 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 watching a telegraph on the neighbouring rise, which 
 told him what was going on on both sides. 
 
 We rode home together through Soignies forest 
 — black. The twilight made the whole length of the 
 road more pleasing. On reaching home, we found 
 the coach was jogged ; so much so that it would not 
 allow us to put confidence in it, etc. At last we gave 
 it into Mr. Gordon's hands. My friend has written 
 twenty-six stanzas (?) to-day — some on Waterloo. 
 
 [There are a few points in this narrative of May 4 
 which call for a little comment. 
 
 1. As to " the spot where Colonel Howard, my 
 
 friend's cousin, was buried before being carried to 
 
 England." Few passages in the 3rd canto of Childe 
 
 Harold, which in its opening deals with Byron's 
 
 experiences in these days, are better known than the 
 
 stanzas (29 to 31) where he celebrates the death of 
 
 " young gallant Howard." Stanza 30 is the one most 
 
 germane to our immediate purpose — 
 
 "There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, 
 And mine were nothing, had I such to give. 
 But, when I stood beneath the fresh green tree 
 Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, 
 And saw around me the wide field revive 
 With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring 
 Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, 
 With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 
 I tum'd from all she brought to those she could not bring." 
 
 2. The statement that "the coach was jogged" 
 
BRUSSELS 67 
 
 refers to that caleche which had been just bought in 
 Brussels for the servants — not to the elaborate travel- 
 ling-carriage. Some trouble ensued over the caliche. 
 The coachmaker who had sold it tried to make Lord 
 Byron pay up the balance of the price. Not carrying 
 his point, he got a warrant-officer to seize a different 
 vehicle, a chaise, belonging to the poet. The latter, 
 so far as appears, took no further steps. 
 
 3. To write twenty-six stanzas in one day is no 
 small feat ; especially if these are the nine-line stanzas 
 of Childe Harold, and if the substantial work of the 
 day consisted in riding from Brussels to Waterloo 
 and back, and deliberately inspecting the field of 
 battle. The entry, as written by Charlotte Polidori, 
 stands thus — " 26 St.," which I apprehend can only 
 mean "stanzas." If one were to suppose that the 
 stanzas thus written on May 4 were the first twenty- 
 six stanzas of Childe Harold, canto 3 (but this of 
 course is not a necessary inference), Byron now got 
 up to the stanza which begins 
 
 "And wild and high the 'Camerons' gathering' rose."] 
 
 I made up my accounts, and was not a little startled 
 by a deficit of 10 napoleons, which I at last found 
 was a mere miscalculation. Rode about thirty miles 
 in all. 
 
 Forgot to say I saw Sir Nath[aniel] Wraxall at 
 
68 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Dover, who, having introduced himself to Lord Byron 
 as a friend defamille, began talking, knocking his feet 
 in rattattat, still all the while oppressed by feeling 
 very awkward. 
 
 [I do not find in Byron's correspondence any refer- 
 ence to this interview, on April 25 or 26, with Sir 
 Nathaniel Wraxall. But, in his letter of April 25 to 
 his half-sister, he mentions that he met on the 24th 
 with Colonel Wildman, an old school-fellow, and later 
 on the purchaser of Newstead Abbey, who gave him 
 some details concerning the death of Colonel Howard 
 at Waterloo.] 
 
 At Brussels, the people were in a great stew, the 
 night of the battle of Waterloo — their servants and 
 others waking them every minute to tell them the 
 French were at the gates. Some Germans went there 
 with mighty great courage, in flight. Lord W[elling- 
 ton?] sent to a colonel to enquire whether he was 
 going to fly from or to the battle, giving him his 
 choice to act in either way. On hearing this, the said 
 colonel boldly faced about, and trotted to Brussels 
 with his troop. A supernumerary aide-de-camp, the 
 brother of N., with two others, was riding between 
 the ranks while the French were firing ; when, ours 
 crying out " They aim at you," all three were struck 
 in the jaw, much in the same place, dead. After the 
 battle, a friend asking what was become of N., the 
 
CHATEAU DU LAC 69 
 
 Serjeant pointed to his feet, saying " There," which 
 was fact. Dacosta, the guide, says that Buonaparte 
 was cool and collected till the Prussians arrived ; that 
 then he said to Bertrand, " That appears to be the 
 Prussian eagle " ; and, upon Bertrand's assenting, his 
 face became momentarily pale. He says that, when 
 he led up the Imperial Guard, on arriving at the red- 
 tiled house, he went behind a hillock, so as not to be 
 seen, and so gave them the slip. Wellington acted 
 the soldier when he should have acted the general, 
 and the light-limbed dancer when he should have 
 been the soldier. I cannot, after viewing the ground, 
 and bearing in mind the men's superior courage, give 
 Wellington the palm of generalship that has been 
 snatched for him by so many of his admirers. 
 Napoleon only took one glass of wine from the 
 beginning of the battle to the end of his flight. 
 
 May 5. — Got up at ten from fatigue. Whilst at 
 breakfast, there came a Mr. Pryse Gordon for L[ord] 
 B[yron]. I entertained him. He has been to Italy, 
 and travelled a great deal — a good-natured gentle- 
 man. Took him to see the carriage : there he intro- 
 duced me to his son by means of a trumpet. After 
 his departure we set off for the Chateau du Lac, 
 where we found the hind front much finer than the 
 other for want of the startling (?) dome and low- 
 windows. It has all its master-apartments on the 
 
70 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 ground-floor: they are extremely well laid out both 
 with regard to comfort and magnificence — they were 
 furnished by Nap[oleon]. We saw the bed where 
 Josephine, Marie Louise, and the Queen of Holland, 
 have been treading fast on one another's heels. The 
 hall for concerts divides the Emperor's from the 
 Empress' rooms — it has a rich appearance, and is 
 Corinthian. The flooring of the Emperor's is all 
 wood of different colours — checked — having to my eye 
 a more pleasing appearance than the carpeted ones of 
 the Empress. I sat down on two chairs on which had 
 sat he who ruled the world at one time. Some of his 
 eagles were yet remaining on the chairs. The servant 
 seemed a little astonished at our bowing before them. 
 We returned, it raining all the while. After dinner 
 Mr. G[ordon] came for us to go to coffee. We went, 
 and were graciously received ; Lord B[yron] as him- 
 self, I as a tassel to the purse of merit. I there saw 
 a painting of Rembrandt's wife or mother by himself, 
 which was full of life, and some verses by Walter 
 Scott written in the hostess' album, where he says 
 Waterloo will last longer than Cressy and Agincourt. 
 How different ! They only agree in one thing — that 
 they were both in the cause of injustice. The novels of 
 Casti were presented to me by Mr. Gordon, which I 
 was rather surprised at. We came over. Scott writes 
 in M[rs]. G[ordon's] book — 
 
BRUSSELS 71 
 
 " For one brief hour of deathless fame " [Scott]. 
 "Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame" [Byron]. 
 [The novels of the Abate Casti (who died in 1803) 
 are notoriously licentious : hence, I suppose, Polidori's 
 surprise at the presentation of them by Mr. Gordon. 
 Byron, it is stated by this gentleman, was asked by 
 Mrs. Gordon on May 5 to write some lines in her 
 album. He took the volume away with him, and on 
 the following day brought it back, having inserted in 
 it the two opening stanzas on Waterloo forming part 
 of canto 3 of Childe Harold — from 
 
 " Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust," 
 to 
 "He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain"] 
 
 May 6. — Mr. G[ordon] and son came while at break- 
 fast ; gave us letters, etc. Saw the little child again ; 
 B[yron] gave it a doll. 
 
 [It may be excusable to suppose that this trifling 
 incident is not wholly foreign to a stanza, 54, in the 
 3rd canto of Childe Harold. This stanza comes 
 immediately after Byron has begun to speak of the 
 Rhine, and incidentally of the afl"ection which his 
 half-sister bore him. Then he proceeds — 
 
 "And he had learn'd to love — I know not why, 
 For this in such as him seems strange of mood — 
 The helpless looks of blooming infancy. 
 Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued, 
 
72 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 To change like this, a mind so far imbued 
 With scorn of man, it little boots to know : 
 But thus it was ; and, though in solitude 
 Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow, 
 In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow."] 
 
 The carrossier came. Set off at two, passing through 
 a country increasing in inequalities. We arrived first 
 at Louvain, where we saw the outside of a beautiful 
 Town-hall, which is one of the prettiest pieces of 
 external fretwork I have seen. Thence we went to 
 Tirlemont, where was a Jubilee. Saints and sinners 
 under the red canopy (the sky dirty Indian-ink one) 
 were alike in the streets. Every street had stuck in 
 it, at a few paces from the house-walls, fir-branches 
 1 6 or 17 feet high, distant from one another 5 or 6 
 feet. Thence to St. Trond, where we ate — and slept, 
 I suppose. The country is highly cultivated, and 
 the trees older. The avenues have a more majestic 
 appearance from the long swells of ground and the 
 straight roads, but there is more squalid misery than 
 I have seen anywhere. The houses are many of them 
 mud, and the only clean part about them is the white- 
 wash on the external walls. Dunghills before some 
 must be trodden on before entering the houses. The 
 towns also fall off greatly in neat and comfortable 
 looks. The walls round them look ruined and deso- 
 late, and give a great idea of insecurity. We put the 
 servants on board-wages. 
 
BATTICE 73 
 
 May 7.— Set off from St. Trond at 11. The 
 country is highly cultivated ; continual hill and dale ; 
 lower orders miserable in perfection ; houses built of 
 mud, the upper storeys of which are only built of 
 beams, the mud having fallen off. Bridges thrown 
 over the dirt they were too idle to remove. Dung- 
 hills at their doors, and ditches with black fetid water 
 before their first step. Liege has a pretty neigh- 
 bourhood, but the town itself is filthy and disagree- 
 able. They visited our passports here at three 
 different places. The hill above the town is enor- 
 mously steep ; and from some way beyond it has a 
 beautiful view of Liege with its towers and domes — 
 of the country with its many cots and villas — and of 
 the Meuse. The road now lies through a scene 
 where cottages are spread like trees, and hedges 
 like furrows of corn, the fields are so minutely 
 divided. A little farther still we had a most splen- 
 did view through many miles. From a valley we 
 could see everything clearly, crowded in a blue tint, 
 and in a river through it we could see the shadows 
 of the trees. The cottages are improving, and the 
 roads becoming the worst ever seen ; paved still, but 
 so horridly hilled and vallied that the rolling of the 
 carriage is like the rolling of a ship. 
 
 We came at last to Battice ; but before entering 
 we passed by a village where beggar little cherubs 
 
74 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 came to the carriage-side, and running cried out, 
 " Donnez-nous quelque chose. Monsieur le chef de 
 bataillon " ; another, " Monsieur le general." And a 
 third little urchin, who gesticulated as well as cried, 
 perceiving the others had exhausted the army, cried, 
 " Un sou, Messieurs les rois des Hanov6riens ! " We 
 arrived at Battice, where beggars, beggars. There 
 we found horses just come in. 
 
 After debate (wherein I was for Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 L[ord] B[yron] for stopping) we set off; and such 
 a jolting, roUing, knocking, and half-a-dozen etc., as 
 our carriage went through, I never saw, which put 
 L[ord] B[yron] to accusing me of bad advice ; clear- 
 ing however as the road mended. The rain fell into 
 a pond, to be illuminated by sunshine before we 
 reached Aix-la-Chapelle at half-past twelve. 
 
 May 8. — Got up late. Went to see the Cathedral : 
 full of people, lower ranks, hearing mass. Miserable 
 painting, architecture, etc. Saw also a church wherein 
 was no particular picture or anything. At Liege the 
 revolutionists had destroyed the fine Cathedral. 
 
 A German boy who led me about Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 on my asking him in broken German about the 
 baths, led me to a very different place. I was 
 astonished to find myself in certain company. The 
 baths are hot sulphuretted - hydrogen - impregnated 
 water. The sulphur-beds are only shown to dukes 
 
ST. JULIERS 75 
 
 and kings : so a kingdom is good for something. 
 I saw the baths themselves : like others, not very 
 clean-looking. 
 
 We left Aix-la-Chapelle at twelve, going through 
 a fine country, with no hedges but fine woods in the 
 distance. We arrived at St. Juliers, strongly forti- 
 fied, where they took our names at entering and at 
 exiting. It is a neat town, and was besieged last 
 year. We were at the post taken by a man for 
 Frenchmen, and he told us we had been driven from 
 Russia by a band of the Emperor. He seemed to 
 be very fond of them, and gave as a reason that he 
 had been employed by them for many years. And, 
 I forgetfully saying, " What ! were they here ? " — 
 "Yes, and farther." I answered, "Jusqu'a Moscou." 
 " Oui, et presque plus loin." That " presque " means 
 much. The French were not generally liked, I be- 
 lieve. The lower orders perhaps liked them, but the 
 middle, I doubt. But I cannot say ; I may perhaps 
 be influenced by the opinion of a beautiful face of 
 this town, who, on my asking her whether the dames 
 fiaimaient pas beaucoup les Frangais^ answered, " Oui^ 
 les dames publiquesr 
 
 We find it a great inconvenience that the Poste is 
 a separate concern, and generally pretty distant from 
 the inn. The women are many of them very beauti- 
 ful, and many of them, as well as the men, have fine 
 
76 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 dark eyes and hair. The men wear ear-rings, and 
 curl their hair ; which, if I remember rightly, was the 
 custom in the time of Tacitus. Many of the women 
 wear their hair combed quite back, and upon it a 
 little square piece of linen. The French were par- 
 ticularly polite during the siege. 
 
 We entered the dominions of the King of Prussia 
 a little beyond Battice. It causes a strange sensation 
 to an Englishman to pass into one state from another 
 without crossing any visible line. Indeed, we should 
 not have perceived that we had, if we had not been 
 stopped by a Belgian guard who asked us if we had 
 anything to declare. The difference is, however, very 
 striking. The men, the women, everything, improve 
 — except the cottages. The people look cleaner, 
 though everything else is dirty ; contrary to the 
 Belgians, they seem to collect their cleanliness upon 
 themselves, instead of throwing it upon their cots, 
 tins, trees, and shrubs. 
 
 We arrived at Cologne after much bad, sandy, 
 heavy road, at ii. The pavement begins to be 
 interrupted after Aix, but ends almost entirely after 
 St. Juliers. Cologne is upon a flat on the Rhine. 
 We were groaning at having no sight of far-famed 
 Cologne, when we came suddenly under its battle- 
 ments and towers. We passed through its fortifica- 
 tions without question. After having found the gates 
 
COLOGNE 77 
 
 shut, and feed the porter, we found inns full, and 
 at last got into the H6tel de Prague. 
 
 May 9. — Got up very bad.^ Sat down to breakfast. 
 Just done, we heard some singing. Enquiry told us, 
 buyable. Got them up. A harp played by a dark- 
 haired German, pretty, and two fiddlers. She played 
 and sang The Troubadour, which brought back a 
 chain of Scotch recollections, and a German song; 
 then a beautiful march, in which the music died away 
 and then suddenly revived. After a waltz we dis- 
 missed them. We both mounted a voiture, and drove 
 through the town to the Cathedral. Great part 
 pulled down by the revolutionists, and the roof of 
 the nave obliged to be restored with plain board — 
 a staring monument over Gallic ruin. There is fine 
 stained glass, and the effect of its being very high 
 anH variegated in the choir is beautiful. We saw 
 a fine painting here by Kalf : vide Taschbuch. The 
 tomb of the three kings said to be worth three 
 millions of francs, and an immensely rich treasury 
 wherein was a sacrament worth one million of francs. 
 In falling down a step I broke a glass, for which they 
 at first would not take anything — which at last cost 
 me three francs. Kept countenance amazingly well. 
 
 Went to see St. Ursula's Church, where we were 
 
 ^ Such is the word written by Charlotte Polidori. I fancy it 
 ought to be " late." 
 
78 THE DIARY OF POLIDORl 
 
 shown virgins' skulls of ninety years old, male and 
 female, all jumbled into a mass of ii,cxx) virgins' 
 bones arranged all in order— some gilt, etc. A whole 
 room bedecked with them. All round, indeed, what- 
 ever we saw were relics, skulls ; some in the heads of 
 silver-faced busts, some arranged in little cells with 
 velvet cases, wherein was worked the name of each. 
 Paintings of St. Ursula, etc. Asked for a piece out 
 of the masses : only got a smile, and a point of a 
 finger to an interdiction in Latin, which I did not 
 read. 
 
 We went to see a picture of Rubens, The Nailing 
 of St. Peter to a Cross ; the best design, though not 
 very good, I yet have seen of his. A German artist 
 copying it spoke English to us. 
 
 Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wall- 
 raf : got admission. Found a venerable old man who 
 has spent his life in making a collection of paintings 
 and other objects of vertu belonging to his country, 
 Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native 
 town. 
 
 [This is no doubt the Wallraf who was joint founder 
 of the celebrated Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. 
 The statement which ensues as to an early oil-painter 
 named Kaft is noticeable ; whether correct I am un- 
 able to say. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum does not 
 contain any painting by Tintoretto to which the name 
 
COLOGNE 79 
 
 Campavella could apply: there is a fine picture by 
 him of Ovid and Corinna.l 
 
 Many pictures were extremely good, especially 
 painting of individuals. Kaft was a native of this 
 town, who painted in oil before oil-painting was 
 known. Saw some Poussins, Claude Lorraines. Some 
 moderate. A Tintoretto of Campavella beautiful : 
 colouring and drawing strong and expressive. A 
 Rembrandt and a Teniers, etc. A master of Rubens. 
 A copy in colours from the drawing of Raphael by 
 one of his disciples. Cologne has stamped more 
 coins than some empires, and has coined twenty-six 
 kinds of gold. He had made drawings of them, but 
 the revolution stopped it. The revolutionary Gauls, 
 he said with a tear in his eye, had destroyed many 
 very valuable relics of Cologne ; and, pointing to a 
 leaf of a missal with another tear, he said : " Many 
 like this once adorned our churches : this is all." He 
 had the original manuscript of Albert le Grand, 
 History of Animals ; Titian's four designs of the 
 Caesars at Polenham, with his own handwriting ; the 
 Albert Durer's sketch of Christ's head which belonged 
 to Charles 1 1 ; and a painting of Albert Durer's 
 Master.^ He wishes for a copy of any of Caxton's 
 printing in England. 
 
 ^ Only an initial is written, "M" : but I suppose "Master"— 
 i.e. Michael Wohlgemuth — is meant. 
 
8o THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Went to buy some books. Found Miss Helmhoft, 
 a fine woman. Had a long confab. Bought more 
 books than I wanted. Heard her spout German 
 poetry that I did not understand ; and laughed at 
 the oddity of her gesticulation, which she took for 
 laughter at the wit of a poet who was describing 
 the want of a shirt — and was highly pleased. 
 
 The French destroyed convents, and made of them 
 public places for walking. 
 
 Have been taken for servants, Frenchmen, mer- 
 chants — never hardly for English. Saw the Rhine 
 last night — fine mass of water, wide as the Thames 
 some way below Blackwall ; but no tide, and very 
 deep. Town dirty, very decayed, badly paved, worse 
 lighted, and few marks of splendour and comfort. 
 
 May 10. — We have seen crucifixes for these four 
 days at every turn, some made of wood, some of 
 stone, etc. Set off, after having defeated the im- 
 position of a postman, to Bonn ; the scenery not any- 
 thing particular till we see the Seven Hills, a large 
 amphitheatre on the right, glimpses on the left of the 
 Rhine, and the Seven Hills. Bonn at last appeared, 
 with its steeples, and on the neighbouring hills castles 
 and cots, towers, and (not) towns.^ 
 
 1 It seems rather odd that Polidori should make this jotting, 
 " and (not) towns." Perhaps he aimed to controvert the phrase, 
 "scattered cities crowning these," in Byron's poem quoted 
 further on. 
 
THE RHINE 8i 
 
 I saw yesterday a picture of Rembrandt's with 
 three lights in it very well managed, at Wallrafs. 
 
 Saw R. Simmons' writing in the police-book at 
 Bonn, and wrote to Soane. 
 
 [This was John, the son of Sir John Soane, founder 
 of the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.] 
 
 The innkeeper makes you put your name — whence 
 — whither — profession and age — every night. Rogues 
 all of them, charging much. 
 
 May II. — We saw the first vines a little before 
 entering Cologne some days ago. We left Bonn at 
 eleven, the town having nothing in particular. The 
 Seven Hills were the first that struck our sight on 
 one of the highest pinnacles in Drachenfels, now a 
 mere ruin, formerly a castle of which many a tale is 
 told. There was by the roadside a monument raised 
 upon the spot where one noble brother killed another. 
 Crucifixes all the way. We had the river on one 
 side, whence rose hills (not mountains) cultivated 
 halfway for vines — and the rest, nuts, shrubs, oak, etc. 
 Towers on pinnacles, in ruin ; villages (with each its 
 spire) built of mud. 
 
 Cultivation in a high degree ; no hedges, ground 
 minutely divided into beds rather than fields ; women 
 working in the fields ; ox and horse ploughing ; oxen 
 draw by their heads alone. Peasantry happy-looking 
 and content. Two points particularly struck us — 
 
82 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the Drachenfels, and the view at a distance before 
 
 coming to Videnhar when the distant hills were 
 
 black with the rain. But the whole way it is one of 
 
 the finest scenes, I imagine, in the world. The large 
 
 river with its massy swells and varied towered banks. 
 
 We changed horses at Bemagne, and passed over a 
 
 road first cut by Aurelius, Theodoric, and Buonaparte. 
 
 B[uonaparte]'s name is everywhere. Who did this ? 
 
 N[apoleon] B[uonaparte]. — Who that? — He. There 
 
 is an inscription to record this. Andernach — a fine 
 
 entrance from Bemagne, with its massy towers and 
 
 square-spired church. From Andernach we passed 
 
 on. Saw on the other side Neuwied, a town owing 
 
 its existence to the mere toleration of religion. It 
 
 is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since 
 
 Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at 
 
 a distance ; went to it. There was inscribed " The 
 
 army of the Sambre and the Moselle to its general-in- 
 
 chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble 
 
 slabs broken, and it is falling. But — 
 
 " Glory of the fallen brave 
 Shall men remember though forgot their grave," 
 
 and the enemies may launch malicious darts against 
 it. After Andernach the Rhine loses much. The 
 valley is wider, and the beautiful, after the almost 
 sublime, palls, and man is fastidious. 
 
 [The celebrated lyric by Byron introduced into 
 
COBLENTZ 83 
 
 Childe Harold^ an address to his half-sister, is stated 
 farther on to have been written on this very day. I 
 cite the first stanza — 
 
 "The castled crag of Drachenfels 
 Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 
 Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
 Between the banks which bear the vine ; 
 And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, 
 And fields which promise corn and wine. 
 And scattered cities crowning these, 
 Whose far white walls along them shine, 
 Have strew'd a scene which I should see 
 With double joy wert thou with me."] 
 
 About a mile from Coblentz we saw Marceau's tomb 
 — too dark. Crossed the bridge over the Moselle, 
 entered Coblentz ; asked of military, no pass ; went to 
 inns, rascals. Went to the Trois Suisses — well served ; 
 fine view of Ehrenbreitstein fortress in sight. When 
 French besieged it, Marceau was here at this inn, 
 and the cannon-ball pierced it several times. — There 
 were 84 French officers here, when they would not 
 believe the Cossacks would pass ; they had to fly as 
 quick as horses could convey them, for the C[ossacks], 
 getting into boats, made their horses swim across. 
 C[ossack]s rascals — ate and drank and never paid. 
 The general of them mean into the bargain ; for he 
 sent the waiter in search of a louis he had never 
 dropped, and went off. — A flying bridge in face 
 of me. 
 
84 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 [Marceau died in 1796 of a wound received near 
 Altenkirchen, at the age of only twenty-seven. High 
 honours were paid to his remains both by his own 
 army and by the Austrians whom he had been com- 
 bating. Polidori passes rapidly from the affair of 
 Marceau to that of eighty-four French officers and 
 a body of Cossacks : but it is clear that these two 
 matters have no real connexion : the latter must 
 relate to 18 15 or 18 14. Byron devotes to Marceau 
 two stanzas of Childe Harold — 
 
 " By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, 
 There is a small and simple pyramid 
 Crowning the summit of the verdant mound. 
 Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, 
 Our enemy's : but let not that forbid 
 Honour to Marceau ; o'er whose early tomb 
 Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid, 
 Lamenting and yet envying such a doom. 
 Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. 
 
 " Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc. 
 
 General Hoche, although a separate monument to him 
 was observed by Byron and Polidori, was in fact 
 buried in the same tomb with Marceau. He died at 
 Wetzlar in 1797, aged twenty-nine. It may be 
 noticed that Byron (line 4) writes *' heroes'," plural, 
 followed by " enemy's," singular. " Heroes' " must be 
 intended for both Marceau and Hoche, and I suspect 
 that " enemy's " is a misprint for " enemies'."] 
 
EHRENBREITSTEIN 85 
 
 May 12. — Got up. Looked at the fine view, and 
 went to the bath, which was at a maltster's — 30 
 sous. Thence entered a Catholic church — organ — 
 children singing, which had a fine effect. A copy of 
 Rubens — lineal. Breakfasted. 
 
 Mounted a caleche, and went to Marceau's monu- 
 ment. The tomb of heroes made into a certain place 
 very much expressed the flickering flame of fame. 
 Thence to the Chartreuse : deserted, ruined, window- 
 less, roofless, and tenantless — with another in sight in 
 the same state. Plenty of reliefs on the roadside 
 belonging to the Road to Calvary, an oratory on 
 the hillside, where were many peasants bowing in 
 reverence. Thence to the flying bridge managed 
 by boats fastened in the stream with a rope, and 
 by the rudder. 
 
 Saw a motley group of peasants with their head- 
 dresses of gold and crimson or green with the steel 
 pin. Cocked hat, blue coat and stockinged heroes 
 with a fork. Ofiicers, artillery-men, etc. ; crosses given 
 apparently with as profuse a hand to the soldiers as 
 to the roadside. 
 
 Went to Ehrenbreitstein. Everything broken by 
 gunpowder; immense masses of solid stone and 
 mortar thrown fifty yards from their original situation ; 
 ruined walls, gateways, and halls — nothing perfect. 
 Splendid views thence — Coblentz, Rhine, Moselle 
 
86 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 with its bridge, mountains, cultivation, vines, wilder- 
 ness, everything below my feet. Mounted again. 
 Passed the Rhine in a boat (rowed), looking very 
 like the Otaheitan canoes. Into the carriage — set 
 off. Scenes increasing in sublimity. The road raised 
 from the side of the river without parapet : two 
 precipices coming to the road headlong. Indeed the 
 river reaches foot to foot — splendid, splendid, splendid. 
 Saw the fort belonging once to Muhrfrey, where he 
 raised customs, and resisted in consequence sixty 
 cities. Arrived at St. Goar. At the first post saw 
 the people in church ; went to hear them sing — 
 fine. 
 
 May 13. — Left St. Goar. Found scenery sublime 
 to Bingen. Men with cocked hats and great buckles 
 hacking at the vines. The scenery after Bingen 
 gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity. Immense 
 plain to the mounts, with the Rhine in medio, 
 covered with trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to 
 Mayence made by Nap[oleon] ; his name has been 
 erased from the inscription on the column com- 
 memorative of the work. Insolence of power ! 
 
 Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above 
 it of red sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prus- 
 sians, all in the town — belonging to all. The best 
 town we have seen since Ghent. 
 
 [Mayence was at this date, locally, in the Grand 
 
MAYENCE 87 
 
 Duchy of Hesse : but as a fortress it appertained to 
 the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by 
 Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps 
 Bavarians)]. 
 
 One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday 
 a beautiful appearance — two rainbows, one on the 
 top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced 
 the rainbow-hues. 
 
 Arrived at Mayence at 6J. Saw along the Rhine 
 many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord] 
 B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago: 
 written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See Childe 
 Haroldy from " The Castled Crag of Drachenfels " to 
 " Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine." ^ 
 
 May 14. — From Mayence, where I saw the spot 
 where they said lately stood the house where printing 
 was invented ; it had been pulled down by the French. 
 The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had 
 taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw 
 the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the 
 last siege the town underwent. The reliefs — some 
 of which were in a good style — many decapitated. 
 There was a German marshal who was represented 
 as gravely putting forth his powdered head from 
 
 1 These are the precise words as they stand in Charlotte 
 Polidori's transcript. It is to be presumed that Dr. Polidori 
 wrote them some while after May 13, i8i6. 
 
