of the wood-pigeon is ‘Sow peas, do, do.’ There is a bird in Turkey of which the male seems to say a string of words meaning ‘Have you seen my sheep?’ when the female replies, ‘No, I have not seen them.’ They are said to be a shepherd and shepherdess who lost all their sheep and died of a broken heart, when they were turned into birds. But the interesting point is that the story is found in an old Greek novel—‘Longus.’
“ ‘The origin of the Torlonia family,’ said Mr. Newton, ‘is very curious. When Pius VII. wished to excommunicate Napoleon I., he could not find any one who was bold enough to affix the scomunica to the doors of the Lateran. At length an old man who sold matches was found who ran the risk and did it. On the return of the Pope in triumph, the old man was offered any favour he liked, and he chose the monopoly of tobacco. From that time every speculation that the Torlonias entered upon was sure to answer.’
“The late Prince Torlonia, being at Naples, went into the room where the public appointments were sold by auction. He left his umbrella there, and went back to get it while the sale was going on. The bidders, chiefly Neapolitan nobles, were aghast to see the great Torlonia reappear, and at last, after some consultation, one of them came up to him and said they would give him 60,000 francs if he would leave. Instead of showing the intense astonishment he felt at this most unexpected proposal, Torlonia only shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘È póco,’ and they gave him 100,000.
“The only other guests at Mountfield are a Mr. Baker, a Gloucestershire squire, and his wife. He is an excellent man, and was the first who instituted a Reformatory. This he did first at his own expense, but the Government bought it from him. He speaks with the most dreary voice. Mr. Newton says it is ‘just the sort of utterance he should be grateful for if he was making his last speech upon the scaffold.’ ”
“Sonning, Dec. 30.—My ever-kind friend Lord Stanhope died on Christmas Eve. It was only two years from the time of dear Lady Stanhope’s death, on New Year’s Eve, 1873. She left a paper for her husband—what she called her ‘Last Words’—imploring him, for her sake, to go back to his literary interests, not to give up what had been his work, to try to fill up the blank in his life.
“When Lord Stanhope was dying, he said touchingly to Lady Mohun