88 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 under a tombstone he has just lifted up — ^with an 
 inscription saying " I am here." 
 
 From Mayence we went to Mannheim through a 
 fine country. Crossed the Rhine on a bridge of 
 boats. Taken very ill with a fever at Mannheim — 
 could not write my Journal. 
 
 May 15. — Being a little recovered, set off. Fine 
 alleys of Lombardy-poplars and horse-chestnuts — 
 neat villages. Entered Carlsruhe through a grove of 
 Scotch firs and other trees that had a fine effect. 
 Saw the Palace. 
 
 Entered the inn, and was very ill. Took ipecac, 
 and op. gr. 15. Headache, vertigo, tendency to faint- 
 ing, etc. Magnesia and lemon acid — a little better, 
 no effect. 
 
 Went a drive about the town. Saw the neatest 
 town we have yet met with : the only objection is the 
 houses stuccoed white — bad for the eyes. Saw the 
 outside of the Palace, and went into the garden laid 
 out in the English manner. 
 
 Went home : dreadful headaches : ate some stewed 
 apples ; took some more magn[esia] and acid ; had no 
 effect ; lay down ; got up after two hours. Was just 
 going out when L[ord] B[yron] came to take from 
 my hand a plated candlestick, to give me a brass one. 
 Got on a few steps; fainted. My fall brought the 
 servants to me. Took 4 pills ; going out again, when 
 
CARLSRUHE 89 
 
 L[ord] B[yron] made the servant put down the 
 plated candlestick, to take up a brass one ; went 
 to bed. 
 
 [This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd 
 incident, not easily accounted for. One cannot 
 suppose that Byron simply aimed at humiliating or 
 mortifying his physician. There must have been 
 a candle in each candlestick ; and it is conceivable 
 that the candle in the brass one was the longer, and 
 therefore the more suitable for an invalid who might 
 have needed it throughout the night.] 
 
 Medicine had violent effect : better on the whole, 
 though weak. 
 
 Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at 
 my chamber-door, who told me he had heard so bad 
 an account of my positively dying that he came to 
 enquire how I found myself. I asked him in. He 
 took care to tell us he was a great friend of the 
 Grand Duke, who had sent his groom of the stole 
 (he called it stool) in search of lodgings for the 
 worthy Mayor ;^ gave us a long sermon about 
 rheumatism, routes, etc. ; left us. In the evening 
 he sent in the Guide du Voyageur en les pays de 
 r Europe J begging in return some of L[ord] B[yron's] 
 poems. 
 
 1 I don't understand " Mayor " in this context : should it be 
 "Mylor"? 
 
90 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Went out. Saw a church. Columns like firs — 
 Corinthian, golden capitals : loaded everywhere with 
 gilt, perhaps tawdry, but fine-tawdry. The environs 
 are beautiful. Drove a great deal about : fine trees 
 and fine cultivation. 
 
 May 1 8. — From Carlsruhe to Offenberg; much 
 better. Slept halfway : blinds down the other, so 
 nothing to mention except fine trees, fine cocked 
 hats, fine women, and yellow-coated postillions. 
 
 May 19. — Set off from Offenberg; saw some scenes 
 that pleased me much ; hills and clouds upon them ; 
 woods with mists. Passed through Freiburg, where we 
 saw the steeple pervious to the top with trellis-work 
 showing the light, which had to my eyes a beautiful 
 appearance. 
 
 I think Charles, when he said, " The German for his 
 horse," remembered the G[erman] postillions ; for they 
 talk to theirs, and the horses on their part listen and 
 seem to understand. The greater part of to-day I 
 have found the ladies in a strange costume of short 
 wide red petticoats with many folds, and a hat of 
 straw as wide as a wheel. Arrived at Krolzingen to 
 sleep. Left Krolzingen : got to a hill. Fine view 
 thence : the Alps, the Rhine, the Jura mountains, 
 and a fine plain before us — fine country. Crossed 
 the Rhine, and were in Switzerland. The town upon 
 unequal ground — some parts very high, and some 
 
JURA MOUNTAINS 91 
 
 low ; the greater part very narrow streets. After tea 
 went to take a walk : went upon the Rhine bridge — 
 upon a hill in the town [Bale presumably]. 
 
 May 21. — Went to see a panorama of Thun, the 
 first Swiss one : crowded foolishly with people, and 
 too small. Saw a gallery that the artist had formed. 
 A fine Raphael, not his ; a good Rembrandt, the first 
 I saw historical ; a Circumcision ; a head of the 
 caricaturist David ; two heads of Divinity ; a Christ 
 and Virgin — mere pieces of flesh and drapery. 
 Went to a marchand d'estampes. Saw there NelsorCs 
 Deaths Chatham's ditto, and other pictures of England. 
 The Dance of Death has been destroyed : but it was 
 not Holbein's, but his restorer's. The collection is 
 dispersed, that once was here, of his paintings. 
 
 Agreed with a voiturier to take our carriages to 
 Geneva in five days. Set off. Country increases 
 from hills to mountains with great beauty. Passed 
 
 through Lipstadt and came to . Went before 
 
 supper to climb a hill where we found a goatherd 
 who could not understand the French that asked for 
 milk till it had the commentary, " We will pay for it." 
 The scene was very fine : to the right, beautiful ; to 
 the left, it had a tendency to sublimity ; on one side, 
 hills covered to the top with trees ; on the other, 
 mountains with bald pates. Came down. Found 
 the servants playing at bowls. They were obliged to 
 
92 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 run the bowls along a narrow board to the men. 
 Supper : read Arabian Nights ; went to bed. 
 
 May 22. — Left at 9 ; passed the Jura moun- 
 tains, where we saw some fine castellated scenery, 
 and women ornamented strangely — amazingly short 
 petticoats, not below the knee, with black crape 
 rays round their heads that make them look 
 very spidery. Soleure is a neat town with stone 
 fortifications, and a clean church with fountains 
 before it. The houses in this neighbourhood have 
 a pleasing strange appearance on account of the 
 roofs, which slant out on every side a great way. 
 Immense number of Scotch firs — roads fine. Voi- 
 turiers slow, and have eight francs of drink-money a 
 day, being two ; which being too much according 
 to the Guide du Voyageur en Europe^ where it is 
 said \\ fr., we showed it to our courier, who was 
 
 in a passion. Came to , where we slept. 
 
 May 23. — Left : got a sight of some fine 
 
 Alpine snow-capped mountains. Came to Berne ; 
 delightfully situated ; beautiful streets with arcades 
 all their length. Dined there. Saw a splendidly 
 beautiful view coming down a hill, with hills covered 
 with fir, ash, beech, and all the catalogue of trees ; 
 Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts behind, 
 with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived 
 at Morat ; neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crown 
 
AVENCHES 93 
 
 inn. All the way had debates whether clouds were 
 mountains, or mountains clouds. 
 
 May 24. — The innkeeper at Morat, being a little 
 tipsy, and thinking every Englishman (being a 
 philosophe) must be a philosophe like himself, 
 favoured us with some of his infidel notions while 
 serving us at supper. Near Morat was fought the 
 battle wherein the Burgundians were so completely 
 thrashed. Their bones, of which we took pieces, 
 are now very few ; once they formed a mighty 
 heap in the chapel, but both were destroyed by 
 the Burgundian division when in Switzerland, and 
 a tree of liberty was planted over it, which yet 
 flourishes in all its verdure — the liberty has flown 
 from the planters' grasp. Saw Aventicum ; there 
 remains sufficient of the walls to trace the boundaries 
 of the ancient town ; but of all the buildings, both 
 for Gods and men, nothing but a column remains, 
 and that the only remnant for more than a hundred 
 years. There are mosaic pavements, and even the 
 streets may be perceived in a dry summer by the 
 grass being thinner. The mosaic in a barn, probably 
 once of a temple, was pretty perfect till the Gallic 
 cavalry came and turned it into a stable. It is 
 formed of little pieces of black, white, and red bricks ; 
 little now remains. There was also a copper vessel 
 in the middle ; that too has disappeared. The town 
 
94 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 is shamefully negligent of the antiquities of their 
 fathers, for there is another more beautiful and per- 
 fect mosaic pavement discovered, but which they have 
 allowed the proprietor to cover again with mould 
 rather than buy it. We found in a barn heads, 
 plinths, capitals, and shafts, heaped promiscuously. 
 The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and 
 beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rude- 
 ness of first art — a capital of a strange mixed order. 
 There is the Amphitheatre, hollow yet pretty perfect, 
 but no stonework visible ; overgrown with trees ; 
 the size, my companion told me, was larger than 
 common. In the town there were some beautiful 
 fragments of ornament-sculpture incorporated in the 
 walls ; all marble. In the walls of the church we 
 sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison 
 mentions to Julia Alpinula. 
 
 [Both to Morat and to Aventicum (Avenches) 
 Byron devotes some stanzas in Childe Harold, 63 to 
 67 y and notes to correspond. Morat he terms " the 
 proud, the patriot field." He speaks of the hoard 
 of bones, and says : " I ventured to bring away as 
 much as may have made a quarter of a hero," for 
 " careful preservation." His reference to Aventicum 
 and the inscription to Julia Alpinula reads rather 
 curiously in the light of Polidori's avowal that 
 " we sought in vain for the inscription." Byron's 
 
AVENCHES 95 
 
 readers must always, I apprehend, have inferred the 
 contrary. 
 
 "By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 
 A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days. 
 'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, 
 And looks as with the wild bewilder'd gaze 
 Of one to stone converted by amaze, 
 Yet still with consciousness : and there it stands, 
 Making a marvel that it not decays, 
 When the coeval pride of human hands, 
 
 Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands. 
 
 " And there — oh sweet and sacred be the name ! — 
 Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave 
 Her youth to Heaven : her heart, beneath a claim 
 Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. 
 Justice is sworn 'gainst tears ; and hers would crave 
 The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, — 
 And then she died on him she could not save. 
 Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, 
 And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. 
 
 ^ Byron's note runs thus : " Julia Alpinula, a young 
 Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour 
 to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by 
 Aulus Caecina. Her epitaph was discovered many 
 years ago. It is thus : * Julia Alpinula hie jaceo. 
 Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deae Aventiae Sacerdos. 
 Exorare patris necem non potui : Male mori in fatis 
 illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no human 
 composition so affecting as this, nor a history of 
 greater interest. These are the names and actions," 
 etc.] 
 
96 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 I copied the one below on account of its medical 
 tendency. The letters in this as well as in all the 
 other inscriptions are formed like our Roman print, 
 not in the least imperfect : " Nvminib. Avg. et Genio 
 Col. I. El. Apollini Sagr. 9. Postum Hermes lib. 
 Medicis et Professorib, D.S.D." 
 
 From Aventicum or Avenches we went to Payerne. 
 We have seen in many places boys leading goats just 
 in the antique style. Thence we went to Moudon 
 — dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine 
 view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to 
 the view descending to Morat. 
 
 Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein 
 
 defended himself against the French who 
 
 besieged it for a month : looks so weak, it seems a 
 wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so in- 
 teresting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical- 
 roofed and no battlements. We saw the lake, but 
 for a long time doubted whether it was a cloud 
 below, a mist before, or water beneath us. Entered 
 Lausanne. 
 
 May 25. — Left Lausanne, after having looked at a 
 bookseller's, who showed me a fine collection of 
 bad books for four louis. Enquired for Dewar : 
 name not known. We went along the lake, that a 
 little disappointed me, as it does not seem so broad 
 as it really is, and the mountains near it, though 
 
SECHERON 97 
 
 covered with snow, have not a great appearance on 
 account of the height [of the] lake itself. We saw 
 Mont Blanc in the distance ; ethereal in appearance, 
 mingling with the clouds ; it is more than 60 miles 
 from where we saw it. It is a classic ground we go 
 over. Buonaparte, Joseph, Bonnet, Necker, Stael, 
 Voltaire, Rousseau, all have their villas (except 
 Rousseau). Genthoud, Ferney, Coppet, are close 
 to the road. 
 
 [Perhaps some readers may need to be reminded 
 who Bonnet was. He was a great physicist, both 
 practical and speculative, Charles Bonnet, author of a 
 Traits d'Insectologie, a Traite de Vusage des Feuilles, 
 Contemplations de la Nature^ Palingenesie Philosophiquey 
 and other works. Born in Geneva in 1720, he died 
 in 1793.] 
 
 ^We arrived at S^cheron — where L[ord B[yron], 
 having put his age down as 100, received a letter 
 half-an-hour after from I[nn] K[eeper?] — a thing 
 that seems worthy of a novel. It begins again to 
 be the land of the vine. Women, who till the Pays 
 de Vaud were ugly, improving greatly. 
 
 May 26. — After breakfast, and having made up the 
 accounts to to-day, and having heard that the voi- 
 turiers made a claim of drink-money all the way 
 back, we ordered a caleche ; but, happening to go 
 into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering, 
 
98 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 we pushed out upon the Leman Lake. After rowing 
 some time, happening to come to the ferry, we found 
 the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it was 
 pris pour un monsieur Anglais^ who happened to be 
 
 } We got another, and went out to bathe, 
 
 I rode first with L[ord] B[yron] upon the field of 
 Waterloo ; walked first to see Churchill's tomb ; 
 bathed and rowed first on the Leman Lake. — It did 
 us much good. Dined ; entered the caleche ; drove 
 through Geneva, where I saw an effect of building that 
 pleased me : it was porticoes from the very roof of 
 the high houses to the bottom. 
 
 Went to the house beyond Cologny that belonged 
 to Diodati. They ask five-and-twenty louis for it a 
 month. Narrow, not true. The view from his house 
 is very fine ; beautiful lake ; at the bottom of the 
 crescent is Geneva. Returned. Pictet called, but 
 L[ord] B[yron] said " not at home." 
 
 [There were two Genevan Pictets at this date, both 
 public men of some mark. One was Jean Marc Jules 
 Pictet de Sergy, 1768 to 1828 ; the other, the Chevalier 
 Marc Auguste Pictet, 1752 to 1825. As Polidori 
 speaks farther on of Pictet as being aged about forty- 
 six, the former would appear to be meant. He had 
 
 ^ No name is given : should it be Shelley ? Another English- 
 man who was in this locality towards the same date was Robert 
 Southey. 
 
SECHERON 99 
 
 been in Napoleon's legislative chamber from i8cx) to 
 1 815, and was afterwards a member of the representa- 
 tive council of Geneva. — The Villa Diodati was the 
 house where Milton, in 1639, had visited Dr. John 
 Diodati, a Genevese Professor of Theology. Polidori's 
 compact phrase, " narrow, not true," is by no means 
 clear ; perhaps he means that some one had warned 
 him that the Villa Diodati (called also the Villa Belle 
 Rive) was inconveniently narrow, but, on inspecting 
 the premises, he found the statement incorrect.] 
 
 May 27. — Got up; went about a boat; got one for 
 3 fr. a day ; rowed to S^cheron. Breakfasted. Got 
 into a carriage. Went to Banker's, who changed our 
 money, and afterwards left his card. To Pictet — not 
 at home. Home, and looked at accounts : bad temper 
 on my side. Went into the boat, rowed across to Dio- 
 darti ; cannot have it for three years ; English family. 
 Crossed again ; I went ; L[ord] B[yron] back. Get- 
 ting out, L[ord] B[yron] met M[ary] Wollstonecraft 
 Godwin, her sister, and Percy Shelley. I got into the 
 boat into the middle of Leman Lake, and there lay 
 my length, letting the boat go its way. 
 
 [Here I find it difficult to understand the phrase — 
 " Cannot have it (Villa Diodati) for three years — 
 English family." It must apparently mean either that 
 an English family were occupying or had bespoken 
 Villa Diodati, and would remain there for three years 
 
loo THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 to come (which is in conflict with the fact that Byron 
 soon afterwards became the tenant); or else that 
 Byron thought of renting it for a term as long as three 
 years, which was barred by the previous claim of some 
 English family. On the whole, the latter supposition 
 seems to me the more feasible ; but one is surprised 
 to think that Byron had any — even remote — idea of 
 remaining near Geneva for any such great length of 
 time. This sets one's mind speculating about Miss 
 Clairmont, with whom (as is well known) Byron's 
 amour had begun before he left London, and who had 
 now just arrived to join him at Secheron ; had he at 
 this time any notion of settling down with her in the 
 neighbourhood for three years, more or less ? It is a 
 curious point to consider for us who know how rapidly 
 he discarded her, and how harshly he treated her ever 
 afterwards. Miss Clairmont, we see, was now already 
 on the spot, along with Percy and Mary Shelley ; in 
 fact, as we learn from other sources, they had arrived 
 at Sdcheron, Dejean's Hotel de I'Angleterre, as far 
 back as May i8, or perhaps May 15 — and Byron now 
 for the first time encountered the three. It appears 
 that he must have met Mary Godwin in London, 
 probably only once — not to speak of Clare. Shelley, 
 to the best of our information, he had never till now 
 seen at all. Polidori here terms Clare Clairmont the 
 " sister " of " M. WoUstonecraft Godwin " ; and in 
 
S^CHERON loi 
 
 the entry for May 29 he even applies the name 
 Wollstonecraft Godwin to Clare ; and it will be found 
 as we proceed that for some little while he really 
 supposed the two ladies to be sisters in the right sense 
 of the term, both of them bearing the surname of 
 Godwin. In point of fact, there was no blood-relation- 
 ship — Mary being the daughter of Mr. and the first 
 Mrs. Godwin, and Clare the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Clairmont. It may be as well to add that the letters 
 addressed by Miss Clairmont to Byron, before they 
 actually met in London, have now (1904) been 
 published in The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and 
 Journals, vol. iii, pp. 429-437 ; and they certainly 
 exhibit a degree of forwardness and importunity which 
 accounts in some measure for his eventual antipathy to 
 her.] 
 
 ^Found letter from De Roche inviting me to break- 
 fast to-morrow ; curious with regard to L[ord] B[yron]. 
 Dined ; P[ercy] S[helley], the author of Queen Mab, 
 came ; bashful, shy, consumptive ; twenty-six ; sepa- 
 rated from his wife ; keeps the two daughters of God- 
 win, who practise his theories ; one L[ord] B[yron] s. 
 
 [This is a very noticeable jotting. Shelley appears 
 to have come in alone on this occasion, and we may 
 infer that some very confidential talk ensued between 
 him and Byron, in the presence of Polidori. He was 
 not at this date really twenty-six years of age, but 
 
I02 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 only twenty-three. "Bashful, shy," is an amusingly 
 simple description of him. As to " consumptive," we 
 know that Shelley left England under the impression 
 that consumption had him in its grip, but this hardly 
 appears to have been truly the case. Polidori, as a 
 medical man, might have been expected to express 
 some doubt on the subject, unless the poet's outward 
 appearance looked consumptive. Next we hear that 
 Shelley "keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who 
 practise his theories" — i.e. set the marriage-laws at 
 defiance, or act upon the principle of free love. One 
 might suppose, from this phrase, that Polidori believed 
 Shelley to be the accepted lover of Miss Clairmont as 
 well as of Mary Godwin ; but the addition of those 
 very significant words — "One, Lord Byron's" — tells 
 in the opposite direction. These words can only 
 mean (what was the fact) that one of these ladies, viz. 
 Miss Clairmont, was Lord Byron's mistress. There- 
 fore Polidori, in saying that Shelley " kept the two 
 daughters of Godwin," may presumably have meant 
 that he housed and maintained Clare, while he was 
 the quasiAwxsh^-^di of Mary. Whether Polidori now 
 for the first time learned, from the conversation of 
 Byron and Shelley, what was the relation subsisting 
 between Clare and Byron, or whether Byron had at 
 some earlier date imparted the facts to him, is a 
 question which must remain unsolved. The latter 
 
SECHERON 103 
 
 appears to me extremely probable ; for Byron had 
 certainly arranged to meet Clare near Geneva, and he 
 may very likely have given the requisite notice before- 
 hand to his travelling physician and daily associate. 
 My aunt Charlotte Polidori was not an adept in 
 Shelleian detail : if she had been, I fear that these 
 sentences would have shocked her sense of propriety, 
 and they would have been left uncopied. They form 
 the only passage in her transcript which bears in any 
 way upon the amour between Lord Byron and Miss 
 Clairmont ; to the best of my recollection and belief 
 there was not in the original Diary any other passage 
 pointing in the same direction. — I may observe here 
 that there is nothing in Polidori's Journal to show 
 that the Shelley party were staying in the same 
 Secheron hotel with Lord Byron. Professor Dowden 
 says that they were — I suppose with some sufficient 
 authority ; and I think other biographers in general 
 have assumed the same.] 
 
 Into the caleche ; horloger s at Geneva ; L[ord] 
 B[yron] paid 15 nap. towards a watch; I, 13: 
 repeater and minute-hand ; foolish watch. 
 
 [This means (as one of Polidori's letters shows) 
 that Byron made him a present of £1$ towards 
 the price of the watch.] 
 
 Went to see the house of Madame Necker, 100 
 a half-year ; came home, etc. 
 
I04 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 May 28. — Went to Geneva, to breakfast with 
 Dr. De Roche ; acute, sensible, a listener to himself; 
 good clear head. Told me that armies on their 
 march induce a fever (by their accumulation of 
 animal dirt, irregular regimen) of the most malig- 
 nant typhoid kind ; it is epidemic. There was a 
 whole feverish line from Moscow to Metz, and it 
 spread at Geneva the only almost epidemic typhus 
 for many years. He is occupied in the erection of 
 Lancaster schools, which he says succeed well. He 
 is a Louis Bourbonist. He told me my fever was 
 not an uncommon one among travellers. He came 
 home with me, and we had a chat with L[ord] 
 B[yron] ; chiefly politics, where of course we differed. 
 He had a system well worked out, but I hope only 
 hypothetical, about liberty of the French being 
 Machiavellianly not desirable by Europe. He pointed 
 out Dumont in the court, the redacteur of Bentham. 
 
 Found a letter from Necker to the hotel-master, 
 asking 100 nap. for three months ; and another 
 from Pictet inviting L[ord] B[yron] and any friend 
 to go with him at 8 to Madame Einard, a connection 
 of his. We then, ascending our car, went to see 
 some other houses, none suiting. 
 
 When we returned home, Mr. Percy Shelley came 
 in to ask us to dinner ; declined ; engaged for to- 
 morrow. We walked with him, and got into his 
 
SECHERON 105 
 
 boat, though the wind raised a little sea upon the lake. 
 Dined at four. Mr. Hentsch, the banker, came in ; 
 very polite ; told L[ord] B[yron] that, when he saw 
 him yesterday, he had not an idea that he was 
 speaking to one of the most famous lords of England. 
 
 Dressed and went to Pictet's : an oldish man, about 
 forty-six, tall, well-looking, speaks English well. His 
 daughter showed us a picture, by a young female 
 artist, of Madame Lavalliere in the chapel ; well 
 executed in pencil — good lights and a lusciously 
 grieving expression. 
 
 Went to Madame Einard. Introduced to a room 
 where about 8 (afterwards 20), 2 ladies (i more). 
 L[ord] B[yron]'s name was alone mentioned ; mine, 
 like a star in the halo of the moon, invisible. L[ord] 
 B[yron] not speaking French, M. Einard spoke bad 
 Italian. A Signor Rossi came in, who had joined 
 Murat at Bologna. Manly in thought ; admired 
 Dante as a poet more than Ariosto, and a discussion 
 about manliness in a language. Told me Geneva 
 women amazingly chaste even in thoughts. Saw 
 the Lavalliere artist. A bonny, rosy, seventy-yeared 
 man, called Bonstetten, the beloved of Gray and the 
 correspondent of Mathison. 
 
 [I find "40" in the MS.: apparently it ought to 
 be "70," for Bonstetten was born in 1745. He lived 
 on till 1832. Charles Victor de Bonstetten was a 
 
io6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Bernese nobleman who had gone through various 
 vicissitudes of opinion and adventure, travelling in 
 England and elsewhere. To Englishmen (as indi- 
 cated in Polidori's remark) he is best known as a 
 friend of the poet Thomas Gray, whom he met in 
 1769. He said: "Jamais je n'ai vu personne qui 
 donnat autant que Gray I'idee d'un gentleman ac- 
 compli." Among the chief writings of Bonstetten 
 are Recherches sur la Nature et les Lois de V Imagina- 
 tion ; Etudes d'Hommes; L' Homme du Midi et 
 r Homme du Nord.'] 
 
 Madame Einard made tea, and left all to take 
 sugar with the fingers. Madame Einard showed some 
 historical pieces of her doing in acquerella, really good, 
 a little too French-gracish. Obliged to leave before 
 ten for the gates shut. Came home, went to bed. 
 
 Was introduced by Shelley to Mary WoUstone- 
 craft Godwin, called here Mrs. Shelley. Saw picture 
 by Madame Einard of a cave in the Jura where in 
 winter there is no ice, in summer plenty. No names 
 announced, no ceremony — each speaks to whom he 
 pleases. Saw the bust of Jean Jacques erected upon 
 the spot where the Geneva magistrates were shot. 
 L[ord] B[yron] said it was probably built of some 
 of the stones with which they pelted him.^ The 
 
 ^ I don't think there was any such stone-pelting in Geneva : 
 it took place elsewhere in Switzerland. 
 
SECHERON 107 
 
 walk is deserted. They are now mending their 
 roads. Formerly they could not, because the 
 municipal money always went to the public box. 
 
 May 29. — Went with Mr. Hentsch to see some 
 houses along the valley in which runs the Rhone : 
 nothing. Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Percy Shelley 
 and Wollstonecraft Godwin. Hentsch told us that 
 the English last year exported corn to Italy to a 
 great amount. 
 
 May 30. — Got up late. Went to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Shelley ; breakfasted with them ; rowed out to see 
 a house together. S[helley] went from Lucerne with 
 the two, with merely £26, to England along the 
 Rhine in bateaux. Gone through much misery, 
 thinking he was dying ; married a girl for the mere 
 sake of letting her have the jointure that would 
 accrue to her ; recovered ; found he could not agree ; 
 separated ; paid Godwin's debts, and seduced his 
 daughter ; then wondered that he would not see him. 
 The sister left the father to go with the other. Got 
 a child. All clever, and no meretricious appearance. 
 He is very clever ; the more I read his Queen Mab^ 
 the more beauties I find. Published at fourteen a 
 novel; got ^^30 for it; by his second work ;^ioo. 
 Mab not published. — Went in caleche with L[ord] 
 B[yron] to see a house ; again after dinner to leave 
 cards ; then on lake with L[ord] B[yron]. I, Mrs 
 
io8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 S[helley], and Miss G[odwin], on to the lake till 
 nine. Drank tea, and came away at ii after con- 
 fabbing. The batelier went to Shelley, and asked 
 him as a favour not to tell L[ord] B[yron] what he 
 gave for his boat, as he thought it quite fit that 
 Milord's payment be double ; we sent Berger to say 
 we did not wish for the boat. 
 
 [The statement that "Shelley went from Lucerne 
 with the two, with merely £26^ to England, along 
 the Rhine in bateaux," refers of course to what had 
 taken place in 18 14, on the occasion of Shelley's 
 elopement with Mary Godwin, and has no bearing 
 on the transactions of 18 16; it must be cited by 
 Polidori as showing how inexpensively three persons 
 could, if so minded, travel from Switzerland to Eng- 
 land. The other references to Shelley's domestic 
 affairs etc. are very curious. Except as to his own 
 personal admiration for Queen Mab, Polidori is here 
 evidently putting down (but not in the words of 
 Shelley himself, who would assuredly not have said 
 that he had "seduced" Mary Godwin) such details 
 as the poet imparted to him. They are far from 
 accurate. To some extent, Polidori may have re- 
 membered imperfectly what Shelley told him, but 
 I think the latter must have been responsible for 
 most of the fables ; and generally it would appear 
 that Shelley gave free rein to his inclination for 
 
SECHERON 109 
 
 romancing or for over-stating matters, possibly per- 
 ceiving that Polidori was credulous, and capable of 
 swallowing whatever he was told, the more eccentric 
 the better. To say that Shelley, before he, at the 
 age of barely 19, married Harriet Westbrook in 
 181 1, thought that he was dying, and that his only 
 practical motive for marrying her was that she might 
 come in for a jointure after his decease, is no doubt 
 highly fallacious, and even absurd. We have other 
 sources of information as to these occurrences, especi- 
 ally the letters of Shelley addressed at the time to 
 Jefferson Hogg, and they tell a very different tale. 
 As to his reason for separating from Harriet, Shelley, 
 we perceive, simply told Polidori that he " found he 
 could not agree " with her ; he said nothing as to 
 his knowing or supposing that she had been unfaith- 
 ful to him. Again, Shelley was not so boyish as 
 14 when he published a novel — his first novel, the 
 egregious Zastrozzi ; the publication took place in 
 1 8 10, when he was eighteen, or at lowest seventeen. 
 The statement that he got ;^ioo by "his second 
 work " is worth considering. If " his second work " 
 means, as one might naturally suppose in this 
 connexion, the romance of St. Irvyne^ the sug- 
 gestion that he got anything at all by it, except a 
 state of indebtedness, is a novelty. But our mind 
 recurs to that rumoured and apparently really- 
 
no THE DIARY OF POLIDORl 
 
 published though wholly untraced work of his, A 
 Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. This 
 poem was published, we are told, for the benefit of 
 an Irish agitator or patriot, Peter Finnerty, and it 
 has been elsewhere averred that the publication pro- 
 duced a sum of nearly ;^ioo. The mention by 
 Polidori of ;£"ioo may be surmised to refer to the 
 same matter, and it tends so far to confirm the idea 
 that the book really existed, and even secured a 
 fair measure of success. — Berger (who is named in 
 connexion with Byron and the hire for the boat) 
 was, as already noted, the Swiss servant of Byron, 
 brought from London.] 
 
 May 31. — Breakfasted with Shelley; read Italian 
 with Mrs. S[helley] ; dined ; went into a boat with Mrs. 
 S[helley], and rowed all night till 9 ; tea'd together ; 
 chatted, etc. 
 
 June I. — Breakfasted with S[helley]; entered a 
 caleche ; took Necker's house for 100 louis for 8 or 
 365 days. Saw several houses for Shelley ; one good. 
 Dined ; went in the boat ; all tea'd together. 
 
 [Necker's house, here mentioned, would apparently 
 be the same as the Villa Diodati, or Villa Belle Rive 
 — for that is the house which Byron did in fact rent. 
 " Necker " may be understood as meaning (rather 
 than the famous Minister of Finance in France) his 
 widow, since Necker himself had died a dozen years 
 
SECHERON III 
 
 before. The sum of loo louis seems to be specified 
 here as the rent for a year, and the phrase about 8 
 days must indicate that the house could be tenanted 
 for that short space of time — or let us say a week — at 
 a proportionate payment. This rate of rental appears 
 low, and it differs both from what was said under the 
 date of May 26, and from what we shall find noted 
 shortly afterwards, June 6. Thus I feel a little doubt 
 whether " Necker's house " is not in reality something 
 quite different from the Villa Diodati. Byron's 
 proposed tenancy of the former might possibly have 
 been cancelled.] 
 
 Rogers the subject : L[or]d B[yron] thinks good 
 poet ; malicious. Marquis of Lansdowne being praised 
 by a whole company as a happy man, having all good, 
 R[ogers] said, " But how horridly he carves turbot ! " 
 Ward having reviewed his poems in the Quarterly^ 
 having a bad heart and being accused of learning his 
 speeches, L[ord] B[yron], upon malignantly hinting 
 to him [Rogers] how he had been carved, heard him 
 say : " I stopped his speaking though by my epigram, 
 which is — 
 
 " * Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it ; 
 He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.'" 
 
 [This must be the Honourable John William Ward, 
 who was created Earl of Dudley in 1827, and died in 
 1833. Miss Berry, the ^««j/-adopted daughter of 
 
112 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Horace Walpole, told Madame de Stael in 1813 that 
 the latter had "undertaken two miracles — to make 
 Ward poli envers les/emmes et pieux envers Dzeu."'\ 
 
 On L[ord] B[yron's] writing a poem to his sister 
 wherein he says, " And when friends e'en paused and 
 love," etc., Rogers, going to some one, said : " I don't 
 know what L[ord] B[yron] means by pausing ; I 
 called upon him every day." He did this regularly, 
 telling L[ord] B[yron] all the bad news with a malig- 
 nant grin. When L[ord] B[yron] wrote "Weep, 
 daughter of a royal line," Rogers came to him one 
 day, and, taking up the Courier, said : " I am sure 
 now you're attacked there ; now don't mind them " ; 
 and began reading, looking every now and then at 
 L[ord] B[yron] with an anxious searching eye, till he 
 came to "that little poet and disagreeable person, 
 Mr. Samuel — '* when he tore the paper, and said : 
 " Now this must be that fellow Croker," and wished 
 L[ord] B[yron] to challenge him. He talked of going 
 to Cumberland with L[ord] B[yron], and, asking him 
 how he meant to travel, L[ord] B[yron] said "With 
 four horses." Rogers went to company, and said : 
 " It is strange to hear a man talking of four horses 
 who seals his letters with a tallow candle." 
 
 Shelley is another instance of wealth inducing 
 relations to confine for madness, and was only saved 
 by his physician being honest. He was betrothed 
 
SECHERON 113 
 
 from a boy to his cousin, for age ; another came who 
 had as much as he would have, and she left him 
 " because he was an atheist." When starving, a friend 
 to whom he had given ;^2000, though he knew it, would 
 not come near him. Heard Mrs. Shelley repeat 
 Coleridge on Pitt, which persuades me he is a poet. 
 
 [Here we see that Shelley must have repeated to 
 Polidori that famous story of his about the attempt 
 of his father to consign him, when he was an Eton 
 student, to a madhouse, and about the zealous and 
 ultimately successful effort of Dr. Lind, the Eton 
 physicist, to save him from that disastrous fate. Next 
 comes the statement that Shelley was betrothed from 
 boyhood to his beautiful cousin Miss Harriet Grove — 
 the marriage to take effect when he should attain his 
 majority ; an account which we know to be substanti- 
 ally true. The conduct of Miss Grove — or perhaps 
 we should rather say of her parents as dictating her 
 action — is placed in an unfavourable light ; for it is 
 plainly suggested that she abandoned Shelley for 
 another bridegroom on the ground of a more immediate 
 advantage in worldly position — the allegation of 
 Percy's atheism being more a pretext than a genuine 
 motive. The passage about a friend to whom Shelley 
 had given £2000 must (I suppose beyond a doubt) 
 refer to Godwin ; but it is evident that Shelley, in 
 
 speaking to Polidori, a comparative stranger, and this 
 8 
 
114 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 in the presence of Mary, had the delicacy to suppress 
 the name. The charge thus alleged against Godwin 
 is not, I conceive, accurate, although it approximated 
 towards accuracy. I am not clear that Shelley, up to 
 the time when he thus spoke in June 1816, had given 
 Godwin money amounting to quite so large a total as 
 ;^2000 ; but at any rate he cannot have done so up to 
 the time when he was himself "starving" — or, in 
 milder terms, when he was in very great and harass- 
 ing straits for money and daily subsistence. That 
 time was late in 18 14, and in the first days of 181 5. 
 It is true that, even before this date, he had done 
 something to relieve Godwin ; but it was only, I think, 
 in April 18 16 that he gave the philosopher a really 
 very considerable sum — £1000 in a lump. I say all 
 this for the sake of biographical truth, and not with a 
 view to vindicating Godwin — whose policy of bleeding 
 Shelley in purse while he cut him in person has in 
 some recent years been denounced with increasing 
 vehemence, and it was indeed wholly indefensible. 
 But human nature — and especially the human nature 
 of an abstract speculator like Godwin — is capable of 
 very odd self-deceptions ; and I dare say Godwin 
 thought he was equally and strictly right in both his 
 proceedings — right in getting large sums of money 
 out of Shelley, for a reforming sage ought to be sub- 
 sidized by his neophytes — and right in repudiating 
 
SECHERON 115 
 
 and abusing Shelley, for the latter had applied 
 Godwin's own anti-matrimonial theories to that one 
 instance of practice which the philosopher did not at 
 all relish. — To proceed to another point The lines 
 of Coleridge on Pitt which Polidori heard recited by- 
 Mrs. Shelley are to be sought for in his early poem 
 entitled Fire^ Famine ^ and Slaughter. In that poem 
 (need I say it ?) those three Infernal Deities are repre- 
 sented as meeting in '* a desolated tract in La Vendee " ; 
 and on mutual enquiry they learn that one and the 
 same person has sent them thither all three. 
 
 "Letters four do form his name" — 
 
 the name Pitt. Famine and Slaughter finally agree 
 that the multitude, exasperated by their sufferings, 
 shall turn upon Pitt and rend him — 
 
 ^ " They shall tear him limb from limb ! " 
 
 Fire, who has just come from doing Pitt's errands in 
 Ireland, thinks this ungrateful : she concludes the 
 poem with the memorable words — 
 
 "Ninety months he, by my troth, 
 Hath richly catered for you both : 
 And in an hour would you repay 
 An eight years' work ? — Away, away ! 
 I alone am faithful — / 
 Cling to him everlastingly?^ 
 
 The poem would be well worth quoting here in full, 
 but is somewhat too long for such a purpose,] 
 
ii6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 A young girl of eighteen, handsome, died within 
 half-an-hour yesterday : buried to-day. Geneva is 
 fortified — legumes growing in the fosses. — Went 
 about linen and plate. 
 
 June 2. — Breakfasted with Shelley. Read Tasso 
 with Mrs. Shelley. Took child for vaccination. 
 
 [The child in question must seemingly have been 
 the beloved infant William Shelley, born in January 
 of this same year. Polidori does not appear to have 
 vaccinated the boy with his own hand ; for I find in 
 a letter of his written to his family towards June 20 : 
 "Got a gold chain and a seal as a fee from an 
 Englishman here for having his child inoculated." 
 As Polidori speaks only of "an Englishman here," 
 not naming Shelley, it looks as if he purposely with- 
 held from his family the knowledge that he had come 
 into contact with that wicked and dangerous char- 
 acter. I wish I knew what has become of the 
 " gold chain and seal," the gift of Shelley : but I 
 could not on enquiry find that anything whatever 
 was known about them by my then surviving 
 relatives. I possess a letter on the subject, November 
 4, 1890, from my sister Christina.] 
 
 Found gates shut because of church-service. Went 
 in search of Rossi. Saw a village where lads and lasses, 
 soubrettes and soldiers, were dancing, to a tabor and 
 drum, waltzes, cotillons, etc. Dr. R[ossi] not at home. 
 
S^CHERON 117 
 
 Dined with S[helley] ; went to the lake with them 
 and L[ord] B[yron]. Saw their house ; fine. Coming 
 back, the sunset, the mountains on one side, a dark 
 mass of outline on the other, trees, houses hardly- 
 visible, just distinguishable ; a white light mist, rest- 
 ing on the hills around, formed the blue into a 
 circular dome bespangled with stars only and lighted 
 by the moon which gilt the lake. The dome of 
 heaven seemed oval. At 10 landed and drank tea. 
 Madness, Grattan, Curran, etc., subjects. 
 
 [The "house" of Shelley and his party which 
 is here mentioned is the Campagne Chapuis, or 
 Campagne Mont Alegre, near Cologny — distant 
 from the Villa Diodati only about 8 minutes' walk. 
 Shelley and the two ladies had entered this house 
 towards the end of May, prior to the actual settle- 
 ment of Lord Byron in the Villa Diodati. The 
 Shelleys, as we have more than once heard from 
 this Diary, kept up the practice of drinking tea — a 
 beverage always cherished by Percy Bysshe. The 
 topics of conversation, we observe, were madness — 
 probably following on from what Shelley had on 
 the previous day said about his own supposed 
 madness while at Eton ; also Curran, whom Shelley 
 had seen a little, but without any sympathy, in 
 Dublin — and Grattan, who, so far as I am aware 
 was not personally known to the poet.] 
 
ii8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 June 3. — Went to Pictet's on English day. 
 
 June 4. — Went about Diodati's house. Then to 
 see Shelley, who, with Mrs. Shelley, came over. 
 Went in the evening to a musical society of about 
 ten members at M. Odier's ; who read a very in- 
 teresting memoir upon the subject of whether a 
 physician should in any case tell a lover the health 
 [of the lady of his affections], or anything that, 
 from being her physician, comes to his knowledge. 
 Afterwards had tea and politics. Saw there a Dr. 
 Gardner, whom I carried home in the caleche. Odier 
 invited me for every Wednesday. 
 
 Came home. Went on the lake with Shelley and 
 Lord Byron, who quarrelled with me. 
 
 [This might seem to be the matter to which Professor 
 Dowden in his Life of Shelley (following Moore's Life 
 of Byron and some other authorities) thus briefly 
 refers. "Towards Shelley the Doctor's feeling was 
 a constantly self-vexing jealousy [I cannot say 
 that the Diary of Polidori has up to this point 
 borne the least trace of any such soreness] ; and 
 on one occasion, suffering from the cruel wrong of 
 having been a loser in a sailing-match, he went so 
 far as to send Shelley a challenge, which was received 
 with a fit of becoming laughter. ' Recollect,' said 
 Byron, * that, though Shelley has some scruples about 
 duelling, I have none and shall be at all times ready 
 
SECHERON 119 
 
 to take his place.' " Professor Dowden does not define 
 the date when this squabble occurred ; but the con- 
 text in which he sets it suggests a date anterior to 
 June 22, when Byron and Shelley started off on their 
 week's excursion upon the Lake of Geneva. The 
 very curt narrative of Polidori does not however in- 
 dicate any sailing-match, nor any challenge, whether 
 " sent " or verbally delivered at the moment ; and 
 perhaps it may be more reasonable to suppose that 
 this present quarrel with Byron was a different affair 
 altogether — an instance when Polidori happened to 
 strike Byron's knee with an oar. I shall recur to 
 the duelling matter farther on.] 
 
 June ^. — At 12 went to Hentsch about Diodati ; 
 thence to Shelley's. Read Tasso. Home in caleche. 
 Dined with them in the public room : walked in the 
 garden. Then dressed, and to Odier's, who talked 
 with me about somnambulism. Was at last seated, 
 and conversed with some Genevoises : so so — too 
 fine. Quantities of English ; speaking amongst 
 themselves, arms by their sides, mouths open and 
 eyes glowing ; might as well make a tour of the 
 Isle of Dogs. Odier gave me yesterday many 
 articles of Bibliotheque — translated and rediges by 
 himself, and to-day a manuscript on somnambulism. 
 
 [After the word Bibliotheque Charlotte Polidori has 
 put some other word, evidently intended to imitate 
 
I20 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the look of the word written by Dr. Polidori : it can- 
 not be read. The subject of somnambulism was one 
 which had engaged Polidori's attention at an early- 
 age : he printed in 1815 a Disputatio Medica Inaugu- 
 ralis de Oneirodynia, as a thesis for the medical degree 
 which he then obtained in Edinburgh.] 
 
 June 6. — At i up — breakfasted. With Lord Byron 
 in the caleche to Hentsch, where we got the paper 
 making us masters of Diodati for six months to 
 November i for 125 louis. 
 
 [See my remarks under June i as to "Necker's 
 house," and the rent to be paid. Up to November 
 I would be barely five months, not six.] 
 
 Thence to Shelley : back : dinner. To Shelley iti 
 boat : driven on shore : home. Looked over inventory 
 and Berger's accounts. Bed. 
 
 June 7. — Up at . Pains in my loins and languor 
 
 in my bones. Breakfasted — looked over inventory. 
 
 Saw L[ord] B[yron] at dinner ; wrote to my father 
 and Shelley ; went in the boat with L[ord] B[yron] ; 
 agreed with boatman for English boat. Told us 
 Napoleon had caused him to get his children. Saw 
 Shelley over again. 
 
 [It seems rather curious that Polidori, living so 
 near Shelley, should now have had occasion to write 
 to him ; ought we to infer that the challenge was 
 now at last sent ? Perhaps so ; and perhaps, when 
 
VILLA DIODATI 121 
 
 Polidori " saw Shelley over again,'* the poet laughed 
 the whole foolish matter off. — The boatman's state- 
 ment that "Napoleon had caused him to get his 
 children" means, I suppose, that he wanted to rear 
 children, to meet Napoleon's conscriptions for 
 soldiers.] 
 
 June 8. — Up at 9 ; went to Geneva on horseback, 
 and then to Diodati to see Shelley ; back ; dined ; 
 into the new boat — Shelley's, — and talked, till the 
 ladies' brains whizzed with giddiness, about idealism. 
 Back ; rain ; puffs of wind. Mistake. 
 
 June 9. — Up by i : breakfasted. Read Lucian. 
 Dined. Did the same : tea'd. Went to Hentsch : 
 came home. Looked at the moon, and ordered 
 packing-up. 
 
 June 10. — Up at 9. Got things ready for going to 
 Diodati ; settled accounts, etc. Left at 3 ; went to 
 Diodati ; went back to dinner, and then returned. 
 Shelley etc. came to tea, and we sat talking till 11. 
 My rooms are so : 
 
 Picture-gallery. 1 
 
 Bedroom 
 
 
 1 
 
 June 1 1. — Wrote home and to Pryse Gordon. Read 
 Lucian. Went to Shelley's ; dined ; Shelley in the 
 evening with us. 
 
122 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 June 12. — Rode to town. Subscribed to a circulat- 
 ing library, and went in the evening to Madame 
 Odier. Found no one. Miss 0[dier], to make time 
 pass, played the Ranz des Vaches — plaintive and war- 
 like. People arrived. Had a confab with Dr. O. 
 about perpanism,^ etc. Began dancing : waltzes, cotil- 
 lons, French country-dances and English ones : first 
 time I shook my feet to French measure. Ladies all 
 waltzed except the English : they looked on frown- 
 ing. Introduced to Mrs. Slaney : invited me for next 
 night. You ask without introduction ; the girls refuse 
 those they dislike. Till 12. Went and slept at the 
 Balance. 
 
 June 13. — Rode home, and to town again. Went 
 to Mrs. Slaney : a ball. Danced and played at chess. 
 Walked home in thunder and lightning: lost my 
 way. Went back in search of some one — fell upon 
 the police. Slept at the Balance. 
 
 June 14. — Rode home — rode almost all day. Dined 
 with Rossi, who came to us ; shrewd, quick, manly- 
 minded fellow ; like him very much. Shelley etc. fell 
 in in the evening. 
 
 June 1 5. — Up late ; began my letters. Went to 
 Shelley's. After dinner, jumping a wall my foot 
 
 ^ The word written is perpanism, or possibly perhanism. Is 
 there any such word, medical or other ? Should it perchance be 
 Pyrrhonism ? 
 
VILLA DIODATI 123 
 
 slipped and I strained my left ankle. Shelley etc. 
 came in the evening ; talked of my play etc., which 
 all agreed was worth nothing. Afterwards Shelley 
 and I had a conversation about principles, — whether 
 man was to be thought merely an instrument. 
 
 [The accident to Polidori's ankle was related thus 
 by Byron in a letter addressed from Ouchy to John 
 Murray. " Dr. Polidori is not here, but at Diodati ; 
 left behind in hospital with a sprained ankle, acquired 
 in tumbling from a wall — he can't jump." Thomas 
 Moore, in his Life of Byron^ supplies some details. 
 " Mrs. Shelley was, after a shower of rain, walking up 
 the hill to Diodati ; when Byron, who saw her from 
 his balcony where he was standing with Polidori, said 
 to the latter: ' Now you who wish to be gallant ought 
 to jump down this small height, and offer your arm.* 
 Polidori tried to do so ; but, the ground being wet, 
 his foot slipped and he sprained his ankle. Byron 
 helped to carry him in, and, after he was laid on the 
 sofa, went up-stairs to fetch a pillow for him. * Well, 
 I did not believe you had so much feeling,' was 
 Polidori's ungracious remark." 
 
 The play written by Polidori, which received so 
 little commendation, was, I suppose, the Cajetan which 
 is mentioned at an early point in the Journal. There 
 was another named Boadicea, in prose ; very poor 
 stuff, and I suppose written at an early date. A 
 
124 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 different drama named Ximenes was afterwards pub- 
 lished : certainly its merit — whether as a drama or as 
 a specimen of poetic writing — is slender. The con- 
 versation between Shelley and Polidori about " prin- 
 ciples " and " whether man was to be thought merely 
 an instrument " appears to have some considerable 
 analogy with a conversation to which Mary Shelley 
 and Professor Dowden refer, and which raised in her 
 mind a train of thought conducing to her invention 
 of Frankenstein and his Man-monster. Mary, however, 
 speaks of Byron (not Polidori) as the person who 
 conversed with Shelley on that occasion. Professor 
 Dowden, paraphrasing some remarks made by Mary, 
 says : " One night she sat listening to a conversation 
 between the two poets at Diodati. What was the 
 nature, they questioned, of the principle of life ? 
 Would it ever be discovered, and the power of com- 
 municating life be acquired ? Perhaps a corpse would 
 be reanimated ; galvanism had given token of such 
 things. That night Mary lay sleepless," etc.] 
 
 June 1 6. — Laid up. Shelley came, and dined and 
 slept here, with Mrs. S[helley] and Miss Clare 
 Clairmont. Wrote another letter. 
 
 [This is the first instance in which the name of Miss 
 Clairmont is given correctly by Polidori ; but it may be 
 presumed that he had, several days back, found out that 
 she was not properly to be termed " Miss Godwin."] 
 
VILLA DIODATI 125 
 
 June 17. — Went into the town ; dined with Shelley 
 etc. here. Went after dinner to a ball at Madame 
 Odier's; where I was introduced to Princess Something 
 and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them 
 a long confab. Attempted to dance, but felt such 
 horrid pain was forced to stop. The ghost-stories 
 are begun by all but me. 
 
 [This date serves to rectify a small point in literary 
 history. We all know that the party at Cologny — 
 consisting of Byron and Polidori on the one hand, 
 and of Shelley and Mrs. Shelley and Miss Clairmont 
 on the other — undertook to write each of them an 
 independent ghost-story, or story of the supernatural ; 
 the result being Byron's fragment of The Vampyre^ 
 Polidori's complete story of The Vampyre^ and Mrs. 
 Shelley's renowned Frankenstein. Shelley and Miss 
 Clairmont proved defaulters. It used to be said that 
 Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of The Monk, had 
 been mixed up in the same project; but this is a 
 mistake, for Lewis only reached the Villa Diodati 
 towards the middle of August. Professor Dowden 
 states as follows : " During a few days of ungenial 
 weather which confined them to the house [by " them " 
 Shelley and the two ladies are evidently meant, and 
 perhaps also Byron and Polidori] some volumes of 
 ghost -stories, Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil cT Histoires 
 d' Apparitions, de Spectres, Revenans, etc. (a collection 
 
126 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 translated into French from the German) fell into 
 their hands, and its perusal probably excited and 
 overstrained Shelley's imagination." Professor Dow- 
 den then proceeds to narrate an incident connected 
 with Coleridge's Christabel, of which more anon ; and 
 he says that immediately after that incident Byron 
 proposed, " We will each write a ghost-story " — a 
 suggestion to which the others assented. It is only 
 fair to observe that Professor Dowden's account corre- 
 sponds with that which Polidori himself supplied in the 
 proem to his tale of The Vampyre, But Polidori's 
 Diary proves that this is not absolutely correct. 
 The ghost-stories (prompted by the Fantasmagoriana^ 
 a poor sort of book) had already been begun by Byron, 
 Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Clairmont, not later 
 than June 17, whereas the Christaber\nc\6.&vi\. happened 
 on June 18. Byron's story, as I have already said, 
 was The Vampyre^ left a fragment ; Shelley's is stated 
 to have been some tale founded on his own early 
 experiences — nothing farther is known of it ; Mrs. 
 Shelley's was eventually Frankenstein^ but, from the 
 details which have been published as to the first con- 
 ception of this work, we must assume that what she 
 had begun by June 17 was something different : of 
 Miss Clairmont's story no sort of record remains. 
 
 The Countess Potocka, whom Polidori m.entlons, 
 was a lady belonging to the highest Polish nobility. 
 
VILLA DIODATI 127 
 
 grand-niece of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatovvski, 
 who had been King of Poland up to 1798. She 
 was daughter of Count Tyszkiewicz, and married 
 Count Potocki, and afterwards Count Wonsowicz. 
 Born in 1776, she lived on to 1867, when she died 
 in Paris, a leader of society under the Second Empire. 
 Thus she was forty years old when Polidori saw 
 her. She wrote memoirs of her life, going up to 
 1820 : a rather entertaining book, dealing with many 
 important transactions, especially of the period of 
 Napoleon I : she gives one to understand that this 
 supreme potentate was rather susceptible to her 
 charms, but a rival compatriot, the Countess Wa- 
 lewska, was then in the ascendant. I have seen 
 reproductions from two portraits of the Countess 
 Potocka, both of them ascribed to Angelica Kauff- 
 ma"n : one of these shows a strikingly handsome 
 young woman, with dark eyes of singular brilliancy 
 and sentiment. Its date cannot be later than 1807, 
 when the painter died, and may probably be as 
 early as 1800.] 
 
 June 18. — My leg much worse. Shelley and party 
 here. Mrs. S[helley] called me her brother (younger). 
 Began my ghost-story^ after tea. Twelve o'clock, 
 
 1 The "ghost-story" which Polidori published was The 
 Vampyre\ see p. 128 as to his having begun in the first in- 
 stance some different story. 
 
128 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 really began to talk ghostly. L[oid] B[yron] re- 
 peated some verses of Coleridge's Christabel, of the 
 witch's breast ; when silence ensued, and Shelley, 
 suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, 
 ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water in 
 his face, and after gave him ether. He was looking 
 at Mrs. S[helley], and suddenly thought of a woman 
 he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples, 
 which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him. — He 
 married ; and, a friend of his liking his wife, he tried 
 all he could to induce her to love him in turn. He is 
 surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw 
 upon him as their banker. Once, having hired a 
 house, a man wanted to make him pay more, and 
 came trying to bully him, and at last challenged him. 
 Shelley refused, and was knocked down ; coolly said 
 that would not gain him his object, and was knocked 
 down again. — Slaney called. 
 
 [Some of these statements are passing strange, and 
 most of them call for a little comment. First we 
 hear that Mrs. Shelley called Polidori her younger 
 brother — a designation which may have been endear- 
 ing but was not accurate ; for, whereas the doctor was 
 aged 20 at this date, Mrs. Shelley was aged only 18. 
 Next, Polidori, after tea, began his ghost-story. This, 
 according to Mrs. Shelley, was a tale about " a skull- 
 headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through 
 
VILLA DIODATI 129 
 
 a keyhole — what to see, I forget; something very 
 shocking and wrong, of course." So says Mrs. 
 Shelley : but Polidori's own statement is that the tale 
 which he at first began was the one published under 
 the title of Ernestus Berchtold, which contains nothing 
 about a skull-headed lady : some details are given in 
 my Introduction. Afterwards he took up the notion 
 of a vampyre, when relinquished by Byron. The 
 original story, Ernestus Berchtold, may possibly have 
 been completed in 18 16 : at any rate it was completed 
 at some time, and published in 18 19, soon after The 
 Vampyre. Then comes the incident (first published 
 in my edition of Shelley's poems in 1870) of Byron 
 repeating some lines from Christabel, and Shelley, 
 who mixed them up with some fantastic idea already 
 present to his mind, decamping with a shriek. The 
 lines from Christabel are these — 
 
 " Then drawing in her breath aloud, 
 Like one that shuddered, she unbound 
 The cincture from beneath her breast : 
 Her silken robe and inner vest 
 Dropped to her feet, and full in view 
 Behold ! her bosom and half her side. 
 Hideous, deformed, and pale of hue — 
 A sight to dream of, not to tell ! 
 And she is to sleep by Christabel ! " 
 
 From this incident Polidori proceeds to three state- 
 ments regarding occurrences in Shelley's life ; it 
 may be presumed that he had heard them from the 
 9 
 
130 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 poet in the course of this same evening. " A friend 
 of his Hking his wife, he tried all he could to induce 
 her to love him in turn." Nothing of this sort appears 
 in the authenticated facts of Shelley's life. It is 
 certain that, very soon after he had married Harriet 
 Westbrook in 1811, hesaw reason for thinking that 
 his friend Hogg " liked his wife," both of them being 
 then in York ; but, so far from " trying all he could 
 to induce her to love him in turn," he at once 
 took her away from York to Keswick, and he 
 addressed letters of grave remonstrance and sad 
 reproach to Hogg, and then for a time broke off 
 all intercourse with him. The only other matter 
 one knows of at all relevant to this issue is that 
 Shelley alleged that afterwards a certain Major Ryan 
 carried on an intrigue with Harriet. He blamed 
 and resented her imputed frailty, and put it forward 
 as a principal motive for his separating from her. It 
 is certainly possible that, after the separation, he 
 told Harriet that she might as well " make the best 
 of a bad job," and adhere to Ryan, since she would 
 not adhere to her wedded husband : but no indication 
 of any such advice on his part appears anywhere 
 else. Be it understood that I do not at all affirm 
 that this suspicion or statement of Shelley's about 
 Harriet and Ryan was correct. I doubt it ex- 
 tremely, though not venturing summarily to reject 
 
VILLA DIODATI 131 
 
 it. The next point is that Shelley was " surrounded 
 by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon him 
 as their banker." This probably glances at Godwin, 
 and perhaps also at Charles Clairmont, the brother of 
 Clare. Thomas Love Peacock may likewise be in 
 question : not Leigh Hunt, for, though the cap might 
 have fitted him in and after the year 18 17, it did not 
 so in the present year 18 16, since Hunt was as yet 
 all but unknown to our poet. Last comes the 
 funny statement about a hectoring landlord who 
 twice knocked down the non-duelling author of 
 Queen Mab. It is difficult to guess what this allega- 
 tion may refer to. Shelley had by this time had 
 several landlords in different parts of the United 
 Kingdom ; and quite possibly some of them thought 
 his rent unduly low, or more especially his quarterly 
 or other instalments irregularly paid, but who can 
 have been the landlord who took the law so decisively 
 into his own hands, and found so meekly unresisting 
 a tenant, I have no idea. There was an odd incident 
 on January 19, 18 12, when Shelley, then living at 
 Keswick, was (or was said to have been) struck down 
 senseless on the threshold of his door — seemingly by 
 a couple of robbers. On that occasion, however, his 
 landlord, Mr. Dare, appeared in the character of a 
 guardian angel : so we must dismiss any notion that 
 this incident, the one which in some of its features 
 
132 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 seems to come nearest the mark, is that which Shelley 
 so ingenuously imparted to Polidori.] 
 
 June 19. — Leg worse ; began my ghost-story. Mr. 
 S[helley?] etc. forth here. Bonstetten and Rossi 
 called. B[onstetten] told me a story of the religious 
 feuds in Appenzel ; a civil war between Catholics and 
 Protestants. Battle arranged ; chief advances ; calls 
 the other. Calls himself and other fools, for battles 
 will not persuade of his being wrong. Other agreed, 
 and persuaded them to take the boundary rivulet ; 
 they did. Bed at 3 as usual. 
 
 June 20. — My leg kept me at home. Shelley etc. 
 here. 
 
 Jmie 21. — Same. 
 
 June 22. — L[ord] B[yron] and Shelley went to 
 Vevay ; Mrs. S[helley] and Miss Clare Clairmont 
 to town. Went to Rossi's — had tired his patience. 
 Called on Odier ; Miss reading Byron. 
 
 [The expedition of Byron and Shelley to Vevay 
 was that same Lake-voyage which forms so promi- 
 nent an incident in their Swiss experiences. Their 
 starting upon this expedition had hitherto been dated 
 June 23. Professor Dowden has expressed a doubt 
 whether June 22 would not be the correct date, and 
 here we find that so it is.] 
 
 June 23. — Went to town ; apologized to Rossi. 
 Called on Dr. Slaney etc. Walked to Mrs. Shelley. 
 
VILLA DIODATI 133 
 
 Pictet, Odier, Slaney, dined with me. Went down to 
 Mrs. S[helley?] for the evening. Odier mentioned 
 the cases of two gentlemen who, on taking the nitrate 
 of silver, some time after had a blacker face. Pictet 
 confirmed it. 
 
 June 24. — Up at 12. Dined down with Mrs. 
 S[helley] and Miss C[lare] C[lairmont]. 
 
 [The dates hereabouts become somewhat embar- 
 rassing. For the day which I am calling June 24 
 Polidori repeats June 23 ; and he continues with the 
 like sequence of days up to June 29, when, as he 
 notes, he " found Lord Byron and Shelley returned." 
 It seems to be an established fact that the day when 
 Shelley got back to Montalegre was July i : he has 
 stated so, and a note to the Letters of Lord Byron 
 states the same. Thus Polidori seems to have dropped 
 two days. One is accounted for by substituting June 
 24 for June 23 ; and I shall call the next day June 
 26, though uncertain as to where the second error 
 occurs.] 
 
 June 26. — Up. Mounted on horseback : went to 
 town. Saw Mrs. Shelley: dined. To Dr. Rossi's 
 party of physicians : after at Mrs. S[helley's ?]. 
 
 June 27. — Up at Mrs. Shelley's : dined. No caleche 
 arrived : walked to G[eneva]. No horses : ordered 
 saddle-horse. Walked to Rossi's — gone. Went to 
 the gate : found him. Obliged to break off the 
 
134 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 appointment. Went to Odier's. Met with Mr. , 
 
 a friend of Lord Byron's father. Invited me to his 
 house: been a long time on the Continent. Music, 
 ranz des vaches, beautiful. Rode two hours ; went 
 to Mrs. S[helley]; Miss C[lairmont] talked of a 
 soliloquy. 
 
 [This last phrase is not clear : does it mean that 
 Miss Clairmont talked in a soliloquy — talked to 
 herself, in such a way as to excite observation?] 
 
 June 28.— All day at Mrs. S[helley s]. 
 
 June 29. — Up at i ; studied ; down at Mrs. 
 S[helley's]. 
 
 June 30. — Same. 
 
 July I. — Went in caleche to town with Mrs. 
 S[helley] and C[lare] for a ride, and to mass (which 
 we did not go to, being begun). Dined at i. Went 
 to town to Rossi. Introduced to Marchese Saporati ; 
 together to Mr. Saladin of Vaugeron, Countess 
 Breuss, Calpnafur ; and then to a party of ladies. 
 
 [The word which I give as Calpnafur is 
 dubious in Charlotte Polidori's transcript : it is 
 evidently one of those words as to which she felt 
 uncertain, and she wrote it as near to Dr. Polidori's 
 script as she could manage. The other three names 
 — Saporati, Saladin, and Breuss — are not elucidated 
 in any book I have consulted. Perhaps Saporati 
 ought to be Saporiti — see p. 149. There were two 
 
VILLA DIODATI 135 
 
 Saladins of some note in France in the days of the 
 Revolution and Empire — one of them lived on to 1832 ; 
 but I can scarcely think that this Saladin in Geneva 
 was of the same race. He may be the " Syndic 
 Saladin " mentioned farther on.] 
 
 Found Lord Byron and Shelley returned. 
 
 July 2. — Rain all day. In the evening to Mrs. 
 S[helley]. 
 
 September 5. — Not written my Journal till now 
 through neglect and dissipation. Had a long explanation 
 with S[helley] and L[ord] B[yron] about my conduct 
 to L[ord] B[yron] ; threatened to shoot S[helley] one 
 day on the water. Horses been a subject of quarrel 
 twice, Berger having accused me of laming one. 
 
 [Before this date, September 5, Shelley, with Mary 
 and Miss Clairmont, had finally left the neighbour- 
 hood of Geneva ; they started on August 29 upon 
 their return journey to England. The statement that 
 Polidori " threatened to shoot Shelley one day on the 
 water" brings us back again to that question, of which 
 I spoke under the date of June 4, about some hare- 
 brained quarrel with Shelley leading to a challenge 
 for a duel. The natural inference from the position 
 which this entry occupies in Polidori's Diary certainly 
 is that the threat to Shelley occurred at some date 
 between July 2 and August 28 — not at the earlier 
 date of June 4 ; and so I presume it more probably 
 
136 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 did. We find also that Polidori's conduct in relation 
 to Byron was considered not to be correct ; and this 
 formed the subject of " a long explanation " not only 
 with Byron himself but likewise with Shelley.] 
 
 L[ord] B[yron] went to town in pursuit of thieves 
 who came to steal the anchors after having stolen my 
 sail. Was refused permission to go out. I went to 
 the Syndic Saladin, and told him I begged his pardon 
 for our servants, who must have said something in- 
 sulting, or else he could not have refused permission 
 to leave the port. Thieves attempted to break into 
 the house. 
 
 An apothecary sold some bad magnesia to L[ord] 
 B[yron]. Found it bad by experiment of sulphuric 
 acid colouring it red rose-colour. Servants spoke 
 about it. Appointed Castan to see experiment; 
 came ; impudent ; refused to go out ; collared him, 
 sent him out, broke spectacles. Laid himself on a 
 wall for three hours ; refused to see experiments. 
 Saw L[ord] B[yron], told him his tale before two 
 physicians. Brought me to trial before five judges ; 
 had an advocate to plead. I pleaded for myself; 
 laughed at the advocate. Lost his cause on the plea 
 of calumny ; made me pay 12 florins for the broken 
 spectacles and costs. Magnesia chiefly alumina, as 
 proved by succenate^ and carbonate of ammonia. 
 1 Word obscurely written. 
 
COPPET 137 
 
 Dined twice at Madame de Stael's ; visited there 
 also ; met Madame de Broglie and M[onsieur ?] ; Miss 
 Randall ; two Roccas ; Schlegel ; Monsignor Brema ; 
 Dumont ; Bonstetten ; Madame Bottini ; Madame 
 Mong-elas ; young de Stael. 
 
 [It will be observed that Dr. Polidori, although he 
 details these various circumstances likely to create 
 some soreness between Lord Byron and himself, does 
 not here state in express terms that the poet had 
 parted with him. At the end of this entry for 
 September 5 he does, however, give a few words to 
 the subject, confirmatory of Lord Byron's ensuing 
 remarks. Byron, in a good-humoured spirit, gave a 
 general explanation in a letter addressed to John 
 Murray on January 24, 1817. He understood that 
 Polidori was "about to return to England, to go to 
 the Brazils on a medical speculation with the Danish 
 Consul " (which, however, he did not actually do) ; 
 and Byron asked Murray to get the Doctor any 
 letters of recommendation. Then he adds : " He 
 understands his profession well, and has no want of 
 general talent : his faults are the faults of a pardon- 
 able vanity and youth. His remaining with me was 
 out of the question. I have enough to do to manage 
 my own scrapes ; and, as precepts without example 
 are not the most gracious homilies, I thought it better 
 to give him his conge : but I know no great harm of 
 
138 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 him, and some good. He is clever and accomplished ; 
 knows his profession, by all accounts, well ; and is 
 honourable in his dealings, and not at all malevolent." 
 In March 1820 Byron made a few other observations 
 applicable to his intercourse with Polidori : " The 
 sole companion of my journey was a young physician 
 who had to make his way in the world, and, having 
 seen very little of it, was naturally and laudably 
 desirous of seeing more society than suited my 
 present habits or my past experience. I therefore 
 presented him to those gentlemen of Geneva for 
 whom I had letters of introduction ; and, having thus 
 seen him in a situation to make his own way, retired 
 for my own part entirely from society, with the 
 exception of one English family " — i. e. Shelley and 
 his two ladies. At times, however, Byron was less 
 lenient to the Doctor. On June 17, 18 17, he wrote 
 to Murray : " I never was much more disgusted with 
 any human production than with the eternal nonsense 
 and tracasseries and emptiness and ill-humour and 
 vanity of that young person : but he has some talent, 
 and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of 
 amendment in which he has been aided by a little 
 subsequent experience, and may turn out well." 
 
 It may be hardly needful to state that "Madame 
 de Broglie and Monsieur" {i.e. the Due Victor de 
 Broglie) were the daughter and son-in-law of Madame 
 
COPPET 139 
 
 de Stael : they were now but very recently wedded, 
 February 20, 18 16. Byron thought the youthful wife 
 devoted to her husband, and said " Nothing was 
 more pleasing than to see the development of the 
 domestic affections in a very young woman." Of the 
 two Roccas, one is remembered as Madame de Stael's 
 second husband. He was a very handsome officer 
 of Swiss origin. They married privately in 181 1, 
 she being then aged about forty-five, and he twenty- 
 two. He only survived his wife about six months, 
 dying in 1818. August Wilhelm von Schlegel was 
 at this date about forty- nine years old, celebrated as 
 a translator of Shakespear and Calderon, and as a 
 scholar of extensive range. He had travelled much 
 with Madame de Stael, who drew on him for some 
 of the ideas set forth in her book De VAllemagne, 
 Monsignor Brema is a good deal mentioned farther 
 on : he was a son of the Marchese di Brema (or 
 Breme), who had been a valuable Minister of the 
 Interior under the Napoleonic regime in Italy. 
 Dumont, who has been previously named by Polidori 
 as the translator of Bentham, was also closely 
 associated with the great Mirabeau.] 
 
 At Vaugeron, the Saladins, Auguste Mathould, 
 Rossi, Jacques Naple [?], Brelaz, Clemann, Countess 
 Mouskinpouskin, Breuss, Abate Gatelier, Toffettheim 
 e figlio, Foncet, Saussure, Lord Breadalbane and 
 
140- THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 family, a ball ; Saladin of Maligny, Slaneys, two 
 balls ; Dr. and Mrs. Freckton White, Galstons (Miss 
 etc. sisters), a ball ; Lord Bingham, Lord F. Cunning- 
 ham, Lord Belgray, a ball ; Mr. Tillotson St. Aubyn, 
 Mrs. Trevanion, Valence Meers, R. Simmons, Lloyd, 
 Princess Jablonski, Lady Hamilton Dalrymple, 
 Odiers, Lord Kinnoul, Somers, Lord Glenorchy, Mr. 
 Evans, Coda (songstress), M. G. Lewis, Mrs. Davies, 
 Mr. Pictet, Mr. Hobhouse, Dr. Gardner, Caravella, 
 Shelleys, Sir John St. Aubyn. 
 
 [Most of these numerous names must be left to 
 themselves : several of them are hereafter commented, 
 often caustically, by Polidori himself Saussure is 
 not the more celebrated naturalist and traveller, 
 Horace Benedict, who died in 1799; but is his son, 
 Nicolas Theodore, who cooperated largely with the 
 father, and produced an important book of his own, 
 Recherches sur la Vegetation. Born in 1767, he lived 
 on to 1845. Mrs. Trevanion may be supposed to 
 have belonged to the same family as a certain Mr. 
 Trevanion who figured very discreditably in the 
 history of that Medora Leigh who was the daughter 
 of the Honourable Mrs. Leigh (Byron's half sister) 
 and ostensibly of her husband, but who is now said 
 to have been in fact the daughter of Byron himself 
 Lady Hamilton Dalrymple ought seemingly to be 
 Lady Dalrymple Hamilton : she was a daughter of 
 
GENTHOUD 141 
 
 Viscount Duncan, and wife of Sir Hew D. Hamilton. 
 Somers is mentioned on p. 1 50 : this is probably the 
 correct spelling, not (as here) Summers. Matthew 
 Gregory Lewis (whom I had occasion to name before) 
 was the author of The Monk, which he wrote at the 
 early age of nineteen, of the musical drama The Castle 
 Spectre^ and of other works whose celebrity has not 
 survived into the present day. He was now near the 
 end of his brief career, for he died in 18 18, aged 
 forty-two.] 
 
 The society I have been in may be divided into 
 three sets : the canton of Genthoud, Coppet, and 
 Geneva. The canton is an assemblage of a neigh- 
 bourhood of about seven or eight families, meeting 
 alternately on Sundays at each other's houses, and 
 every Thursday at the Countess Breuss's. The 
 Countess Breuss lives at Genthoud in a villa she 
 has bought. She has two husbands, one in Russia, 
 one at Venice ; she acted plays at the Hermitage 
 under Catherine. Not being able to get a divorce, 
 she left Russia, went to Venice for six days, stayed 
 as many years, married (it is said), bought villas etc. 
 in the Venetian's name, and separated. Her family 
 consists of Madame Gatelier, a humble friend, a 
 
 great lover of medicaments etc.. Abate , her 
 
 Almoner, an excellent Brescian, great lover of re- 
 ligionists. A mania in the family for building summer- 
 
142 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 houses, porticoes, and baths ; neatly planned ; an island 
 with a ditch round it ; a Tower of Babel round the 
 trunk of a chestnut ; a summer-house by the roadside 
 of a Moorish construction. The Countess is very 
 good-natured, laughs where others calumniate and 
 talk scandal with prudish airs, kind to all. The 
 society is extremely pleasant ; generally dancing or 
 music. It was the birthday of Charles Saladin, who, 
 having been four years in Nap[oleon]'s army, knew 
 nothing of the matter. She asked to have the feting 
 of him. They acted first a charade on the canton of 
 Genthoud. She acted with Mr. Massey junior, with 
 others, and myself as a woman — the words to blind.^ 
 Then came a kind of farce, in which Charles was 
 dressed as the C. B. [Countess Breuss ?], Gatelier as 
 the Abb4 and Miss Saladin as Gatelier : each took 
 one another off. Written by C. B. When at last 
 another of the society brought a letter announcing it 
 to be Charles' birthday. Then they, while he was in 
 his amazement, sang a song to him, presented him 
 with a bouquet and purse. Then an elegant supper, 
 and afterwards a ball on the arrival of Madame 
 Toffettheim with her son. A great party was invited ; 
 and after tea two plays were acted — Le Pacha de 
 
 ^ " Blind " appears to be the word written. It seems an odd 
 expression — meaning, I suppose, "to blind (mislead or puzzle) 
 the auditors." 
 
GENTHOUD 143 
 
 Suresne and Les Ricochets. There was an immense 
 number of spectators. The actors were, in Le Pacha 
 de Suresne, Madame Dorsan, la Comtesse Breuss; 
 Laure, Madlle. Brelaz ; Agla^, Clemann ; Nathalie, 
 M.; Madlle. Remy, Madame Gatelier ; Perceval, Alexis 
 Saladin ; Flicflac, Polidori ; Joseph, C. Saladin. — 
 Les Ricochets — I do not remember the characters. 
 The actors were Alexis, Charles, Auguste Saladin, 
 Massey le jeune, La Comtesse Breuss, Madame 
 Mathilde Saladin. The rehearsals before were 
 frequent. 
 
 I got a discretion from the Countess, which I took 
 in the shape of a Swiss,^ in consequence of a wager 
 that I could not go straight home. 
 
 La Toffettheim is a nice, unpretending, lady-like 
 woman, pleasing and affectionate. Her son full of 
 liberty-ideas. It was here, in consequence of Massey 
 junior dancing extremely well, that, being defied, I 
 danced a pantaloon-dance, by which I made enemies ; 
 for, upon my refusing it at the Saladins*, they thought 
 it was a personal refusal. Saladins of Vaugeron, 
 father and mother. Father deaf, good-natured : said 
 to me upon reading my thesis, " Mais, Monsieur, il 
 n'y a pas de paradoxe." The mother pretended to 
 play shy on account of Madame B. 
 
 ^ This, again, is not clear to me : something in the nature of 
 a game of forfeits may be indicated. 
 
144 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 [By Madame B. it would appear, from a statement 
 farther on, that Polidori means Madame Brelaz.] 
 
 The daughter — because, the first night I saw her, 
 knowing her by particular introduction, I stuck to 
 her — thought me in love, and said so, — fool ! Madame 
 Mathilde [Saladin] pretended prude in mine and 
 Madame B.'s case, while she herself has got Mr. 
 Massey junior dangling, not unheard, after her. 
 Charles a good boisterous soldier, at Leipzig, Nassau, 
 and 13 ingwen [?] ^ Waterloo business. Makes up for 
 wit by noise, for affection by slaps on the back. On 
 his birthday I addressed him with (after supper) — 
 
 "Jeune guerrier dans I'armde du premier des heros, 
 Dans la cause de la France dedaignant le repos, 
 Que la chute de vos ans soit tranquille et heureuse, 
 Comme fut I'aube de vos jours dclatante et glorieuse." 
 
 [This little specimen suffices to show that Polidori 
 had no true idea of French versification : he was 
 evidently unaware that a final e mute coming before 
 a consonant counts as a syllable.] 
 
 Auguste, a simple neat fool, despising learning 
 because he is noble and has enough to live upon ; 
 content to dangle, with a compliment and a sentiment, 
 after a woman's tail. Alexis, so so, good-naturedly 
 ignorant husband to Mathilde. Massey senior, active 
 
 * So written : should it be " B ingwen " or something of the 
 kind ? 
 
GENTHOUD 145 
 
 pleasant man, excellent fencer and dancer — been 
 secretary to Bertrand. Massey junior, confident, 
 impudent, insolent, ignorant puppy. Saladins of 
 Maligny, neither good nor bad, rich : to gain a little 
 more, let their villa to Lord Breadalbane, and retired 
 to a cottage, though both old and only one ugly vain 
 daughter. Lord Breadalbane, an excellent, good- 
 sensed though not quick man : answered — when the 
 Duke of Bedford said to him, " What would you give 
 to have the Breadalbane estate in Bedfordshire ? " — 
 "Why, your Grace, I should be sorry if my estate 
 would go in Bedfordshire." Gave a very good ball 
 at which I was. His son Lord Glenorchy, good, shy, 
 not brilliant young man. His lady not spoken to. 
 His daughter excellent dancer, rather haughty. Mr. 
 Evans, a good sensible man, biassed in his thoughts 
 by his cassock. At the society he took up the im- 
 mortality: Lord Glenorchy gave a positive No. 
 Saussure, Mrs., a wax talkative figure. Mr., a 
 would-be scientific gentleman : thought mc a fool 
 because I danced pantaloon, and himself a wise man 
 because he knows the names of his father's stones. 
 Jacquct, Madlle., got half in love with her, — no, her 
 8000 a year : her face and bad-singing exposures 
 cured me. Foncet, officer of the Piedmontese troops, 
 jealous of him. 
 
 Brelaz, Portuguese lady, — in love with her ; I think 
 
146 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 fond of me too ; imprudent ; her daughter also against 
 me on account of it ; shows it too much publicly ; 
 very jealous ; her daughters, sprightly good-looking 
 girls. Clemann — got half in love with her ; nice 
 daughter. The Cavalier pleasing. Had a dispute in 
 a public ball with her two fools. One of the Saladins, 
 Auguste, courts her, and she laughs ; she excites love 
 in every young man's breast. Miss Harriet is rather 
 too serious for her age, pretty and well-informed in 
 novels and romances, and rather too sentimental. 
 Cavalier's Marianne is a fine hoydenish creature : 
 applies when studying, and romps when playing. 
 
 Madame de Stael I have dined with three times ; 
 she is better, those who know her say, at home than 
 abroad. She has married poor Rocca. She talks 
 much ; would not believe me to be a physician ; pre- 
 sented her my thesis, which she told me she had read 
 with pleasure. Talked about religion, and puts down 
 every [?] of Rocca. Ugly ; good eyes. Writing on 
 the French Revolution ; polite, affable ; lectures, and 
 tells all to L[ord] B[yron]. Madame de Broglie, her 
 daughter, a beautiful, dirty-skinned woman ; pleasant, 
 soft-eyed speaker ; dances well, waltzes. Schlegel, a 
 presumptuous literato, contradicting d, outrance ; a 
 believer in magnetism. Rocca, a talkative, good- 
 natured, beautiful man, with a desire for knowledge ; 
 the author of Walcheren and Espapie ; excellent at 
 
COPPET 147 
 
 natve description. Rocca, the judge, very clever and 
 quick, rising ; know little of him. Been seven years 
 in the courtship of Miss Saladin ; she neither refuses 
 nor accepts him, but keeps him in her train. Miss 
 Randall, sister to Mrs. Norgate. Monsignor Brema, 
 friend of Ugo Foscolo, enthusiastic for Italy, encomiast 
 in all, Grand Almoner of Italy, hater of Austrians. 
 Dumont, a thick, heavy-thoughted body, editor of 
 Bentham. Bonstetten, friend of Gray. 
 
 The first time L[ord] B[yron] went, there was Mrs. 
 Hervey there ; talkative, sister and a great friend of 
 the Noels ; she thought proper to faint out of the 
 house, though her curiosity brought her back to speak 
 with him. 
 
 Bonstetten told me that, upon his saying to Gray 
 that he must be happy, he took and read to him the 
 criticism of Johnson, which happens to have been 
 written after Gray's death ; he used to go in the 
 evening to tea, and remain all night reading the 
 English authors with him. Gray introduced him to 
 society ;^ and, one of the professors having asked him 
 if he understood what he said, he replied he thought 
 
 ^ The word " society " is perfectly clear in Charlotte Polidori's 
 transcript. From the context, I question whether it ought not 
 to be "Shakespear." As to "the criticism of Johnson" on Gray 
 in the Lives of the Poets, many of my readers will recollect that 
 this criticism is somewhat adverse, Gray being treated as a rather 
 nebulous writer. 
 
148 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 so, but very diff[idently ? ] — " So you think so only ! " 
 Gray, hearing this, showed B[onstetten] some pas- 
 sages to ask him, which B[onstetten] did in a public 
 company, complimenting him upon [his?] known 
 knowledge ; when all the company, one after the 
 other, began contradicting the Professor's opinion. 
 Then B[onstetten], turning to him, said, " You perhaps 
 thought you understood Shakespear." Gray told 
 him that there was none who could perfectly under- 
 stand him. 
 
 Rossi, an Italian of about thirty, pleasant, agree- 
 able, and good-natured, professor at Bologna, thence 
 obliged to fly with two others. One of his companions 
 was beginning his lecture, when the students called 
 out, " No lecture, but an improvise upon the liberty 
 of Italy " ; as he v/as an improvisators He objected, 
 as, on account of Murat's approach, it might be sus- 
 picious. They insisted, and the professors at hand 
 said, "No harm if not upon present circumstances." 
 He did it, and the students issued forth to join Murat ; 
 they had however made up their minds to do so 
 before. Rossi joined it more openly and loudly, and 
 was obliged to fly. He wrote a memoir to defend 
 himself, in which he said it was only to avoid the 
 Roman dominion, and give it to the Archduke ; who 
 told him that he had better write another, as Bologna 
 was already ceded to Pius. When he was ruined thus 
 
GENTHOUD 149 
 
 partially he wrote to the father of his betrothed, to 
 say that he must not (if he chose) think himself bound 
 by his promise, as he was not in the same circum- 
 stances as when the promise was given. The father 
 did retract. So far a man of honour. Now how to 
 reconcile his being with Calandion, a magistrate of 
 G[eneva] violent on the other side ? who says he has 
 made a good profession to him, and at the same time 
 professing other opinions to others. 
 
 Gave me a letter to Milan, and by him I have been 
 introduced to Saporiti, a good, enthusiastic, ignorant 
 Italian. Talked of the English landing 100,000 
 soldiers here and there, as if they were so many 
 peas. 
 
 Slaneys : the husband jealous of every one — Cam- 
 bridge degree. When I danced with his wife, he 
 after, when walking with her, came up and gave an 
 arm too. The wife beautiful, but very simple. 
 Galston, Miss, very beautiful. 
 
 " Genevan Liberal Society " is a muster of English- 
 men for debate on speculative questions. Twice 
 there. Immortality, accomplice's evidence. The 
 members whom I knew were — Lord Kinnoul, a most 
 tiresome, long-winded, repeating, thick-headed would- 
 be orator, Lord Conyngham. 
 
 [The MS. gives " Cunningham," which must be a 
 mistake. The Lord Conyngham of this period began 
 
I50 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 the year 1816 as an Earl, and ended it as a Marquis. 
 He was born in 1766, and lived on to 1832, and was 
 husband of a lady, Elizabeth Denison, whose name 
 figures much in the gossip, not excluding the scandal, 
 of those years.] 
 
 Mr. Somers, good head enough. Valence, whom I 
 cried to hear ; and, meeting me after at Chamounix, 
 the first thing he asked me was, " Why did you laugh 
 at me ? " St. Aubyn, Lloyd, Slaney. 
 
 Lloyd, of good Welsh blood, his original name 
 Ap Griffith, rode out. We went out visiting one 
 day, and, in returning in his gig, he touched a horse 
 of a row of carts. The carter struck me upon my 
 back with his whip ; I jumped down, and six jumped 
 at me. I fortunately was between a wheel and a 
 hedge, so that they all could not reach. Lloyd, 
 seeing this, jumped down also ; then three left me 
 and went to him, and another untied a piece of his 
 wagon with which, while I defended myself from 
 the two (one with a whip), he struck me while 
 fortunately my arm was striking a blow, so that it 
 did but just touch my face. He lifted again; I 
 sprang back, and with all the force of my leap struck 
 him with my fist in his face. His blow fell to the 
 ground, and with his hand to his nose he retreated. 
 They then seized stones to throw, but we closed with 
 them ; they could not throw above two, when we 
 
SWITZERLAND 151 
 
 saw an English carriage we knew coming. We 
 called, they came, and immediately the boisterous 
 [fellows?] were calm. Some who tried to divide us 
 got blows also. 
 
 St. Aubyn, an excellent fellow, introduced me to 
 his father at Genthoud : is a natural son, studying 
 for the Church. His father is a good polite man, 
 according to the "go" school.^ Keeps a mistress 
 now, though sixty-five years : has many children by 
 different mistresses. 
 
 At Dr. Odier's — who is a good old, toothless, 
 chatty, easy-believing man — there was a society 
 every Wednesday, where I went sometimes. They 
 danced, sang, ate cakes, and drank tea ; English 
 almost entirely, changing every Wednesday. — Went 
 to a concert of Madam igella Coda — the theatre dirty. 
 
 When Mr. Hobhouse and Davies arrived, we went 
 to Chamounix. The first day through Chesne, Anne- 
 masse, Vetra, Nangy, Contamine, Bonneville (dinner), 
 Cluses, Sallenches (slept). Next day by Chede in 
 two char-d-bancSy with each a guide ; a fine pine-glen 
 of the Arve, to Chamounix. We went that evening 
 over the Brisson, and to the source of the Aveyron. 
 Next day so bad we left, and returned to Sallenches, 
 taking the fall of Chede in our way ; thence to 
 
 1 Seems rather an odd phrase, but I suppose correctly 
 transcribed. 
 
152 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Diodati. Mr. Scrope Davies played against the 
 marker at tennis: then went, taking Rushton with 
 him. [Rushton was one of the servants.] 
 
 L[ord] B[yron] determined upon our parting, — not 
 upon any quarrel, but on account of our not suiting. 
 Gave me £70 \ 50 for 3 months and 20 for voyage. 
 Paid away a great deal, and then thought of setting 
 off: determined for Italy. Madame de Stael gave 
 me three letters. Madame B[relaz ?] wept, and most 
 seemed sorry. 
 
 [I suppose that most likely the " Madame B." here 
 is Madame Brelaz, with whom, as stated on p. 145, 
 Polidori was " in love." Or it might perhaps be the 
 Comtesse de Breuss.] 
 
 The night before I went, at Madame B[reuss i*]'s, 
 they acted Cest le Mime extremely well ; a Lausanne 
 girl acting the lady very well. The costumes also 
 extremely good. Wished nobody good-bye : told 
 them, though, I was going. Set off with 47 louis, 
 112 naps. 
 
 Le Valais from Schlirer's book. Description du 
 Dipartement du Simplon, 18 12, lent me by the 
 Cav[aliere]. See elsewhere. 
 
 September 16. — Left Cologny and Lord Byron at 
 six in the morning. Breakfasted at Doraine, 3 
 leagues. Dined, Thouson, ditto. Evrein, 2. Slept 
 St. Gingoux, 4. Passed Meillerie. Saw Lausanne 
 
SWITZERLAND 153 
 
 at a distance, right through this part of Sardinian 
 King's dominions. Read Madame Brelaz's verses. 
 Wept — not at them, but at the prose. 
 
 September 17. — Left St. Gingoux at 6. Walked 
 
 to } Took bread and wine. Crossed to Chillon. 
 
 Saw Bonivard's prison for six years ; whence a 
 Frenchman had broken, and, passing through a 
 window, swam to a boat. Instruments of torture, 
 — the pulley. Three soldiers there now : the Roman 
 arms already affixed. Large subterranean passes. 
 Saw in passing the three treed islands. The Rhone 
 enters by two mouths, and keeps its waters distinct 
 for two stones' throw. 
 
 From Chillon I went to Montreaux — breakfasted 
 — leaving Charney on my left. I began to mount 
 towards the Dent de Jamanu. Before beginning to 
 mount Jamanu itself, one has a beautiful view, seeing 
 only part of the lake, bound by Meillerie, Roches, 
 and the Rhone. Higher up the view is more 
 extensive, but not so beautiful — nothing being dis- 
 tinct ; the water looking merely as an inlet of sky, 
 but one could see the Jura as far as Genthoud. 
 
 I entered a chalet, where they expressed great 
 astonishment at my drinking whey, which they give 
 to their pigs only. Refused at first money. 
 
 ^ A name is written here, but so obscurely that I leave it out. 
 It somewhat resembles " Neravois," or " the ravois." 
 
154 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Descended towards Mont Boyon. What owing to 
 the fatigue and hardly meeting any one, sick with 
 grief. At Mont Boyon dined, and, finding they 
 would not dance, slept immediately after. 
 
 September i8. — Up at 4. Drank wine and bread. 
 At 6 set off. Passed the Chateau d'Ox where there 
 was a fair. After that, hardly met a soul. Always 
 on the side of the mountains, each side of a river 
 or torrent ; with torrent-beds, pine-forests, chalets, 
 villages without a visible soul — all at work — and ups 
 and downs : so that this road, if I had not had that 
 of yesterday, I should have called the worst in the 
 world. Passed through Chateau d'Ox ; Rougemont, 
 breakfast ; Zwezermann, dinner ; Gessenay ; Lam- 
 beck ; Reichenstein ; Weissenbach ; Bottingen, tea 
 and night. The French language leaves off at 
 Gessenay (rather, patois), and they begin their 
 German : found it difficult to go on. 
 
 September 19. — Got up at 4 J. Set off from Bottingen. 
 Went through Obernoyle. Breakfasted at Wyssen- 
 bach : refused my money. Went to the Doctor, 
 who charged me a nap. Went through Erlenbach, 
 Lauterbach, Meiningen, to Thun. Splendid scenery; 
 especially the first look at the Lake by the river's 
 mouth, and the pass into a great valley. Took 
 dinner, and then a warm bath. Arrived at i o'clock. 
 All the houses are of wood, the foundation only 
 
SWITZERLAND 
 
 155 
 
 being stone : great cut ornaments between the rows 
 of windows : the wood, fir. Felt very miserable, 
 especially these two last days : only met two persons 
 to whom I could speak — the others all Germans. 
 At Wyssenbach they all said grace before breakfast, 
 and then ate out of the same dish ; remarking (as 
 I understood them) that I, not being a Catholic, 
 would laugh. 
 
 [It was a mistake to suppose that Dr. Polidori was 
 " not a Catholic." He was brought up as a Catholic, 
 and never changed his religion, but may (I suppose) 
 have been something of a sceptic] 
 
 September 20. — Got up at 6. Wrote to St. Aubyn, 
 Brelaz, father, Vacca, and Zio, asking letters ; to my 
 father, to announce my parting. 
 
 [Vacca was a celebrated surgeon at Pisa, of whom 
 we shall hear farther. Zio is " my uncle " — /. e, Luigi 
 Polidori, also at Pisa.] 
 
 Bought fresh shoes and stockings ; found no book- 
 seller's shop. The man at the post-office made a 
 good reflection : that he was astonished so many 
 came to see what they who were so near never want 
 to see, and that he supposed that the English also 
 leave much unseen in their own country. 
 
 Thun is a neat well-situated town, not large, with 
 arcades — as apparently all the Berne towns. Afraid 
 all day my dog was poisoned ; which grieved me so, 
 
156 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 at seeing it vomit, that I wept. At 2 o'clock went 
 in search of a boat : none going immediately, I 
 walked along the left bank of the lake to Unterseen. 
 The views the most beautiful I ever saw ; through 
 pines over precipices, torrents, and sleepers [?] ^ and 
 the best-cultivated fields I ever saw. The lake some- 
 times some hundred precipitous feet below my feet ; at 
 other times quite close to its edge ; boats coming from 
 the fair ; picturesque towered villages ; fine Alps on 
 the other side, the Jungfrau and others far off. The 
 bottom of the lake is especially magnificent. Lost 
 my way, and had two little children as guides back 
 again. One small cascade of seven or eight fountains. 
 
 Arrived at 7 at Unterseen : through Nilterfingen, 
 Oberhofen, Rottingen, Morlangen, Neuchaus, to 
 Unterseen. Found two Englishmen at supper : sat 
 down with them. Very miserable all the morning. 
 
 September 21. — Got up at 6, having determined to 
 go with the two to the Grindenwald in a char-a-banc, 
 on account of the state of my foot. I went to the 
 bridge at Interlachen to see the view coming 
 between two beautiful isolated crags. Going, met 
 a man, a marechal, who had been to Vienna and 
 Bohemia en roulant after his apprenticeship, to see 
 the world — stopping a day at one place, a day at 
 another. Returned, breakfasted: and then, after 
 1 Should this be "glaciers"?. 
 
SWITZERLAND 157 
 
 growling at the innkeeper's wishing us to take two 
 horses, we went off through splendid pine-clad craggy 
 valleys through Zweihitschirne to Lauterbrunner ; 
 whence to the fall of the Staubach, a bare cataract 
 of 900 feet high, becoming vapour before it arrives — 
 appearing much, and ending in a little stream. The 
 curate of this village receives guests : there were the 
 Prince Saxe-Gotha and family. We lunched at the 
 inn, and went back to Lauterbrunner after having 
 looked at the Jungfrau at a distance. 
 
 Went from Zweihitschirne to the Grindenwald 
 with the Saxe-Gotha before us, through a more 
 beautiful valley. Saw the glaciers come into it, 
 with the Eiger, Wetterhorn, and other mountains, 
 most magnificent. Walking about, found two girls 
 who gave us cherries and chatted freely. Found 
 that mules were 18 francs a day. A party came 
 in in the dark at 8 with guides, hallooing and making 
 a lively sound. Dined at 7, and talked about mules, 
 hoping to get return ones etc. 
 
 September 22. — Got up. Could not get mules under 
 18 francs: my foot too bad to walk. Went with 
 Captain Rice and others back to Interlachen. Got 
 into a boat rowed by two men and a boy. Went 
 by Brientz, Calne, to the Griesbach cascade, and 
 then to Brientz — wilder, but not so beautiful as the 
 Lake of Thun. The cascade I did not mount to see 
 
158 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 on account of my foot. At Brientz an old woman 
 would give us her presence and conversation till one 
 of my companions courted the daughter. Met be- 
 tween Grindenwald and Interlachen L[ord] B[yron] 
 and Mr. H[obhouse] : we saluted. 
 
 September 23. — Got up at 4. Tired of my company ; 
 and, finding the expense more than I could afford, I 
 went to their bedrooms to wish them good-bye. Set 
 off at 5 J ; and through fine copse- wooded crags, 
 along the Aar, with cascades on every side, to 
 Meyringen ; where I breakfasted with two Germans, 
 an old and a young artist — the old, chatty. Bought 
 a pole. Went to see the Reichenbach, a fine cascade 
 indeed. Thence through the beautiful vale of Nach- 
 im - Grunden, where for a moment I planned a 
 sovereignty ; but, walking on, my plans faded before 
 I arrived at Guttannen, where I dined. 
 
 Rode all the way to-day — horrible, only passable 
 for men and mules : it is the way to St. Gothard. 
 The road is merely huge unequal masses of granite 
 thrown in a line not the straightest. From Guttannen 
 the road went through the wildest and most sublime 
 scenery I ever read of: vegetation less and less, so 
 that, instead of grass, there was moss ; then nothing. 
 Instead of trees, shrubs ; then nothing — huge granite 
 rocks leaving hardly room for the road and river. 
 The river's bed the most magnificent imaginable, cut 
 
SWITZERLAND 159 
 
 deep and narrow into the solid rock, sinuous, and 
 continually accompanied by cascades, and amazing 
 bold and high single-arched bridges. Snow covering 
 in some parts the whole bed of the river, and so thick 
 and strong that even huge stones have fallen without 
 injuring its crust. There are only two houses between 
 Guttannen and the Hospital : one, a chalet wherein 
 I entered ; the other, a cow-herd's. Arrived at 6 
 o'clock precisely, having walked in only 9J hours 30 
 miles at least. 
 
 [This is a little indistinct in connexion with what 
 precedes. I suppose that the phrase "rode all the 
 way to-day" must be understood as meaning "all 
 the way up to Guttannen " ; and that, after leaving 
 Guttannen, there were 30 miles of walking before the 
 Hospital was reached. Yet this seems an unreason- 
 ably heavy day's work in travelling. After "only 
 9^" the initial written is "m": but I presume it 
 ought to be "h" (hours).] 
 
 The Hospital is an old stone ugly building, con- 
 sonant with the wild scene, where the poor are lodged 
 for nothing ; others, us, [as ?] an inn. 
 
 September 24. — On account of rain did not get up 
 till 7. Set off across the Grimsel, a dreary mountain 
 with snow in every hollow — 5000 feet above the 
 Four-canton Lake. Descended on the other side to 
 Obergustellen, where I breakfasted at 10. Thence 
 
i6o THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 through Verlican, Guesquerman, Munster, Rexingen, 
 Biel, Blizzen ; where, out of the dead flat valley, I 
 began to mount, and the scenery began to increase 
 in beauty. One bridge especially over the Rhone, 
 which fell between two clefts' sides, was beautiful. 
 Sinderwald, Viesch, pine-wood ; sax (?) along the 
 rocks, and fine path along the mountain. Very fine, 
 though continued hard rain, which drenched me and 
 hindered my seeing a great deal. To Morel, where I 
 went to bed, and ate a kind of dinner in bed at 7 o'clock. 
 
 September 25. — Up at 5 ; my foot, from having 
 been obliged to walk with the shoe down at heel, 
 very much swelled and too painful to walk. Break- 
 fast. Two students from Brieg, of the Jesuits' 
 College, came in, who had during the vacations been 
 beyond Constance with only two ecus neufs in their 
 pockets. It costs them ten batsches a year at 
 College. Impudent one : the other modest-looking, 
 but, when I gave him six francs because he had no 
 more money, he asked me for more on other accounts. 
 The Jesuits been restored two years. 
 
 At Brieg ^ I sent for the curate, a good old man 
 of sixty. We conversed together in Latin for two 
 hours ; not at all troublesome in enquiries, but kind 
 in answering them. The Valaisians resisted two 
 
 ^ This name is illegibly written : I can only suppose that it 
 must be meant for Brieg. 
 
BRIEG i6i 
 
 years against the French in 93. It was the only- 
 part of the country in which they did so, except 
 Unterwalden, and then it was only the peasants, and 
 in every village there was a French party. The 
 cruelty of the French was dreadful ; they stuck their 
 prisoners in a variety of ways like sheep. One old 
 man of eighty, who had never left his house but 
 whom they found eating, they strangled, and then 
 put meat and bottles by him as if he had died 
 apoplectic. They fought very hard and bravely, but 
 such was the power of numbers united to the force 
 of treachery that they were obliged to yield. In 
 18 1 3, after the French had quitted Brieg, they again 
 attempted to penetrate from Italy by the Simplon ; 
 when the Brieg, Kelor [?], and other villagers, joined 
 by only one company of Austrians, surrounded them 
 in the night, and took them prisoners. In Schwytz [?] 
 and Unterwalden the division was more strongly 
 marked. In Unterwalden (where was the scene) the 
 men [?] divided and fought against each other, some 
 joining the French from Stanz[?] to Engelberg. 
 They were for freedom, and fought as the cause 
 deserved. They killed 5000 French, more than double 
 their own number ; women fought ; they were in 
 all 2100 Swiss. One maid in the ranks, when her 
 comrades were obliged to retreat, seeing a cannon 
 yet unfired, went with a rope-end and fired it, killing 
 
i62 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 thirty [?] French. She was taken ; a pardon was 
 offered. She said, " I do not acknowledge any 
 pardon; my action is not pardonable; a thief [one?] 
 pardons, not a just man." They killed her with 
 swords. The hundred men who came from the 
 higher part of Schwytz, attempting to go to their 
 relief, were through their own countrymen forced to 
 cut their way and march by night ; and, when in 
 retreating they came to the other shore of Lucerne 
 Lake, they had again to cut through their own 
 countrymen to arrive at their homes, they refusing 
 them permission to pass. The Austrians, for the help 
 the higher Valaisians gave them, from sovereigns 
 have made them subjects to the lower Valaisians. 
 The curate came in again, with a description of the 
 Simplon ; sat an hour and a half, then left the book. 
 When [he was] not here I have written the part of 
 my Journal I missed at the time, and the extract 
 from his book. He came in again about 6 with a 
 basket of prunes for me, and offered to go with me 
 half-way, as he had to go to a church on the way. 
 
 September 26. — Got up at 5. The curate came, 
 and, my foot being better, I set off. He showed me 
 the bridge over the Massa where was a battle, and 
 the ruins of a tyrant's tower. We came to his church, 
 where he showed me the miraculous figure that was 
 found in the Rhone. He told me the lower Valaisians 
 
MOUNT ST. BERNARD 163 
 
 were ready to join the French in '13, and that, in 
 spite of this, they [the Austrians ?] had given them a 
 majority of voices. Left me in sight of Brieg, telling 
 me he hoped to see me again in heaven. I walked 
 on to Brieg ; breakfasted, and then set off along the 
 Simplon, a magnificent road indeed. It is cut in 
 many places through the rocks, in others built up 
 to its side. It has caverns and bridges always wide 
 enough for four carriages ; it ascends all the way to 
 the new Hospice, and again descends from it. At its 
 side are houses of refuge (as they are called) where 
 many are kept by government, with privilege of 
 selling food to help the passers-by. There is in each 
 a room with a bed where one can go in case of rain, 
 accident, etc. ; and, when the time for avalanches etc., 
 these men are obliged to accompany the travellers 
 from house to house. Just where the rising ends the 
 new Hospital was to have been erected, and is half 
 done, but stopped now. A little farther on is the old 
 one ; whither I went, and got a dinner in the cell of 
 one of the monks ; bread, wine, cold meat, and nuts. 
 He seemed very ennuye; his words slowly fell ; said 
 they were St. Augustines, not St. Bernardites. That 
 St. Bernard was a mere reformer of the order. They 
 have been here since 18 10 only, in an old castle for 
 which they pay ;^20 a year. The Simplon was a 
 department of France, and rather well off on account 
 
i64 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 of the quantity of work and money, and not having the 
 droits revenues. The Archduke Regnier was there a 
 few days ago incog., and they did not recognize him 
 — which mortified them very much. It is six leagues 
 hither from Brieg, so that I had walked twenty-six 
 miles. 
 
 I set off at 2 : passed through Sempeln [?], and 
 through the most magnificent scenery, through the 
 granite galleries. The Italian part is by far the 
 most difficult and splendid. The first boy that I 
 met before coming to Isella, in answer to a question 
 in German, answered " Non capisco " ; M could have 
 hugged. I arrived after much difficulty at Isella, 
 knocked up. I was ruined in my feet, and it was not 
 till near here that the carriages which parted in the 
 morning from Brieg overtook me. Went to bed 
 immediately in a room where the grease might be 
 scraped from the floor. 
 
 September 27. — Did not get up till i on account 
 of fatigue. Breakfasted most miserably, everything 
 being bad ; and then set off, but immensely slowly 
 till a cart overtook me. Entered ; lay upon the logs 
 of wood and hay, and was driven to Domo d'Ossola. 
 Is it imagination only that I find the sky finer, 
 the country where cultivated extremely rich, green- 
 looking ? The dress of the women picturesque, blue 
 ^ " I don't understand." 
 
ORNAVASCO 165 
 
 with red stripes here and there ; the men more acute 
 and quicker-eyed. Arrived at Domo d'Ossola at 3 ; 
 got into a clean though poor inn, and dined well. 
 A gendarme came in to ask how it was that my 
 passport had not been vised yet ; and then, seeing I 
 was a physician, requested a cure for his toothache. 
 It is useless to describe the picturesque : the best 
 page to turn to for it is the memory. After one of 
 the most comfortable fireside-evenings I have had 
 since I left Geneva I went to bed at 7J. 
 
 September 28. — Set off at 6 o'clock through vine- 
 country, with little hills here and there starting out 
 of the low Alps, highly cultivated, with beautiful 
 little white villas at their tops and sides. Asked a 
 woman what was a house whereon was painted 
 a Democritus, Diogenes, etc. Answered, "E roba 
 antica " ^ — though evidently modern, but deserted. 
 Indeed, the whole of the houses seem too large for 
 the inhabitants — much falling to ruin. From Domo 
 d'Ossola went to Vella ; to Vagagna, where I break- 
 fasted and saw the first good-looking Italian girl. 
 The children are pretty, the women quite otherwise. 
 There began to suffer from my feet so much as that 
 to go about six more miles took me five hours. No 
 car passed me, or anything. 
 
 I arrived at last at Ornavasco. Could get no car, 
 ^ " It's an old aflfair." 
 
i66 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 though they kept me half-an-hour in the yard 
 standing, in hopes of getting one. At last agreed 
 with a man that he should set off at 4 o'clock 
 to-morrow to Fariolo for 4 francs. Looked at a 
 bedroom : shrugged up my shoulders, but forced. 
 Dinner : no meat, because " meagre." Ate the fruit. 
 The Italian grapes, nectarines, peaches, and pears, I 
 got yesterday, excellent. Two bunches of grapes 
 half-a-franc : two at dinner. 
 
 Sunday^ September 29. — Up at 5. Got into the 
 char, or rather cart. Passed through Gravellino to 
 Fariolo. Asked 10 francs to take me to Laveno : 
 offered 4 — accepted. Got into the boat. Rowed 
 towards Isola Madre ; passed Isola Pescatori ; and 
 landed on Isola Bella. 
 
 Went over the palace. Many of the floors miserable 
 on account of their being the mere rock. Some good 
 pictures. A whole set of rooms below in the style 
 of grottoes, with windows looking on to beautiful 
 views, close to the lake for // fresco. Looked at the 
 terrace : not pleasing the style : and, thinking I 
 should see it all in going round, did not go over 
 the gardens. Went round the island in the boat ; 
 magnificently paved, like terrace on terrace. 
 
 Thence towards Laveno, intending to go to Lugano 
 and Como ; but, hearing that I could go all the way 
 by water to Milan, I preferred this, and accordingly 
 
MILAN 167 
 
 turned round towards Belgirato. Breakfasted on 
 caffe al latte, uve, and fichi} 4J francs. Boatman 
 proposed my joining a party to Sestri-Calende, which 
 I did. Arona, with the colossus, on my left, Anghera 
 on my right ; Monte Rosa ; all the bottom part of 
 the lake richly magnificent. 
 
 [The colossus is the celebrated gigantic statue of 
 San Carlo Borromeo.] 
 
 Arrived at an inn — taken for a servant. After 
 some time things got round, when in came two 
 soldiers with swords by their sides, to desire me to 
 step to the police-inspector. I did, and found he 
 could not read the writing in my passport. The 
 boatman came soon after, offering me a plan for 
 to-morrow for five francs, and showing me twelve 
 naps, they got for the boat — which cost only seventy 
 francs. Agreed. 
 
 September 30. — Up at 5. Off at 6 in a large barge, 
 with yesterday's English party and two carriages, by 
 the Tessino and canal to Milan : at first through a 
 fine hilly country, and rapidly by the Tessino flood. 
 After, slower, and through a flat plain with trees and 
 neat villas and hanging grapes, to Milan. Slept out 
 of the town by the canal. 
 October i. — Up at 7. 
 
 [Polidori blunderingly calls this " September 31 ": 
 ^ Coffee with milk, grapes, and figs. 
 
i68 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 he also calls the day a Monday, but October i, 1816, 
 was a Tuesday. For the next following day he 
 rightly writes "October 2."] 
 
 The boatman came as I had desired, to guide 
 me. Entered Milan by a fine gate with a kind of 
 triumphal arch. The streets are clean but narrow — 
 fine houses. There are two strips of pavement for 
 wheels, and often two for pedestrians. Passed by 
 Santa Maria — fine, all white marble, with many fine 
 statues on the outside. Many palaces. A bad taste 
 shown in plastering the columns and corner-stones 
 of a lighter colour than the body. 
 
 Got a letter from Brelaz ; well written in composition 
 and in letters, but badly spelled. Got my trunk, after 
 some difficulty, passed. The diligence-keepers asked 
 if they could direct me to rooms : showed two where 
 a man was at that moment going. Got them for 40 
 lire il mese ; a bedroom and sitting-room, second 
 storey, Contrado San Spirito. Sent to the custom- 
 house. Made the men wait — sent them away for two 
 hours, again away for one. More stoppages, and, in 
 centimes, 3 francs to pay. They would not at first let 
 it (the trunk) go because it was the last day of the 
 month. 
 
 [Did they share Polidori's blunder that the day 
 was September 31 ?] 
 
 Went to dine at a restaurateur's: ij-franc dinner. 
 
MILAN 169 
 
 Afterwards put my things into a little order, dressed, 
 and went strolling towards Teatro della Scala. 
 Entered, two hours before beginning, alone. Im- 
 mense theatre : six rows of boxes, with, I think, 
 thirty-six in a row. La Testa di Bronzo^ a ballet, 
 and a comic ballet : the ballet the most magnificent 
 thing I ever saw — splendid indeed. 
 
 October 2. — Got up at 8. Breakfasted on grapes, 
 bread and butter, wine, and figs. Wrote to Lord 
 Byron. Dressed. Went to Marchese Lapone — out 
 of town ; Monsignor Brema — not at home. Walked 
 about looking at booksellers' shops. Entered the 
 Duomo — invisible almost, so black and dark. They 
 were putting up drapery for Friday, which is the 
 Emperor's birthday (probably the same as for 
 Napoleon). Returned home, arranged my papers. 
 Took a walk on the Corso ; then to the Teatro Re. 
 The same price for all the places. The piece // 
 Sogno di Ariosto [Dream of Ariosto], where Fortune, 
 Merit, Orgoglio, with Mrs. Disinganno,^ were all 
 personified. The dialogue abounded in truths, es- 
 pecially regarding women, which they applauded. 
 The theatre is very small, hke the Haymarket. 
 Home to bed. 
 
 October 3. — Up at 8. Went to a circulating library : 
 read Denina, Vicende, all the part on Italy and 
 1 Orgoglio is pride ; disinganno is undeceiving, disillusion. 
 
I70 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 preface. To the Teatro Scelto di Milano. Enquired 
 about Andricini etc. for my father — not found. 
 
 [" Andricini " is clearly written in the transcript 
 before me. I am not aware that there is any such 
 Italian author as Andricini, and apprehend that the 
 name ought to be Andreini. This author wrote, early 
 in the seventeenth century, a dramatic poem entitled 
 AdamOy which was indisputably present to Milton's 
 mind when he was writing Paradise Lost. Dr. Poli- 
 dori's father, who translated Milton, was probably 
 interested in this work of Andreini.] 
 
 Went to the Teatro Re ; ^ a play of English people 
 in which they kiss the hand, and make more bows 
 than were ever made in a century in England. There 
 were German soldiers in English uniforms present. 
 Home, to bed. 
 
 October 4. — Up at 8 — breakfasted. Went to call 
 on Monsignore Breme — found him. Received me 
 with two kisses and great apparent joy. About to 
 learn English : I promised my help. Walked with 
 me, and invited me to his box. 
 
 [Lord Byron, in two of his letters, October and 
 
 November 18 16, remarks regarding Milan: "The 
 
 society is very oddly carried on — at the theatre, and 
 
 the theatre only, which answers to our opera. People 
 
 1 There is a word following " R^," evidently the title of the 
 play which was acted. It looks something like " Amondre," 
 but cannot be read. 
 
MILAN 171 
 
 meet there as at a rout, but in very small circles. . . . 
 They have private boxes, where they play at cards, 
 or talk, or anything else ; but, except at the cassino, 
 there are no open houses or balls etc. etc."] 
 
 Left him — came home. Read Denina's Ultime 
 Vicende, a poor book. Went to Guyler. Met Cara- 
 vella — walked with him. Went to dine : where I met 
 his brother, who told me the physician at Florence 
 was dead, and promised to come and take me to the 
 hospital. Met after dinner Abate Berlezi the Crabule.^ 
 Came home. Read the Calandra of Bibiena, and 
 Sofonisba of Trissino. Took an ice, and went to 
 La Scala. Feast of St. Francis, the Emperor's. When 
 the Dukes went this morning to mass at the Duomo 
 not a hat moved, not a voice of applause : however, 
 when Regnier entered, there was a slight clapping 
 of hands. The theatre was lighted up like an English 
 one, and was magnificent, but showed what the Italians 
 allege — that the scene does not improve by it, but the 
 contrary. 
 
 In Brema's loge there were Monti, Brema's brother, 
 and others. Monti a short man, round face, quick 
 eye ; pleasant in conversation, not haughty, modest, 
 unassuming ; seemed to take great pleasure in parts 
 of the music and in the dancing. 
 
 [It will be understood that this is the celebrated 
 
 1 The word is more like Crabule than anything else : I don't 
 understand it, 
 
172 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Vincenzo Monti, the poet who was at one time 
 acclaimed as the legitimate successor of Dante in 
 virtue of his poem La Basvigliana^ upon a personage 
 of the French Revolution. In 1816 Monti was sixty- 
 two years of age : he died in 1828. Though sufficiently 
 Italian in his tone of mind and sentiment, he was not 
 a consistent Italian patriot, but was eminently sus- 
 ceptible of inflation by a series of conflicting winds — 
 anti-revolution, revolution, Napoleon ism, and even 
 Austrianism. Not indeed that he was sordidly self- 
 interested in his various gyrations. As Dr. Richard 
 Garnett has said : " He was no interpreter of his age, 
 but a faithful mirror of its successive phases, and 
 endowed with the rare gift of sublimity to a degree 
 scarcely equalled by any contemporary except Goethe, 
 Byron, and Shelley."] 
 
 Brema related that a friend of his, Porro, asked for 
 a passport to Rome : refused, and asked for docu- 
 ments to prove his business. Gave what proved he 
 had business at Maurata and relatives at Rome. 
 Refused. Went to Swarrow, who told him he could 
 not give it. Porro said : " Why do the Austrians 
 think the Italians are always making conspiracies?" 
 Swarrow said that they did not know, but, now that 
 they had the upper hand, they cared not ; and at last 
 that, if Porro would give his word of honour not to 
 visit any of the foreign embassies, he should have 
 
MILAN 173 
 
 a passport. He had it. Porro was not a revolutionist 
 but had always been against Napoleon, and had 
 belonged to a legislative body by him dissolved on 
 account of obstinacy. Brema and others accompanied 
 me as far as the door, and I went to bed. 
 
 [It appears in the sequel that there were two 
 Austrian governors in Milan at this period — Swarrow 
 and Bubna — one for civil and the other for military 
 affairs.] 
 
 From that day I neglected my Journal till this day, 
 
 December 8. — My residence at Milan lasted till 
 October 30. During that time I had a most happy 
 and pleasant life, Monsignor de Breme taking great 
 friendship for me. My friends and acquaintance 
 were Breme, Borsieri, Guasco, Cavalier Breme, Beyle, 
 Negri, Byron, Hobhouse, Finch, Caravellas, Locatelli, 
 Monti, Monti's son-in-law, Lord Cowper, Lord Jersey, 
 etc. ; Lloyd, Lee, Wotheron. 
 
 [Beyle was the great romance-writer best known 
 as De Stendhal. In 18 16 he was aged thirty-three, 
 and had published only one book, entitled Lettres 
 Rentes de Vienne siir Haydn, suivies d'une Vie de 
 Mosart, etc. He had seen some service under 
 Napoleon, in Russia and elsewhere. His passionate 
 admiration of the now dethroned Emperor induced 
 him to retire from France towards 18 14, and he 
 resided in Milan up to 182 1. He died in Paris in 
 
174 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 1842. — Hobhouse had rejoined Byron in mid- 
 September, and they had continued together since 
 then. — Colonel Pinch was the person through whom 
 Shelley, in 1821, heard of the death of John Keats. 
 — The Lord Cowper living in 18 16 was the fifth Earl, 
 born in 1778, and was married to a daughter of the 
 first Viscount Melbourne. — The Earl of Jersey, born 
 in 1773, was married to a daughter of the Earl of 
 Westmorland. — Mr. Wotheron is spoken of later 
 on under the name " Werthern." Neither of these 
 surnames has a very English aspect, and I cannot 
 say which is correct.] 
 
 De Breme and I became very intimate, and I believe 
 he is really a good friend. In the morning at 10 
 o'clock I went to him to help him in English, and 
 towards the end he corrected my Italian translation 
 of Count Orlando} We afterwards met at his box 
 every night in the theatre of La Scala. He gave a 
 dinner to Lord Byron, at which were a good many 
 or rather all my acquaintances — Monti, Finch, Hob- 
 house, two Bremes, Borsieri, Guasco (translator of 
 Sophocles), Negri (author of Francesca of Rimini^ a 
 play). The dinner was very elegant, and we were 
 very merry, talking chiefly of literature, Castlereagh, 
 Burghersh, etc. We got up immediately after dinner, 
 and went to coffee ; thence most to the theatre. De 
 
 * Presumably some English book, but I know not what. 
 
MILAN 175 
 
 Breme was Vicar Almoner under the French Govern- 
 ment. A priest came to him to ask leave to confess ; 
 Breme, knowing the subject, refused. The Princess 
 was put to move Beauharnais, who sent for Breme 
 and in a very angry mood asked him why he had 
 refused leave. B[reme] said that, as he was placed 
 to give leave, he imagined it was that it might not be 
 granted indiscriminately, that he could not in his 
 conscience give it, but that he was not the chief, 
 and the Almoner, being applied to, might grant it. 
 B[eauharnais] asked why, saying that the Princess 
 wished it, and it must be done. De B[reme] said he 
 had undertaken the office under the idea that his 
 conscience was to be his guide ; if not, the office 
 should be immediately vacant ; that he put it to 
 Beauharnais himself whether a man who was burled 
 in the vilest dissoluteness was a proper person to be 
 entrusted with the care of young women's minds. 
 Beauharnais said, " Right, right ; you shall hear no 
 more of it." This, and another occasion of the same 
 nature, were the only occasions in which he saw 
 Beauharnais privately ; he avoided the court, and did 
 not seek preferment. He twice under that govern- 
 ment refused a bishopric, and under the new govern- 
 ment ; giving me as a reason that it went against 
 his conscience to inculcate what he did not believe, 
 and to add power to those who gave them, as he 
 
176 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 would be expected to side with them. He is 
 violently for the independence of Italy. Christianity 
 he believes not, and gives (I think) a new argument 
 why we should not be holden to believe it. Saul, who 
 was contemporary, who beheld the miracles etc., did 
 not believe till a miracle was operated upon him ; 
 we at this distance cannot believe with greater facility. 
 He has published an eulogium of Caluro, Ingiustizia 
 del Giudizio^ etc,^ poems, etc. Has written several 
 tragedies ; Ina made me weep like a child. He is 
 warm in his affections, and has never recovered the 
 death of one he loved — a young noble lady, of great 
 accomplishments and beauty. His friendship for me 
 was warm : it gratifies me more than any attentions, 
 friendship, or any relation I had before, with my 
 fellow-companions. I cannot express what I feel for 
 him. When parting from him, I wept like a child 
 in his arms. He maintains from principle, not from 
 belief, all the hardships imposed upon him by his 
 tonsure. He would have the world to see that his 
 belief is not swayed by a wish to escape from the 
 bonds of the clerical state. He is charitable, giving 
 away great sums of money in charity ; eats only once 
 a day, and studies all day till the hour of the theatre ; 
 kind to all who are recommended to him ; sacrificing 
 whole days to show them what he has seen a 
 thousand times ; a great admirer of English women ; 
 
MILAN 177 
 
 has an excellent library, of which I had the use. A 
 great friend of comic, good-natured mimicry. Has 
 an idea of writing Ida, a novel containing a picture 
 of the most promising movements of the Milan 
 revolution, and I have promised to translate it. He 
 has two brothers ; his father lives yet ; his eldest 
 brother is Ambassador at Munich. The youngest 
 is Cavalier Breme — been officer in Spain ; extremely 
 pleasant and affectionate with me. Breme was a 
 great friend of Caluro's, and to him Caluro dedicated 
 one of his opuscules. 
 
 Borsieri, a man of great mental digestive power 
 and memory, superficially read ; author of // Giorno, 
 a work written with great grace and lightness. He 
 was very intimate with me, Guasco, and Breme. 
 Guasco, a Piedmontese ; little reading, but great 
 mental vision and talents. He also was one who 
 attached himself a good deal to me. De Beyle, 
 formerly Intendant des Marches (I think) to Buona- 
 parte, and his secretary when in the country. A fat 
 lascivious man. A great deal of anecdote about 
 Buonaparte : calls him an inimitable et bon despote. 
 He related many anecdotes — I don't remember 
 them: amongst other things, he said Buonaparte 
 despised the Italians much. 
 
 [This last detail is confirmed in Beyle's Remin- 
 iscences of Napoleon, published not long ago.] 
 12 
 
178 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 These four were the usual attendants at Dc 
 Breme's box. 
 
 Monti is a short, roundish, quick-eyed, and rather 
 rascally-faced man, affable, easily fired ; talks rather 
 nonsense when off poetry, and even upon that not 
 good. Great imagination ; very weak. Republican 
 always in conversation with us; but in the first 
 month, after having declaimed strongly in B[reme']s 
 box about liberty and Germans, just as they were 
 going out he said, " But now let us talk no more of 
 this, on account of my pension." Under the French 
 government he gained a great deal by his various 
 offices ; by this one he has been abridged of half. 
 He translated the Iliad of Homer without knowing 
 a word of Greek ; he had it translated by his friends, 
 word for word written under the Greek. Easily 
 influenced by the opinions of others ; in fact, a com- 
 plete weathercock. He married the daughter of 
 Pickler, the engraver; a fine woman, and they say 
 an exceedingly good reciter, as he is himself She 
 has acted in his plays upon the Philodramatic stage. 
 His daughter is married. 
 
 Negri — Marchese Negri ^ — a Genoese, not an im- 
 provisatore — very chatty ; has at Genoa a most 
 
 1 I think the name would correctly be Marchese di Negro : 
 my father had some correspondence, towards 1850, with the then 
 Marchese of that family. 
 
MILAN 179 
 
 beautiful garden which all the English visit. Related 
 to me Gianni's beginning. Gianni was an apprentice 
 to a stay-maker, when one day an Abate, going 
 into the shop, found him busily engaged in reading. 
 Looking at the book, he asked him if he understood 
 it. He said yes, and, on reading, showed it by his 
 expression. The Abate, who was an improvisatore, 
 asked him to see him next morning ; when he 
 improvised before him, and observed that the young 
 Gianni seemed as if his mind was full and wished 
 to give forth. He had him sent to school, and intro- 
 duced him. Gianni in the Revolution, taking the 
 Liberal side, was obliged to leave Rome, and, going 
 to Genoa, Negri heard by letter of it, and went to 
 seek him, inviting him to dine with him. He refused; 
 and Negri, who had promised his friends that he 
 would be of the party, at the hour of dinner went 
 and found him with his nightcap on, deeply reading 
 his favourite Dante ; and in a manner dragged him 
 by force to his house, where Gianni pleased much — 
 and stayed a year at Negri's house, teaching him the 
 art of improvisation. Gianni's improvisations were 
 (many) improvised on the spot by an Abate into 
 Latin verse. — Negri came to Breme's box several 
 times, and had the effect of making all except 
 Breme burst with laughter : me he sent to sleep. 
 Lord Byron came to Milan, and I saw him there 
 
i8o THE DIARY OF POLIDORl 
 
 a good deal. He received me kindly, and corrected 
 the English of my essay in Tlu Pamphleteer} He 
 visited a good deal Breme's box. Mr. Hobhouse 
 was with him. 
 
 Colonel Finch, an extremely pleasant, good-natured, 
 well-informed, clever gentleman; spoke Italian ex- 
 tremely well, and was very well read in Italian 
 literature. A ward of his gave a masquerade in 
 London upon her- coming of age. She gave to 
 each a character in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 
 to support, without the knowledge of each other, 
 and received them in a saloon in proper style as 
 Queen Elizabeth. He mentioned to me that Nelli 
 had written a Life of Galileo extremely fair, which, 
 if he had money by him, he would buy that it 
 might be published, — in Italy they dare not ; and 
 that Galileo's MSS. were in dispute, so that the 
 heirs will not part with them ; they contain some 
 new and some various readings. Finch is a great 
 admirer of architecture and Italy. — Wotheron, Mr., 
 a gentleman most peaceable and quiet I ever saw, 
 accompanying Finch ; whose only occupation is, 
 when he arrives at a town or other place, to set 
 about sketching and then colouring, so that he has 
 perhaps the most complete collection of sketches 
 
 ^ This essay was on the Punishment of Death. 
 2 The word written is " his " ; but the context shows that this 
 must be a mistake. 
 
MILAN i8i 
 
 of his tour possible. He invited me (taking me 
 for an Italian), in case I went to England, to see 
 him ; and, hearing I was English, he pressed me 
 much more. — Locatelli was the physician of the 
 hospital, a good unimpostoring physician. I saw 
 under him a case of pemphizus, and had under my 
 care an hysterical woman. 
 
 Jersey, Lady, promised to enquire of her mother. 
 Lady Westmorland, if she would employ me as 
 her physician ; but said she thought my having been 
 with Lord B[yron] a great objection. 
 
 [I have an impression, not a secure one, that Dr. 
 Polidori did act to some extent as Lady Westmor- 
 land's medical adviser. It would here appear that 
 her Ladyship was not very partial to Byron ; and 
 Byron must have repaid her dislike, for I find, in a 
 letter of his to Murray, November 1817, that Polidori 
 was in the way of receiving " the patronage of Frederic 
 North, the most illustrious humbug of his age and 
 country, and the blessing of Lady Westmorland, 
 William Ward's mad woman." Joseph Severn the 
 painter (Keats's friend), who saw a good deal of Lady 
 Westmorland at one time, terms her " this impulsive, 
 arrogant, dictatorial, but witty and brilliant woman."] 
 
 Lloyd ; — as I was moving in the pit, found him, and 
 never saw a person so glad in my life. He offered 
 me half of the money he had at his banker's, as he 
 thought I must be much embarrassed. Told me 
 
i82 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Brelaz and Bertolini seemed to be together, and that 
 the man seemed worked off his legs. 
 
 My life at Milan was very methodical. I got up, 
 went to the hospital, breakfasted, came home, studied, 
 dined, and then at 7 went to the theatre. Between 
 breakfast and study went to de Breme to help him 
 in English. It was proposed too, by him, to teach 
 English, which I had intended to do. 
 
 I saw only the dome under which is the chapel of 
 St. Borromeo — very rich in silver, crystal, and jewels. 
 The body is vested in pontificals, and quite dry. The 
 orbits seem only filled with a little heap of black 
 dirt, and the skull etc. is black. There is here the 
 gnometer of Cassini. They preserve here a nail of 
 the cross of Christ. — St. Ambrose, the ancient Cathe- 
 dral. It was at the gates of this that Theodosius was 
 refused entrance. — The Brera library; and the Am- 
 brosian, where I saw the Virgil with marginal notes 
 of Petrarch ; some of the pieces of MSS. of the 
 Plautus and Terence, fragments edited by Mai. — 
 Some of the paintings there are beautiful. The 
 Milanese Raphael has some heads expressing such 
 mild heavenly meekness as is scarcely imagined. 
 
 [This Raphael is, as many readers will know, the 
 Sposalizio, or Espousal of the Virgin Mary and 
 Joseph. Being an early work by the master, it 
 exhibits, in its ''mild heavenly meekness," more of 
 
MILAN 183 
 
 the style of Perugino than of that which became 
 distinctive of Raphael in his maturity.] 
 
 When at Milan, I spent almost all my money in 
 books, buying nearly 3CX) volumes, not being able to 
 resist that thirst for printed sheets, many of which I 
 never shall read. 
 
 Swarrow, the Governor of Milan, when the 
 Emperor was there, accompanying him to the theatre, 
 saw that one poor man in the pit, leaning against a 
 box, had dared to keep his hat on. Violently 
 enraged, he enters the box, without leave or saying 
 a word ; and, leaning over the box with all his orders 
 dangling at his breast, applies two hearty slaps to the 
 poor man's cheeks, and then, rising majestically, 
 leaves the box, and goes to receive the despot's 
 smile. This making a great hubbub, and exciting a 
 great deal of ridicule against the noble police-officer, 
 he insisted with the police-director that not a word 
 more should be allowed to be said. 
 
 When at Milan, there came Sgricci, a Tuscan, 
 under the patronage of Monti, who puffed him most 
 egregiously, especially his tragic improvisati. I 
 accompanied de Breme to Casa Crivelli, where I saw 
 Swarrow and a cardinal ; a dried-up ganache [?] with 
 a face of malice that had dried up with the features of 
 the face, but still remained sketched there in pretty 
 forcible lines. The improvisator entered ; yellow 
 
i84 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 boots with trousers, blue coat, and a Flemish collar to 
 his shirt. He began The Loves of Psyche and Cupid ; 
 commonplace, unpoetic rhymes. Coriolanus, a tra- 
 gedy ; such an abominable opiate that, in spite of 
 my pinching myself and Cavalier Breme rousing me 
 every minute, I found myself, when ended, roused by 
 the applause from a pleasant nap. Heard him again 
 at the theatre; terza rima ; The Grief of Mausoka} 
 The only bearable parts were those about Aurora, 
 night, etc., which he had beforehand prepared, to 
 clap-in at convenience, from the Gradus ad Parnassum, 
 The tragedy being drawn out, first came The Death of 
 Socrates. He came forward, saying that, this subject 
 being undramatizable, he would, if the public insisted, 
 attempt it, but that he had rather another might be 
 drawn. Montezuma came out. " Oh," says he, " this 
 will touch your passions too much, and offend many 
 probably personally." The public here stoutly 
 hissed, and insisted he should proceed ; he as stoutly 
 called on the boy to draw, which he did, and, there 
 coming forth Eteocles and Polynices, he was satisfied, 
 making olla podrida scenica of French ragouts, Italian 
 minestras, and Greek black soup. It was reported 
 that Monti's taking him up was by the persuasion of 
 his daughter. An epigram was written upon Sgricci, 
 as follows nearly — 
 ^ /. e. Artemisia, who built the mausoleum of Halicarnassus. 
 
MILAN 185 
 
 " In questi tempi senza onore e merto 
 Lavora Sgricci in vano, ha un altro il serto." 
 
 [The translation of this couplet is — " In these times 
 without honour and merit Sgricci labours in vain — 
 another man wears the wreath." It will be seen that 
 the epigram, if such it can be considered, runs in 
 favour of Sgricci. He was a native of Arezzo, and, as 
 our text shows, a renowned improvisatore. I happen 
 to possess a printed tragedy of his, Ettore, which is 
 notified as having been improvised in the Teatro Ca- 
 rignano, Turin, on June 13, 1823. Shelley in January 
 182 1 attended one of Sgricci's improvisations, and was 
 deeply impressed by it as a wonderful effort, and even, 
 considered in itself, a fine poetic success. In 1869, 
 being entrusted with some MS. books by Shelley 
 through the courtesy of his son the late Baronet, I 
 read a tribute of some length which the great English 
 poet had paid to the Italian improvisatore : it has 
 not yet been published, and is included, I suppose, 
 among the Shelley MSS. bequeathed to the Bodleian 
 Library. The subject on which Shelley heard 
 Sgricci improvise was Hector (Ettore). One rather 
 suspects that the Ettore improvised in 1823 may have 
 been partly reminiscent of its predecessor in 1821. 
 The portrait of Sgricci, a man of some thirty-five 
 years of age, appears in the book which I possess : 
 it shows a costume of the fancy-kind that Polidori 
 
i86 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 speaks of. I have looked through the tragedy, and 
 do not concur in the tone of ridicule in which 
 Polidori indulges. An improvise can only be 
 criticized as an improvise, and this appears to me 
 a very fair specimen. — As I have had occasion here 
 to re-mention Shelley, I may as well add that Medwin 
 {Life of Shelley, vol. i, p. 250), says that the poet had 
 no animosity against Polidori, consequent upon any 
 past collisions : " Shelley I have often heard speak of 
 Polidori, but without any feeling of ill-will."] 
 
 Going one evening with L[ord] B[yron] and Mr. 
 H[obhouse] to B[reme]'s box, Mr. Hobhouse, Bor- 
 sieri, and myself, went into the pit, standing to look 
 at the ballet. An officer in a great-coat came and 
 placed himself completely before me with his grena- 
 dier's hat on. I remarked it to my companions : 
 " Guarda a colui colla sua berretta in testa " (I believe 
 those were my words), waiting a few minutes to see if 
 he would move. I touched him, and said, " Vorrebbe 
 farmi la grazia di levarsi il cappello purch'io vegga ? " 
 He turning said " Lo vorreste 1 " with a smile of 
 insult. I answered : "SI, lo voglio."^ He then asked 
 
 1 The speeches run thus : (a) Look at that man, with his cap 
 on his head, (d) Would you do me the favour of taking off 
 your hat, so that I may see? (c) Would you wish for it? 
 (d) Yes, I wish it. In Italian, this last phrase has an imperative 
 tone, " I win it." — It may be added that the Austrian's phrase 
 " Lo vorreste?" was itself not civil : the civil form would have 
 been " Lo vorrebbe ella ? '* 
 
MILAN 187 
 
 me if I would go out with him. I, thinking he meant 
 for a duel, said, " Yes, with pleasure " ; and called Mr. 
 Hobhouse to accompany me. He did. When pass- 
 ing by the guard-house he said, " Go in, go in there " ; 
 I said I would not, that it was not there I thought of 
 going with him. Then he swore in German, and drew 
 half his sabre with a threatening look, but Hobhouse 
 held his hand. The police on guard came, and he 
 delivered me to their custody. I entered the guard- 
 house, and he began declaiming about the insult to 
 one like him. I said I was his equal, and, being in 
 the theatre, to any one there. " Equal to me ? " he 
 retorted ; "you are not equal to the last of the 
 Austrian soldiers in the house " ; and then began 
 abusing me in all the Billingsgate German he was 
 master of — which I did not know till afterwards. In 
 the meanwhile the news had spread in the theatre, and 
 reached de Breme and L[ord] Byron, who came run- 
 ning down, and tried to get me away, but could not on 
 any plea. De Breme heard the secretary of police 
 say to the officer : " Don't you meddle with this, leave 
 it to me." De Breme said he would go to Bubna 
 immediately, and get an order for my dismission ; on 
 which the officer took Lord Byron's card, as bail that 
 I would appear to answer for my conduct on the 
 morrow. Then I was released. 
 
 Next morning I received a printed order from 
 the police to attend. As soon as I saw the order 
 
i88 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 I went to De Breme, who accompanied me to the 
 gate. I entered. " Where do you wish your pass- 
 port vised for?" "I am not thinking of going." 
 "You must be off in four-and -twenty hours for 
 Florence." " But I wish for more time." " You 
 must be off in that time, or you will have some- 
 thing disagreeable happen to you." Breme, upon 
 hearing this, immediately set off to Bubna, and I 
 to Lord Byron, who sent Mr. Hobhouse in company 
 of Colonel McSomething to Swarrow to ask that I 
 might not be obliged to go. They went. Swarrow 
 received them with a pen in his hand ; said it was 
 a bagatelle ; that the Secretary of Police had been 
 there in the morning, and that he had told him of it. 
 That it was nothing, that I should find myself as well 
 off in any other city as there, and that, if I stayed, 
 something worse might happen. Hobhouse tried to 
 speak. S[warrow] advanced a foot ; " Give my 
 compliments to Lord Byron ; am sorry I was not at 
 home when he called." " But if this is so mere a 
 trifle . . ." — "I hope Lord Byron is well"; advanc- 
 ing another foot, and then little by little got them 
 so near the door that they saw it was useless, and 
 left him. De Breme in the meanwhile had been 
 to Bubna. Bubna received him very politely, and 
 said he had already seen Colonel M., who had ex- 
 plained to him the whole ; and that for the mistake 
 of speaking to the officer on guard he thought it 
 
MILAN 189 
 
 enough that I had been put under arrest. " I 
 am much obHged to you, and am glad then that 
 my friend will not have to leave Milan." " What do 
 you mean ? " Breme explained. " It is impossible, 
 there must be some mistake, for I have had no 
 memorial of it. I will see Swarrow this evening 
 about it." De Breme mentioned with what idea I had 
 left the theatre. Bubna said that German soldiers 
 had one prejudice less; and at the theatre in the 
 evening I heard many instances of the officers of 
 the Austrian Army acting meanly in this respect. 
 Amongst others, Bubna's son, being challenged for 
 insulting a lady at a public ball, accepted the 
 challenge, but said there were several things he had 
 to settle first, and that he would appoint a day for the 
 following week. He left Milan the Saturday before. 
 A young Italian had a dispute with a Hussar officer, 
 and challenged him, for which he was brought before 
 the police and reprimanded. Some days after, the 
 officer, standing at a coffee-room door, asked him if 
 he wished to settle the affair with him. He said yes, 
 and they immediately entered. The officer spoke to 
 several of his companions in the room, and they all 
 struck the young man, and pushed him out. He 
 could get no redress. 
 
 [This affair of Dr. Polidori's shindy in the theatre 
 excited some remark. His feelings in favour of Italy 
 and Italians were keen, as he was himself half Italian 
 
I90 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 by blood ; and he was evidently not disinclined to 
 pick a quarrel with an Austrian military man. He 
 was indiscreet, and indeed wrong, in asking an 
 Austrian officer on guard to take off his cap ; and, 
 although he addressed the officer at first in courteous 
 terms, his expression " Lo voglio " was not to be 
 brooked even by a civilian. Lord Byron mentioned 
 the matter in a letter to his sister, November 6, 1816, 
 as follows : " Dr. Polidori, whom I parted with before 
 I left Geneva (not for any great harm, but because he 
 was always in squabbles, and had no sort of conduct), 
 contrived at Milan, which he reached before me, to 
 get into a quarrel with an Austrian, and to be ordered 
 out of the city by the Government. I did not even 
 see his adventure, nor had anything to do with it, 
 except getting him out of arrest, and trying to get 
 him altogether out of the scrape." And on the same 
 day to Thomas Moore. "On arriving at Milan I 
 found this gentleman in very good society, where he 
 prospered for some weeks ; but at length, in the 
 theatre, he quarrelled with an Austrian officer, and 
 was sent out by the Government in twenty-four hours. 
 I could not prevent his being sent off; which, indeed, 
 he partly deserved, being quite in the wrong, and 
 having begun a row for row's sake. He is not a bad 
 fellow, but young and hot-headed, and more likely to 
 incur diseases than to cure them." Beyle likewise 
 has left an account of the affair, translated thus. 
 
MILAN 191 
 
 " One evening, in the middle of a philosophical 
 argument on the principle of utility, Silvio Pellico, a 
 delightful poet, came in breathless haste to apprise 
 Lord Byron that his friend and physician Polidori 
 had been arrested. We instantly ran to the guard- 
 house. It turned out that Polidori had fancied him- 
 self incommoded in the pit by the fur cap of the 
 officer on guard, and had requested him to take it 
 off, alleging that it impeded his view of the stage. 
 The poet Monti had accompanied us, and, to the 
 number of fifteen or twenty, we surrounded the 
 prisoner. Every one spoke at once. Polidori was 
 beside himself with passion, and his face red as a 
 burning coal. Byron, though he too was in a violent 
 rage, was on the contrary pale as ashes. His patrician 
 blood boiled as he reflected on the slight consideration 
 in which he was held. The Austrian officer ran from 
 the guard-house to call his men, who seized their 
 arms that had been piled on the outside. Monti's idea 
 was excellent : * Sortiamo tutti — restino solamente 
 i titolati ' (Let us all go out — only the men of title to 
 remain). De Breme remained, with the Marquis di 
 Sartirana, his brother, Count Confalonieri, and Lord 
 Byron. These gentlemen having written their names 
 and titles, the list was handed to the officer on guard, 
 who instantly forgot the insult offered to his fur cap, 
 and allowed Polidori to leave the guard-house. In 
 the evening, however, the Doctor received an order to 
 
192 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 quit Milan within twenty-four hours. Foaming with 
 rage, he swore that he would one day return and 
 bestow manual castigation on the Governor who had 
 treated him with so little respect." — One other obser- 
 vation of Beyle, regarding Polidori and Byron, may be 
 introduced here. " Polidori informed us that Byron 
 often composed a hundred verses in the course of the 
 morning. On his return from the theatre in the 
 evening, still under the charm of the music to which 
 he had listened, he would take up his papers, and 
 reduce his hundred verses to five-and-twenty or thirty. 
 He often sat up all night in the ardour of composition." 
 — As Polidori's passport is prominently mentioned 
 at this point of the Diary, I may add a few particulars 
 about it. It was granted on April 17, 18 16, by the 
 Conte Ambrogio Cesare San Martino d'Aglia, 
 Minister of the King of Sardinia in London ; and it 
 authorized Polidori to travel in Italy — no mention 
 being made of Switzerland, nor yet of Lord Byron. 
 The latest visa on the passport is at Pisa, for 
 going to Florence. This is signed " II Governatore, 
 Viviani," whom we may safely assume to have been 
 a relative of Shelley's Emilia. The date of this final 
 visa is February 17, 18 17.] 
 
 October 30. — Got up early next morning, packed up 
 my books and things ; then went to seek for a coach 
 that was parting for Lodi. Found one, and fixed that 
 
LODI 193 
 
 a vetturino, who was going to set off next day for 
 Florence, should take me up at Lodi. Went to see 
 de Breme. He told me he had been to Bubna's, but 
 that he had found him out at a council of war, and 
 that he had left an order none should follow him. I 
 took leave of de Breme, and wept in his arms like a 
 child, for his kindness and friendship had been dear 
 to me. I took leave of L[ord] B[yron], H[obhouse], 
 and Guasco. The last offered me his services in any 
 way, and said he should take it as a favour the oftener 
 he was applied to. I got into the coach with only 
 5 louis in my pocket, leaving my books in the care 
 of de Breme, and left Milan with rage and grief so 
 struggling in my breast that tears often started in my 
 eyes, and all I could think of was revenge against 
 Swarrow and the officer in particular, and a hope that 
 before I left Italy there might be a rising to which I 
 might join myself I arrived at Lodi ; wrote to Lloyd 
 to ask him to lend me some money, and went to bed 
 exhausted. 
 
 October 31. — Up at 9: breakfasted. Went to see 
 the Duomo and other churches without feeling inter- 
 est ; the hospital, which is a magnificent building. 
 Returning to the inn, I met the vetturino. I found 
 in the coach a Prussian student of Heidelberg who 
 had made the campaigns of '13 and '14 with the 
 rest of his companions, and who was banished 
 13 
 
194 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Heidelberg for slapping a Russian in the face. 
 Growled against his king for not keeping his promise ; 
 hated the French, and gave me an interesting account 
 of the way of spending the winter evenings in his part 
 of Germany, Pomerania ; the young working at some 
 pursuit of hand, the old relating their tale of youth. 
 A Milanese woman and son. We went that evening 
 to Casal Panterlungo. Supped and went to bed, I 
 and the Prussian in the same room. 
 
 November 2. — Up at 4. Across the Taro to Parma. 
 Went, in spite of my having so little money, in search 
 of books — Boccaccio's Fiammetta, The Cathedral 
 and Baptistery. From Parma to Reggio, a beautiful 
 town with fine palaces and porticoes, though, on 
 account of the few inhabitants, appearing a huge 
 sepulchre. To Rubiera : supped and slept. 
 
 November 3. — Up at 4. Through Modena, where 
 I saw the Duomo, and the Tower which contains the 
 Lecchia porticoes — palaces of the Duke — four orders 
 heaped one on the other. Here they examined my 
 box, and were going to send it to the dogana on 
 account of books; when, upon my saying I was a 
 physician, they let them pass. 
 
 At Bologna supped with the Prussian. To the 
 opera. Saw a ballet, extremely ridiculous : barbarian 
 dances with astonishing powers of limbs forming in 
 the air [postures] out and in on their feet. 
 
BOLOGNA 195 
 
 November 4. — Up at 9. Went to see the churches 
 and [a] private gallery. After dinner roamed about 
 the town in a most melancholy mood, entering the 
 churches and sitting in the dark for an hour, etc. 
 Went to the Theatre of Cento Cavalli : beautiful 
 Greek architecture. To bed — a play. 
 
 November 5. — At 10, expecting to have been called 
 before, the vetturino came, saying he would not go, 
 since I had hindered the Prussian from setting off on 
 Monday, without security ; and that he would go to 
 the police to gain it from the Prussian that he should 
 be paid at Florence. After a good deal of disputing 
 I gave it, in a promissory note that I would pay if 
 he could not. Found afterwards it was only to get 
 time. 
 
 Went to see the churches, the public place, San 
 Prospero, the Neptune. After dinner to Madonna 
 Santa Lucia. Along the portico " Questo e da 
 vendere " ^ was written on portions of the wall. The 
 public cemetery. Saw a coffin, when dark, brought 
 into the church with torches. The poor are separated 
 from the rich, and have only the turf upon them : the 
 rich groan under the weight of marble. The priests, 
 monks, nuns, etc., all in separate squares ; a cardinal's 
 hat covering a death's head. 
 
 Returned to Bologna. Went to the theatre. Saw 
 1 "To be sold." 
 
196 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Agnese : wept like a child : the acting of the madman 
 inimitable. Went to bed. 
 
 November 6. — Up at ii. Set off with the Prussian 
 and an Italian officer across the Apennines. Oxen in 
 continual use. Misty, so could not enjoy the view. 
 Dreadful winds to Pianoro. That evening the officer 
 related all the services he had been in ; French 
 liberty, Consulship, Emperor. Refused by the 
 Austrians ; went to Murat, and now going to offer 
 himself to the Pope ; if not accepted, to America. 
 For which side ? " Spanish or Creole." ^ He had the 
 unfeelingness to joke upon his father's being killed in 
 the time of the liberty-rows, saying he got that for not 
 changing ; on which I felt so nettled that I spoke for 
 half-an-hour upon the ruin the fickleness of the 
 Italians had brought upon themselves. He felt, I 
 think, ashamed ; at least he gave up that kind of light 
 talk. 
 
 Forgot to say that at Modena I presented^ my 
 passport so that the ** 24 hours " were invisible ; and 
 left at Modena one who had accompanied us from 
 Piacenza, telling the most barefaced lies about boars, 
 dogs, and thieves, that were ever heard. 
 
 ^ These words form (I suppose) the answer of the Italian 
 officer—/, e. he would side with either party indifferently. 
 
 ^ I presume that the word should be " presented " : the 
 writing looks like "pented." 
 
FLORENCE 197 
 
 November 7. — At 4 up. Arrived at night at 
 Fortebuona. Dreadful wind and rain. Supped and 
 went to bed. 
 
 November 8. — At 5 walked a good part of the 
 road. Arrived at Florence by the Porta San Gallo, 
 through the Arch. The custom-house officer, when 
 we told him, if he wanted to look, he might open, 
 [replied] : " Che ? Un servo del sovrano ? Ci sono dei 
 facchini." ^ 
 
 Florence, on entering, disappointed me, as we were 
 obliged to go round on account of the road being 
 mended. Went to the inn. Dressed — not having 
 changed linen since Milan. Went to the post : no 
 letters. In despair, remaining with only four scudi. 
 Walked about the town, — Arno : into the Cathedral 
 and Baptistery. 
 
 Went to seek Cavalier Pontelli.^ Knocked at his 
 door, along Arno — both before and behind. Could 
 not make any one hear. One who lived near 
 (Lecchini), upon my asking how to get in, said he was 
 thankful to say he was not Pontelli, and did not know. 
 Returned home. Gave the Prussian a missal I had 
 
 ^ "What? A servant of the sovereign ? There are porters." 
 2 I suppose that Pontelli was a person who had been more or 
 less known to Dr. Polidori's father before the latter left Italy in 
 1787, and that the father had given his son some letter of intro- 
 duction or the like. Or possibly the introduction came from 
 some acquaintance in Geneva or in Milan. 
 
rgS THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 bought at Bologna. He broke my pipe. Went to 
 bed. Wrote to Pontelli and Breme. 
 
 November 9. — Got up ; went to seek Pontelli. 
 Found he had a villa at Porta San Gallo. Went 
 thither, knocked ; saw his head pop out of the window 
 in a greasy night-cap. On my announcing myself, 
 he descended, opened the door, and received me 
 with welcome. Found him at breakfast, sausages, 
 caviare, etc. Sat down ; told me his housekeeper would 
 not show herself ; invited me to come to his house 
 instead of the inn. Went into town ; took a peep at 
 the Gallery — at the precious vases, Venus, etc. Went 
 to the inn. Put up my things, paid ; and, seeing 
 the Prussian envied me my desk, I gave it him, on 
 condition that, if we ever met again, he would paint 
 me a picture he sketched in my album. Went to 
 Pontelli ; dined; accompanied him to town. His 
 servant took a porter to carry my things to the Arno 
 house, and then we went to pay visits. 
 
 In the way he told me he lived very retired, and 
 very economically that he might not want ; that the 
 people now looked upon him with a good eye ; that 
 the Government also did not prosecute him ; and that 
 he in fine thought that a revolution would be general 
 — trying to persuade me that his avarice was mere 
 policy. 
 
 Went to pay a visit to Cavalier Tomasi, a Cortonian. 
 
FLORENCE 199 
 
 Found many in the room, who all sat upon me about 
 English politics. Left them when they were going 
 to play. Thence to Abate Fontani, Librarian of the 
 Riccardi Library. Talked of Madame de Stael, 
 Finch, etc. 
 
 Returned home. Found I was in the house of the 
 Capponis, Pontelli having the lower storey. 
 
 November 10. — Up at 9. Dressed in black silk etc., 
 the housekeeper going to mass ; and, Pontelli appar- 
 ently not being willing that I should accompany her, 
 I went out a little after, and went to the same church, 
 where I spoke with her. Looked at the church ; and 
 then went to San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito [Santa 
 Croce],^ where I saw the tomb of Galileo, Machiavelli, 
 Alfieri, Cosmo de* Medici, etc. 
 
 Returned, and went with a letter from de Breme 
 to the Countess of Albany. Found there several. 
 Presented my letter : " Very like your father." 
 
 [The Countess of Albany, it need hardly be said, 
 was the widow of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, 
 the "Young Pretender." Born in 1752, Princess of 
 Stolberg-Gedern, she married the Prince in 1772. 
 Being much ill-treated by him, she left him, and 
 maintained a practically conjugal relation with Conte 
 
 1 The name of Santa Croce is not in the MS. : but it ought 
 to be, as this is the church containing the sepulchral monuments 
 of Galileo, etc. 
 
200 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Vittorio Alfieri, the famous dramatic poet: they 
 could have married after a while, but no nuptial 
 ceremony took place. Alfieri died in 1803, ^^^ the 
 Countess then became very intimate with a French 
 painter, much younger than herself, named Fabre. 
 She died in Florence in January 1824. If Dr. Polidori 
 had been a Jacobite, he would have held that, in 
 waiting upon the Countess of Albany, he w^as in 
 the presence of the Queen Dowager of the United 
 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It will be 
 observed that the Countess told Polidori that he was 
 "very like his father." The latter had, from 1787 to 
 1789, been secretary to the Conte Alfieri, and had 
 known the Countess in Colmar and Paris. In one 
 of his privately printed books he has left on record 
 a little anecdote of the royal dame, which, trifling as 
 it is, may find a place here. " While the Conte 
 Alfieri was slowly recovering health I was invited 
 to pass the evenings with him and the Countess, so 
 that on various occasions I ^/ui terzo tra cotanto 
 senno! ^ But this honour did not last long. For 
 one time when I was with them the lady turned her 
 eyes on me, and asked Alfieri why my thighs were 
 rounded while his were flat. * Stuff and nonsense,' 
 he replied, wrinkling his nose, and he passed on to 
 
 1 " Was third amid so much intellect." The phrase is adapted 
 from a line in Dante's Inferno. 
 
FLORENCE 201 
 
 some different talk. From that time I no more had 
 the honour of being one of the exalted party ; neither 
 could I complain of this, for I myself felt that that 
 question had been unseemly, and more in character 
 for a drab than for a discreet and modest lady."] 
 
 Conversation became general. Republics being 
 brought upon the tapis, I took to defending them, 
 especially against a gentleman near me. After some 
 time he went, and I gathered he was brother to the 
 King of Prussia. 
 
 Took my leave, and came to dinner, after going to 
 the caffe to wait for Pontelli. Rain hindered him 
 from keeping his appointment, so that I went at last 
 alone to San Gallo, he having the custom of staying 
 the Sundays only in town. Was presented by him 
 to Lecchini, the Inspector of Police, who recognized 
 me as a Tuscan, and the domiciliary communication 
 was made out as such. 
 
 November 11. — Tried to stay at home. Forced by 
 Pontelli's long-in-vain repeated hints to go out ; 
 jealous of his young housekeeper, though she is 
 hardly worth it. Roamed about, dined, and went 
 to bed. 
 
 November 12. — Same. Dined with him at a 
 restaurateur's. 
 
 November 13. — Got up at 7 ; tired of Pontelli, and 
 set off for Arezzo, with a shirt in my pocket and 
 
202 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 with my dog. When at Incisa it began to rain ; 
 walked on through Feline, Monte Varchi, to Arezzo. 
 Thunder and lightning excessive, with violent rain. 
 I was at last so numbed that when roused I seemed 
 to be wakened ; my dog could not stand it, but at 
 7 miles from Arezzo fell. I did not perceive it, but 
 walked on. Arrived at 8, having walked 45 miles 
 in 12 hours, having stopped once at Incisa to eat 
 and rest. Found my uncle's house ; knocked. The 
 servant, hearing I was his nephew, flew up-stairs, and 
 I met a tall, stout, slovenly woman, my aunt. On 
 the second storey, where they lodged, they made a 
 fire. I changed my things for my uncle's, and while 
 changing he arrived — a tall, stout, handsome, mild- 
 looking man. Put myself to bed ; ate, and they left 
 me to sleep. 
 
 [This uncle, Luigi Polidori, was a physician, and 
 had a considerable reputation for the cure of the 
 local typhoid fever (tifo).] 
 
 November 14. — Found myself well ; no cold, only 
 my left groin stiff from a wound in my foot. Saw 
 my two cousins, Pippo and Teresa ; put myself to 
 study. After 6 went with my uncle to Signor Gori, 
 where I heard music. Four or five girls wanting 
 husbands, two priests, whitewashed walls, and several 
 young men, were the entertainment. 
 
 While at Arezzo, my life was quiet enough ; study 
 
FLORENCE 203 
 
 till I went out at 6, when I went to play at cards and 
 talk at Signor Gori's. Saw the prisons. One of the 
 descendants of a true Lombard family walking about 
 in a dirty sailor-looking jacket. Signora Onesti and 
 daughter the most abominable scandal-talkers I ever 
 heard, though she was a Pitti. Library always shut. 
 The School of Ignatius a fine building. Churches 
 fine : the Chapel of St. Mary, the Cathedral with the 
 basso-rilievo altars, the church with the altar painted 
 by Vasari, etc. — I recovered my dog. 
 
 November 21. — Set off to return to Florence with 
 half-a-scudo in my pocket ; having refused to accept 
 from my uncle, not being wiUing to let him know 
 how it stood. Frost on the ground : hurt my foot. 
 Lost my dog again at Montesarchi. At Feline got 
 into a carriage, not being able to do more on account 
 of my foot. Met a physician, a cavaliere and his 
 wife. Arrived at 7 ; Pontelli lent me a scudo to pay. 
 
 November 22, 23, 24. — Stayed at Pontelli's on account 
 of my foot, though Pontelli tried to send me out 
 under pretence that I should see the town. But, not 
 being able, he stayed at home till 6, when he told me 
 I had better go to bed — which I generally did to quiet 
 him. No letters according to servant. 
 
 November 25. — Tired of Pontelli. That I might go 
 to Pisa, I issued out intending to sell my watch-chain ; 
 but as a last chance looked at the Post Office, and 
 
204 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 found two letters from Lloyd, who, as soon as he had 
 received my letter, set off from Venice to see me. 
 On the road he lost his purse with 36 louis, and, 
 having no letters at Florence, he could only give me 
 20 scudi. Received me with great kindness, and 
 assured me that, while he had money, I should never 
 want. Dined with him and Somers. They advised 
 me to settle in Florence as physician to the English. 
 I however determined to see Vacca first ; wished him 
 good-bye, as he was obliged to go to Rome for money. 
 
 [There were two brothers named Vacca, or Vacca 
 Berlinghieri, who had been known to Gaetano Polidori 
 in Pisa before he left Italy with Alfieri. Gaetano 
 (who was a native of Bientlna near Pisa, his family 
 belonging chiefly to Pontedera) also stayed in the 
 same house with the Vacccis in Paris after leaving 
 his secretaryship with the Count. They were then 
 both medical students. One of them, Leopoldo — 
 who had been intimate with Napoleon while the latter 
 was in the Military College — abandoned medicine, 
 and served under the French empire in Spain, dying 
 not many years afterwards. The other brother, 
 Andrea, attained an European reputation in medicine, 
 and especially surgery: Shelley, when in Pisa, con- 
 sulted him more than once.] 
 
 November 26. — Went to seek the Naviglio, to go 
 by water to Pisa. At going out, stopped by the 
 
PISA 205 
 
 gate-officer, who, on hearing me enquire where the 
 boat was, would not let me pass without proofs of 
 my being originario Toscano ; so I went to Lecchini, 
 and got him to write me a declaration. The boat 
 could not set off to-day, so returned to Pontelli and 
 went to bed. 
 
 November 27. — At 7 set off in the boat on the 
 Arno for Pisa. 
 
 November 29, 30, December i. — Stayed in my room, 
 copying Osteologia of my grandfather. 
 
 [This Osteologia is a treatise on osteology written 
 in verse — octave stanzas. The author was Agostino 
 Ansano Polidori, by profession a surgeon, born in 
 1 7 14 and deceased in 1778. In 1847 Gaetano Polidori 
 printed this poem at his private press. He had pre- 
 viously made a MS. copy of it, with an introduction 
 giving a few family-particulars. One statement made 
 in this introduction is that the mother of Agostino 
 was a Florentine lady named Folchi — " perhaps " (so 
 says Gaetano Polidori) *' descended from an English 
 family domiciled in Florence, which may have changed 
 its name Folks into Folchi."] 
 
 December 2. — Up at 9 ; went to see Vacca ; still at 
 hospital. While waiting for him, saw an Austrian 
 colonel, who, in the excess of his gratitude to Vaccci, 
 called him the Dio della Medicina. Vacca expressed 
 great joy to see me ; told me to make his house my 
 
2o6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 own ; to dine there when I chose, and often ; to 
 begin to-day ; not to use ceremony. Left me, and I 
 returned home; went to dine at V[acca]'s. Intro- 
 duced me to his wife, a pleasing pretty French- 
 woman, the former wife of his brother ; he had just 
 obtained the Pope's dispensation to marry her. Spent 
 the evening there. 
 
 December 3, 4, to 21. — Went to the hospital in the 
 mornings when Vacca was not ill; three or four 
 times to the Library. Studied in the mornings ; went 
 to dine either at Vacca's or at eating-house ; always 
 evenings at Vacca's. Corsi, a well-informed lawyer, 
 cav[alier] serv[ente] to V[acca ?] ; ^ Mario ex cav[alier] 
 serv[ente]. Cecco Castanelli, Pachiani, etc. ; chess 
 with the English ; with Vacca. For the various 
 information I obtained there see notes. 
 
 [The Pachiani (or Pacchiani) here mentioned must 
 certainly be the same Abate Pachiani who in 1820 
 introduced Shelley to the Contessina Emilia Viviani, 
 to whom the poet dedicated his Epipsychidion. 
 Medwin, in his Life of Shelley, a book which does not 
 now obtain many readers, gives a lively but partly 
 very unfavourable account of Pachiani : I append a few 
 extracts from it, more as being relevant to Shelley 
 than to Polidori. " Pachiani was about fifty years of 
 age, somewhat above the common height, with a 
 ^ Rather (it must be understood) to Signora Vacck. 
 
PISA 207 
 
 figure bony and angular. His face was dark as that 
 of a Moor. During the reign of Austrian despotism 
 he was admirably calculated for a spy. As to his 
 religion, it was about on a par with that of I'Abate 
 Casti. At Pisa, il Signore Professore was the title 
 by which he was generally known. He lost [his 
 professorship] by an irresistible bon mot. During one 
 of his midnight orgies, which he was in the habit of 
 celebrating with some of the most dissolute of the 
 students, he was interrogated, in the darkness, by the 
 patrole in the streets of Pisa as to who and what he 
 was, — to which questioning he gave the following 
 reply : * Son un uomo pubblico, in una strada pubblica, 
 con una donna pubblica.' His epigrams wtx^sanglants, 
 and he gave sobriquets the most happy for those 
 who offended him. His talent was conversation — a 
 conversation full of repartee and sparkling with wit ; 
 and his information (he was a man of profound 
 erudition, vast memory, and first-rate talent) made 
 him almost oracular. He was a mezzano, cicerone, 
 conoscitore, dilettante, and I might add ruffiano."^] 
 December 21. — Went in the evening to the Countess 
 Mastrani's. Ices, iced people, prepared poetry, music. 
 Went to the theatre, in the days past, several times. 
 Saw Goldoni's BugiardOy with Harlequin etc. 
 
 ^ Rufifiano does not correspond to our word " ruffian," but to 
 " pimp " or " go-between." 
 
2o8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 December 22. — As usual. 
 
 December 23. — Same. 
 
 December 24. — Ditto. 
 
 December 25. — Christmas-day. Walked along Arno. 
 Spent the evening and dined at Vacca's. 
 
 December 26. — Up at 7. Went with Vacca to 
 Leghorn, a neat, regular, well-built town. The 
 first thing I went in search of was the sea, and I 
 stood gazing some time on the waves. The Public 
 Place and Strada Maestra fine. Saw Vescali's 
 collection of alabasters. Returned by 3. Dined 
 with Vacca. Went to the theatre with Mrs. Vacca, 
 who introduced me to Signora Bettina Franciuoli. 
 
 December 27. — As usual. Up at 4 — dined at Vacca's 
 — went to theatre, and to B.'s box. 
 
 December 28. — Went to hear nella Chiesa dei 
 Cavalieri (after a ride with Mrs. Vacca) Nicolini play 
 a sonata upon the organ, which is perhaps the finest 
 in Italy. There were the Prince Villafranca, the 
 Countess Castelfiel, Princess della Pace, and other 
 nobles. At Vacca's and theatre. 
 
 December 29. — Up at 3 J. Dined at Vacca's: 
 theatre. English etc. as usual. 
 
 December 30. — Up at i. Reading Sismondi. Got 
 up — went to Vacca to dine. After English, to the 
 Casa Mastrani : all evening with Sofia. The others 
 — Biribro, Dionigi. 
 
LETTERS 209 
 
 [According to a letter from Lord Byron, April 11, 
 181 7, Dr. Polidori had at least three patients at Pisa 
 — Francis Horner, a child of Thomas Hope, and 
 Francis North, Lord Guilford. They all died — 
 which may or may not have been partly the Doctor's 
 fault.] 
 
 With this entry we come to the end of Dr. 
 Polidori's Diary — although (as I have before intimated) 
 not by any means to the end of his sojourn in Italy. 
 He saw Byron again in April 18 17 in Venice: 
 Shelley, to the best of my knowledge, he never 
 re-beheld. 
 
 I add here two letters which Polidori wrote to his 
 sister Frances (my mother, then a girl of only sixteen), 
 and two to his father. The first letter was written 
 soon after beginning the journey with Byron ; the 
 last not long after the date of parting from him. I 
 also add a letter sent to Mr. Hobhouse during 
 Polidori's sojourn with Byron, and a note, of much 
 later date, written by Mrs. Shelley to my father, 
 Gabriele Rossetti. 
 
 The letter to Mr. Hobhouse, it will be observed, 
 goes over some of the same details which appear in 
 the Diary. This letter has been copied by me from 
 the Broughton Papers, in the Manuscript Department 
 of the British Museum (Add. MSS. 36456 to 36483)^ 
 I did my best to trace whether these papers contain 
 14 
 
2IO THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 anything else relating to Polidori, and I do not think 
 they do. In fact, the affairs of Lord Byron, and the 
 very name of him, scarcely figure in those Broughton 
 Papers at all : for instance, I could not find anything 
 relating to his death. 
 
 John Polidori to Frances Polidori. 
 
 My dear Fanny, 
 
 I shall see Waterloo in a day or two — don't 
 you wish to be with me ? but there are many more 
 things that I have seen which would have given you 
 as much pleasure. Shakespear's Cliff at Dover, the 
 French coast, the phosphorescent sea, Bruges, Ghent, 
 Antwerp, and Brussels, have all got more than is in 
 any of Feinaigh's plates to excite the memory to 
 bring forth its hidden stores. The people amongst 
 whom we are at present dwelling is one that has 
 much distinguished itself in the noblest career, the 
 race for liberty ; but that tends little to the ennobling 
 of a people without the sun of literature also deigns 
 to shine upon them. 
 
 It was not the warlike deeds, the noble actions, of 
 the Greeks and Romans or modern Italians, that has 
 rescued these names from the effacing daub of obli- 
 vion ; if it had not been for their poets, their his- 
 torians, their philosophers, their heroes would in vain 
 have struggled for fame. Their actions would have 
 
LETTER TO FRANCES POLIDORI 211 
 
 been recorded in the dusty legends of monks, and 
 consequently have been forgotten, like those of the 
 Belgians, Carthaginians, and others. How many fine 
 actions of modern times will be buried in oblivion 
 from the same want, and how many merely secondary 
 characters will be handed down with a halo round 
 their deeds reflected from the pages of historic genius ! 
 
 I am very pleased with Lord Byron. I am with 
 him on the footing of an equal, everything alike : at 
 present here we have a suite of rooms between us. 
 I have my sitting-room at one end, he at the other. 
 He has not shown any passion ; though we have 
 had nothing but a series of mishaps that have put me 
 out of temper though they have not ruffled his. The 
 carriage, the new carriage, has had three stoppages. 
 We are at present at Brussels merely to have the 
 carriage-part well looked at and repaired. 
 
 The country till here has been one continued flat ; 
 and, except within this neighbourhood, we have not 
 seen a rising ground on which to feast our eyes. 
 Long avenues paved in the middle form the continued 
 appearance of our roads. The towns are magnificently 
 old, such as England cannot rival, and the state of 
 cultivation is much greater than in England : indeed 
 we have not seen a weed or a foot of waste ground 
 all our way. The people in the country show no 
 misery ; the cottages comfortable, whitewashed, large- 
 
 .4* 
 
212 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 windowed, shining with brass utensils internally, and 
 only having as many heaps of dirt as there are in- 
 habitants — who certainly throw away all their clean- 
 liness upon the house, fields, roads, and windows. 
 But I will not fill my letter with this, as some time 
 you will either see my Journal in writing or print — 
 Murray having offered me 500 guineas for it through 
 Lord Byron. L[ord] B[yron] is going to give me the 
 manuscript, when done printing, of his new cantos of 
 Childe Harold} 
 
 Have you seen Mrs. Soane and Mr. S[oane] ? how 
 are they? If you see them, remember me to her and 
 him. I shall write when I have seen the seat of his 
 hero's glory, mine's disgrace ; no, not disgrace — 
 misfortune. See Mrs. S[oane], and write how she is. 
 
 How are you all at home } Papa, Mamma, Meggy 
 (have you heard from her?), Charlotte, Bob, Henry, 
 Eliza, and Mr. Deagostini. Remember me to all, and 
 to all who enquire about me not merely from curiosity 
 — telling me in your next whether they exceed the 
 number o. I am very well, and wrote Mamma from 
 Ostend. 
 
 I remain, my dear Fanny, 
 
 Your affect. Brother, 
 
 J. POLIDORI. 
 
 Brussels, May 2, 18 16. 
 
 1 No doubt this intention was not carried into effect. 
 
LETTER TO HOBHOUSE 213 
 
 Write to me — Dr. Polidori, a Geneve, poste restante, 
 — and soon, as I shall be there in 1 2 days. 
 
 To John Hobhouse, Whitton Park, 
 
 NEAR HOUNSLOW. 
 
 Coblentz, May 11, 1816. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 As we are at last some way on our 
 journey, I take a sheet of paper up, in despair of 
 filling it, to tell you we are both well and hearty. 
 Lord Byron's health is greatly improved, his stomach 
 returning rapidly to its natural state. Exercise and 
 peace of mind, making great advances towards the 
 amendment of his corps delabre^ leave little for 
 medicine to patch up. His spirits, I think, are also 
 much improved. He blithely carols through the day, 
 * Here's to you, Tom Brown ' : and, when he has 
 done, says, * That's as well as Hobhouse does it.' 
 You and his other friend, Scrope Davies, form a great 
 subject of conversation. 
 
 God ! here I am at the end of all my thoughts. 
 Oh no ! Waterloo was ridden over by my Lord on a 
 Cossack horse, accompanied by myself on a Flemish 
 steed ; Lord Byron singing Turkish or Arnaout 
 riding-tunes, and your h[umble] s[ervant] listening. 
 We had a very good day of it. Lord Byron visited 
 Howard's (I think, Colonel) burying-place twice. 
 
214 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 We have had two days by preeminence in our 
 tour — to-day and Waterloo. To-day we came from 
 Bonn hither through the finest scenes I ever saw, 
 modern and ancient; the 13th and i8th century 
 forming an olla podrida with the bases given in the 
 year i. Towers and towns and castles and cots were 
 sprinkled on the side of a . . . But here I am on 
 poetic stilts, cut short for prose ones. 
 
 They boast — the Ministerialists and others — of 
 ours being the happy land. I should like to carry 
 John Bull to Flanders and the Rhine : happiness, 
 content, cleanliness (here and there), husbandry, 
 plenty without luxury, are here bestowed on all. 
 War has had no effect upon the fields ; and even at 
 Waterloo no one (except for the glittering button 
 or less brilliant cuirass in beggar's hand) would 
 imagine two such myriaded armies had met there. 
 No sulkiness is seen upon the face here, and no impu- 
 dence. On the Rhine and in Flanders there are 
 hardly any beggars. To-day we had nosegays given 
 us by little girls for centimes. But the other day, 
 coming to Battice, we met the best beggars : three 
 little girls, pretty though not well dressed, ran 
 along our carriage, crying out — " Donnez-nous un 
 sou. Monsieur le G6n6ral en chef"; and another, 
 " Chef de bataillon." Having given these some, a 
 boy followed, pulling faces comic enough to make 
 
LETTER TO GAETANO POLIDORI 215 
 
 such grave dons laugh, and crying out, "Vivent 
 Messieurs les Rois des Hanoveriens — donnez-moi 
 un sou." 
 
 As I fear I have tried your eyes, and lost my 
 pains after all on account of the illegibility of my 
 accursed pen's scratches, I must end — assuring you 
 at the same time I am with esteem 
 
 Yours etc., 
 
 J. POLIDORI. 
 
 We count upon being at Geneva in ten days at 
 best. Excuse the bad writing etc., for I am in a 
 fever of digestion after my ride. — J. P. 
 
 To Gaetano Polidori. 
 
 September 20, 1816. 
 
 My dear Father, 
 
 You judged right with regard to my 
 writing. I had written twice since your letter 
 announcing The Pamphleteer^ and was anxiously 
 waiting yours. Your letter gave me pleasure ; 
 and I was indeed in want of some just then, for 
 I was in agitation for my parting from Lord 
 Byron. We have parted, finding that our tempers 
 did not agree. He proposed it, and it was settled. 
 There was no immediate cause, but a continued 
 series of slight quarrels. I believe the fault, if any. 
 
2i6 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 has been on my part ; I am not accustomed to have 
 a master, and therefore my conduct was not free and 
 easy. I found on settling accounts that I had 70 
 napoleons ; I therefore determined to walk over 
 Italy, and (seeing the medical establishments) see if 
 there proves a good opportunity to settle myself, so 
 that I hope I am still off your hands for nine 
 months : perhaps Lady Westmorland, who is at 
 Rome, is desirous of having an English physician 
 for longer, I having a letter for her from Mme. de 
 Stael. I shall write to-day to Vacca and Zio [uncle] 
 for letters to Milan to physicians, in your name; and 
 at present, till I think they and my trunks can have 
 arrived, will wander amongst the Alps, — in which 
 course I am now at Thun, almost in the centre. I 
 have seen Mont Blanc and its glaciers, and will see 
 the Jungfrau, Grindelwald, and Grimsel. Then I 
 will go by the Simplon to Milan, whither direct to 
 me poste-restante, only putting my Giovanni etc. 
 names in full, as there are Polidoris there.^ I am 
 in good health and spirits ; I hope this won't hurt 
 yours, for assure yourself I will do all I can not 
 to allow you to feel any inconvenience on my 
 account. 
 
 Remember me to my mother, who I know will 
 
 * These Polidoris were not (so far as I know) members of the 
 same family as John Polidori. 
 
LETTER TO GAETANO POLIDORI 217 
 
 feel deeply this disappointment ; to Mary,^ Fanny, 
 and Charlotte, to Signor Deagostini and Signor De 
 Ocheda, and to all. 
 
 If you could get me letters of introduction, they 
 would be of great use. In the meanwhile, my dear 
 father, believe me 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 John Polidori. 
 
 John Polidori to Gaetano Polidori— 
 Translation. 
 
 Arezzo, November 14, 1816. 
 
 Dear Father, 
 
 I fear you must be in much anxiety at not 
 having heard from me for so long ; but the reason 
 was that I did not wish to write before having seen 
 my uncle — to whom I went the day before yesterday, 
 and who received me with great affection and pleasure. 
 I wrote to him from Thun. Thence I went to 
 Grindelwald and Lauterbrunner ; thence to Inter- 
 lachen, and, by the Lake of Brientz, to Meyringen ; by 
 the Grimsel in the Valais to Obergasteln ; thence to 
 Brieg ; and then by the Simplon down to Farinoli 
 in the Borromean Islands. Thence I embarked to 
 Sestri Calende ; thence to Milan — where, meeting the 
 
 * This was Dr. Polidori's elder sister, Maria Margaret, who 
 in my time was invariably called " Margaret " in the family. 
 
2i8 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 poet Monti, Lord Byron, Monsignor de Breme, and 
 others of my acquaintance, I remained some weeks. 
 Thence I went to Florence, by Bologna, Modena, 
 Parma, and Piacenza, and crossing the Apennines. In 
 Florence I stayed two days, and saw Cavalier 
 Pontelli, Abate Fontani, Dr. FVosini, and others. 
 Thence I went on foot to Arezzo, where I found my 
 uncle, my aunt, Pippo, and Teresa, all well ; and they 
 received me with great cordiality into their house, 
 where I now am. 
 
 Seeing, by your letter to my uncle, in how much 
 trouble you are on my account, I have determined, 
 after learning whether Lady Westmorland will employ 
 me or no — if yes, to go to Rome ; if no, to go straight 
 from Leghorn to London, to the bosom of my family. 
 I shall soon hear from Lady Westmorland, as Lady 
 Jersey undertook, at the instance of Monsignor de 
 Breme, to ask her mother whether she wants me or 
 not, and she is now in Florence, en route for Rome. 
 In case she should tell me yes, I shall at once go to 
 Rome : but meanwhile I don't proceed any farther 
 than Arezzo. If she says no, I shall be off to Leghorn, 
 and return to London. 
 
 I wish that in your next letter you would send me 
 enough money, in a bill on Florence, for paying the 
 passage from Leghorn to London, for the chance of 
 my not having enough remaining. . . . 
 
LETTERS 219 
 
 When I see you again I shall have much to tell you 
 about, but will not put it into a letter. Suffice it that 
 I have found that what you told me about Italy is 
 but too true. I am in good health. . . . 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 John Polidori. 
 
 [To this letter the uncle Luigi Polidori added 
 something. One point regarding Lord Byron is of a 
 certain interest.] 
 
 I became indignant at some references [made by 
 John Polidori] to the strange conduct of that Lord 
 with whom he was travelling : but he kept his temper 
 well — I envy him for that. All these people are hard : 
 Saevus enim ferme sensus communis in ilia fortuna. 
 —Patience ! 
 
 [My father, about the date of this ensuing letter, met 
 Mrs. Shelley several times, and he liked her well. He 
 did not think her good-looking : indeed I have heard 
 him say " Era brutta " (she was ugly). — The letter is 
 written in fairly idiomatic, but by no means faultless, 
 Italian. — I am not aware whether Gaetano Polidori 
 supplied Mrs. Shelley with information, such as she 
 asked for, for her Biography of Alfieri : perhaps a 
 minute inspection of the book might show. — Cleo- 
 patra, acted in 1775, was Alfieri's first attempt at 
 tragedy.] 
 
220 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 Rsiirovr, j4prt7 20, iS^$. 
 
 Courteous Signor Rossetti, 
 
 Thank you so much for your amiable reply, 
 and the interest you show in the undertaking of a 
 pen but too unworthy of those great names which give 
 so much lustre to your country. Meanwhile I am 
 about to make a farther request : but am afraid of 
 showing myself troublesome, and beg you to tell me 
 your opinion sincerely. I should not like to seem to 
 take impertinent liberties ; and, if my idea appears 
 to you impracticable, don't say anything about it 
 to any one. 
 
 I am informed that your Father-in-law the cele- 
 brated Polidori can relate many interesting circum- 
 stances regarding Alfieri. The Life which 1 am writing 
 will be printed in Dr. Lardner's Cyclopcedia : therefore 
 it is very short, running perhaps to 70 pages — not 
 more. Thus, if I could introduce some details not yet 
 known but worthy of publication, I should be very 
 pleased indeed. I don't know whether Polidori would 
 be willing to give me such details. For example, 
 I should like to know whether Alfieri was really so 
 melancholy and taciturn as is said by Sir John 
 Hobhouse in his work, Illustrations to the Fourth Canto 
 of Childe Harold ; whether he gave signs of attach- 
 ment to his friends, and whether he was warmly 
 
LETTER FROM MRS. SHELLEY 221 
 
 loved by them in return. Some anecdotes would be 
 welcomed by me; also some information about the 
 Countess of Albany. There is an affectation of 
 silence, as to all that relates to her, in whatever 
 has yet been written concerning Alfieri. But, now 
 that she is dead, this is no longer necessary. Were 
 they married ? If not, nothing need be said about 
 it ; but, if they were, it would be well to affirm as 
 much. 
 
 I shall be in London next Sunday, and shall be 
 staying there several days. But I am in a quarter 
 so distant from yours (7 Upper Eaton Street, Gros- 
 venor Place) that it would be indiscreet to ask for a 
 visit from you — and much more indiscreet to say 
 that, if Signor Polidori would visit me, he could 
 perhaps tell me some little things more easily than 
 by writing. As the Tuscans say, " Lascio far a lei." ^ 
 You will do whatever is most fitting, and will give 
 me a reply at your convenience. 
 
 Repeating the thanks so much due to your kind- 
 ness, believe me 
 
 Your much obliged servant, 
 
 M. W. P. Shelley. 
 
 I hear that Alfieri was intimate with Guiccioli of 
 Ravenna, the latter being then quite young ; and 
 
 ^ " I leave the question to you." 
 
222 THE DIARY OF POLIDORI 
 
 they had a joint idea and project (which did not turn 
 out manageable) of establishing a national theatre 
 in Italy. Possibly Signor Polidori knows about this. 
 Is there any historical work containing particulars 
 about the closing years of the royal husband of the 
 Countess of Albany ? I don't know, and am in the 
 dark. He (is it not so ?) was the last of the Stuarts, 
 except his brother the Cardinal of York. 
 
 Oh what trouble I am giving you to reply ! Really 
 I now feel more than ashamed of it. But you are 
 so kind. And, besides, the grammar of this letter 
 must be like Alfieri's Cleopatra. 
 
INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Agnes E (drama), 196 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 74 
 Albany, Countess of, 199-202 
 Alfieri, Count, 200, 219-222 
 Andreini, 170 
 
 Adamo, by, 170 
 
 Antwerp, 46-51, 54, 55 
 Arezzo, 202, 218 
 Arrow, Eliza, 31 
 Avenches, 93, 94, 96 
 
 B 
 
 Bale, 90, 91 
 
 Battice, 73, 74, 213 
 
 Beauharnais, Prince Eugene, 175 
 
 Berger, 31, 108, no, 135 
 
 Berne, 92 
 
 Beyle, Henri, 173, 177, 190, 192 
 
 Reminiscences of Napoleon, 
 
 by, 177 
 
 Bologna, 194, 195 
 
 Bonn, 80 
 
 Bonnet, Charles, 97 
 
 Bonstetten, C. V. de, 105, 132, 
 
 137, 147, 148 
 Borsieri, 173, 174, 177, 186 
 
 // Giorno, by, 177 
 
 Breadalbane, Lord, 139, 145 
 Brelaz, Madame, 139, 143-146, 
 
 152, 153, 155, 168, 182 
 Breme, Cavalier de, 171, 173, 177 
 
 de (or Brema), Monsignor, 
 
 139, 147, 170, 172-177, 182, 
 183, 187-189, 191, 193, 198, 
 218 
 
 Breme, de (or Brema), Monsignor 
 
 Inuy by, 176 
 Breuss, Countess, 12, 13, 17, 134, 
 
 141-143, 152 
 Bridgens, R., 3 
 
 Costumes of Italy, etc.f 
 
 by, 3 
 
 Brieg, 160-163 
 
 Broglie, Due Victor de, 137, 138 
 
 Duchesse Victor de, 137-9, 
 
 146 
 
 Bruges, 35 
 
 Brussels, 57-59, 61, 68, 211 
 
 Bubna, 173, 187-189, 193 
 
 Junior, 189 
 
 Byron, Lady, 26 
 
 Lord, I, 7, 8, II, 12, 15, 
 
 25, 28, 33, 40, 44, 51-53, 62, 
 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 88, 89, 
 97-105, 107, III, 112, 1 17-120, 
 123-126, 128, 132, 133, 135- 
 140, 146, 147, 152, 158, 170, 
 173, 174, 179-181, 186-188, 
 190-193, 209-211, 213, 215, 
 218, 219 
 
 Childe Harold, by, 25, 
 
 66, 67, 71, 80, 83, 84, 87, 94, 
 95, 212 
 
 ChurchilVs Grave, by, 
 
 28,29 
 
 Letters and Journals of, 
 
 loi, 133 
 
 The Vampyre (frag- 
 ment), by, 14-17, 125 
 
 To Princess Charlott 
 
 by, 112 
 
 223 
 
224 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Caluro, 176, 177 
 Campagne Chapuis, 1 1 7 
 Canterbury, 26 
 Caravella, 140 
 Carlsruhe, 88, 90 
 Carnot, 46, 55 
 Castan, 136 
 Casti, Abate, 70 
 
 Novel le by, 70, 71 
 
 Chamounix, 151 
 
 Charles Edward, Prince, 199, 222 
 
 Charles V, 37, 90 
 
 Chillon, 153 
 
 Churchill, Rev. Charles, 27, 30 
 
 Clairmont, Clare, 99-103, 107, 
 
 108, 124-126, 133-135 
 Clemann, Harriet, 146 
 
 Madame, 139, 143, 146 
 
 Coblentz, 83, 85 
 
 Colbum Henry, 13, 14, 18, 20 
 Coleridge, S. T., 113 
 
 Christabel, by, 126, 128, 129 
 
 Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, 
 
 by, 113, I IS 
 Cologne, 76-80 
 Cologny, 98 
 
 Conjnigham, Lord, 149, 150 
 Copeland, Thomas, 7 
 Coppet, 141 
 Corsi, 206 
 
 Courier, The, 23, 112 
 Cowper, Lord, 173, 174 
 Curran, J. P., 117 
 
 Dacosta, 69 
 
 Davies, Scrope B., 25, 151, 152, 
 
 213 
 Deagostini, John A., 6, 7 
 Domo d'Ossola, 165 
 Dover, 27, 31 
 
 Dowden, Professor, 118 
 
 ■ Life of Shelley, by, 118, 119, 
 
 124-126, 132 
 Drachenfels, the, 81 
 Dumont, Etienne, 104, 139, 147 
 
 E 
 
 Ehrenbreitstein, 85 
 Einard, Madame, 105, 106 
 Evans, Rev. Mr., 145 
 
 Fabre, 200 
 
 Fantasmagoriana, 125 
 
 Finch, Colonel, 173, 174, 180 
 
 Fletcher, William, 31 
 
 Florence, 197, 203, 218 
 
 Floris, Franz, 50 
 
 Angels and Devils, by, 50, 
 
 56 
 Folchi, Signorina, 205 
 Francis, Emperor, 183 
 Freiburg (Baden), 90 
 
 Galilei, Galileo, 180 
 Garnett, Dr., 8, 172 
 
 Dictionary of National 
 
 Biography, article in, 8, ii 
 
 Gatelier, Abate, 139, 141 
 
 Madame, 13, 141 
 
 Geneva, 98, 104, 106, 141, 149 
 
 Genthoud, 141 
 
 Ghent, 37-39, 41,42, 48 
 
 Gianni, 179 
 
 Glenorchy, Lord, 140, 145 
 
 Godwin, William, 107, n 3-11 5 
 
 131 
 
 Gordon, Mrs., 71 
 
 Pryse L., 47, 66, 69-71 
 
 Gori, 202, 203 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 106, 147, 148 
 
INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 225 
 
 Grove, Harriet, 113 
 Guasco, 173, 174, 177, 193 
 Guiccioli, Count, 221 
 Guilford, Lord (Francis), 10, 209 
 Guttannen, 138, 139 
 
 H 
 
 Hamilton, Lady Dalrymple, 
 140 
 
 Helmhoft, Miss, 80 
 
 Hentsch, 105, 107 
 
 Hervey, Mrs., 147 
 
 Hobhouse, Sir J. Cam, 25, 28, 
 140, 151, 158, 173, 174, 180, 
 186-188, 193, 209, 213, 220 
 
 Heche, General, 82, 84 
 
 Hogg, T. Jefferson, 130 
 
 Homer, Francis, 209 
 
 Hougoumont, 63-65 
 
 Howard, Colonel, 64, 66, 213 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, 131 
 
 Hunter, Sir C, 89 
 
 Isella, 164 
 Isola Bella, 166 
 Italy, 10 
 
 J 
 
 Jacquet, Madlle., 145 
 Jersey, Countess of, 181, 218 
 
 Earl of, 173, 174 
 
 Jordaens, 52 
 
 iSV. Apollonia, by, 52 
 
 Julia Alpinula, 94, 95 
 
 Kaft, 78, 79 
 
 Kalf, 77 
 
 Kauflfman, Angelica, 127 
 
 Keats, John, 174 
 
 Keswick, 131 
 
 Kinnoul, Lord, 149 
 
 Kruger, 40 
 
 Judgment of Solomon, by, 40 
 
 Lac, Chateau du, 57, 69, 70 
 
 Lake Leman, 98, 99 
 
 Lausanne, 96 
 
 Lecchini, 197, 201, 205 
 
 Leghorn, 208 
 
 Leigh, Hon. Mrs., 51, 140 
 
 Medora, 140 
 
 Lewis, Matthew G., 125, 140, 
 
 141 
 Liege, 72 
 Lloyd, 140, 150, 173, 181, 182, 
 
 193, 204 
 Locatelli, Dr., 173, 181 
 Lou vain, 72 
 
 M 
 
 Malines, 55, 57 
 Mannheim, 88 
 Marceau, General, 83-85 
 Marschner, 24 
 
 The Vampyre, opera, by, 
 
 24 
 
 Martineau, Harriett, 3 
 Massey, Junior, 143-145 
 
 Mr., 144 
 
 Mastrani, Countess, 207 
 Mayence, 86, 87 
 Medwin, Captain, 7 
 
 Conversations with Byron, 
 
 by, 7 
 
 Life of Shelley, by, 186 206 
 
 Metsys, Quintin, 50 
 
 Milan, 167-171, 173, 182, 183, 
 
 190, 193, 217 
 Milton, John, 99, 170 
 Modena, 194, 196 
 Monti, Signora, 178 
 
226 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Monti, Vincenzo, 1 71-174, 178, 
 
 183, 191, 218 
 
 Homer translated, by, 1 78 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 118 
 
 Life of Byron, by, 118, 123 
 
 Morat, 92-94 
 
 Morning Chronicle, The, 13, 14, 
 
 17, 18, 22 
 Murat, King Joachim, 148 
 Murray, John, 8, 9, 20, 21, 44, 212 
 
 N 
 Napoleon I., 47, 54, 55, 63-65, 
 
 69, 70, 82, 86, 127, 173, 177, 
 
 204 
 National Portrait Gallery, 3 
 Negri, Marchese, 173, 174, 178, 
 
 179 
 Nelli, 180 
 New Monthly Magazine, The, 13, 
 
 IS, 18, 19 
 New Times, The, 4 
 North, Frederick, 181 
 Norwich, 3 
 
 Odier, Dr., 118, 119, 133, 151 
 Odier, Madlle., 122, 132 
 Onesti, Signora, 203 
 Ostend, 32, 34 
 
 P 
 Pachiani, Abate, 206, 207 
 Peacock, T. L., 131 
 Pellico, Silvio, 191 
 Pictet de Sergy, 104, 105, 140 
 Pisa, 192, 205, 209 
 Polidori, Agostino A., 205 
 Osteologia, by, 205 
 
 Charlotte, 11, 32, 103 
 
 Dr. John W., 2 
 
 Cajetafz, by, 30, 44, 
 
 123 
 
 Polidori, Dr. John W., Costumes 
 
 of Italy, etc., by, 3 
 Ernestus Berchtold, 
 
 by, 2, 19, 22, 23, 127-129 
 
 Oneirodynia, by, 120 
 
 Punishment of Death, 
 
 by, 180, 215 
 The Vampyre, by, 2, 
 
 11-18, 20-23, 125, 126 
 
 Ximenes, by, 2, 124 
 
 Gaetano, 2, 5, 9, 155, 170, 
 
 197, 200, 204, 205, 219-221 
 
 Luigi, 155, 202, 218, 219 
 
 Signora, 202 
 
 Pollent, 41 
 
 Pontelli, Cavalier, 197-199, 201, 
 
 203, 205, 218 
 Porro, 172, 173 
 Potocka, Countess, 125, 126 
 
 memoirs of, 127 
 
 Pradt, Abb6 de, 56 
 
 R 
 
 Raphael, 182 
 
 Lo Sposalizio, by, 182, 183 
 
 Reed, Charlotte, 5-7 
 
 Regnier, Grand Duke, 164, 171 
 
 Rembrandt, 70, 81 
 
 Rhine, the, 80, 82, 86, 108 
 Rocca, 137, 139, 146 
 
 Judge, 137, 147 
 
 Roche, Dr. de, loi, 104 
 Rogers, Samuel, iii, 112 
 Rossetti, Frances, 209 
 
 Gabriele, 209, 219 
 
 Wm. M., 10 
 
 Memoir of Shelley, by, 
 
 10 
 Rossi, 105, 122, 132, 133, 139, 
 
 148, 149 
 Rousseau, 106 
 Rubens, 39, 51 
 
INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 227 
 
 Rubens, Adoration of Magi, by, 53 
 
 Assembly of Saittts, by, 51 
 
 Crucifixion, by, 52 
 
 Descent from the Cross, by, 
 
 52, S3 
 
 Martyrdom of St. Peter, by, 
 
 78 
 
 St. George, etc., by, 51 
 
 St. Roch and the Plague- 
 stricken, by, 39 
 
 Visitation, by, 53 
 
 Rushton, Robert, 31, 152 
 Ryan, Major, 130 
 
 Saint Aubyn, Sir John, 140, 
 
 151 
 
 Tillotson, 140, 151 
 
 Saint Gothard, Mount, 158, 159 
 Saladin, Alexis, 144 
 
 August e, 144, 146 
 
 Charles, 142, 144 
 
 Madlle., 144, 147 
 
 Mathilde, 144 
 
 of Vaugeron, 134-136, I39. 
 
 143 
 Saladins of Maligny, 140, 145 
 Saporati, Marchese, 134, 149 
 Saussure, Nicholas T., 139, 145 
 Scala, Teatro della, 169, 171, 
 
 174 
 Scheldt, the, 46 
 Schlegel, August W. von, 137, 
 
 139, 146 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 70 
 Secheron, 99, icx), 103 
 Severn, Joseph, 181 
 Sgricci, 183-186 
 
 Artemisia, by, 184 
 
 Eteocle e Polinice, by, 184 
 
 Ettore, by, 185, 186 
 
 Shakespear, 147, 148 
 
 Shelley, Harriet, 109, 128, 130 
 
 Mary, 12, 23, 99-102, 106- 
 
 108, no, 113, 116, 118, 123- 
 128, 133-135. 209, 219 
 
 Frankenstein, by, 19, 
 
 125, 126 
 Memoir of Alfieri, by, 
 
 219, 220 
 
 Percy B., i, 3, 98-102, 104, 
 
 106-110, 112-118, 120-133, 
 13s. 136, 138, 185, 186, 204 
 
 Epipsychidion, by, 206 
 
 Poetical Essay, etc., 
 
 by, no 
 
 Queen Mab, by, 107 
 
 Zastrozzi, by, 109 
 
 William, 116 
 
 Sherwood and Neely, 16, 22 
 Simplon, the, 163 
 
 Slaney, Mr., 149 
 
 Mrs., 122, 140, 149 
 
 Soane, John, 81, 212 
 
 Mrs., 212 
 
 Somers, Mr., 141, 150, 204 
 Stael, Madame de, 137, 139, 146, 
 
 152, 216 
 Swarrow, 172, 173, 183, 188 
 
 Tasso, 116, 119 
 Teniers, David, 40 
 
 Temptation of St. Anthony, 
 
 by, 40 
 
 Thun, 154, 15s 
 
 Lake of, 154 
 
 Tintoretto, 79 
 Toffettheim, 143 
 TofFettheim, Madame, 139, 143 
 Traveller, The (magazine), 4 
 Trevanion, Mr., 140 
 
 Mrs., 140 
 
228 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 Unterwalden, i6i, 162 
 
 Vacca, Antonio, 155, 204-206, 
 208 
 
 Leopoldo, 204 
 
 Madame, 206 
 
 Valence, 150 
 Vandyck, 41, 51, 53 
 
 Crucifixion^ by, 41, 53 
 
 Van Eyck, 40 
 
 Villa Diodati, Cologny, 98-100, 
 
 no, III, 120, 121, 125 
 Viviani, Conte, 192 
 
 Viviani, Emilia, 206 
 
 W 
 Wallraf, Professor, 78 
 Wallraf-Richartz Museum, 78 
 Ward, John W. (Lord Dudley), 
 
 III 
 Waterloo, 62-64, 213, 214 
 Watts, Mr., 18, 20 
 Wellington, Duke of, 68, 69 
 Westmorland, Countess of, 181,. 
 
 216, 218 
 Wildman, Colonel, 68 
 Wordsworth, Wm., 28 
 Wotheron, Mr., 173, 174, 180, 181 
 Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel, 67, 68 
 
 Richard Clay &> Spms, Limited, London and Bungay 
 
^3/e^^ 
 
 lij 
 
^js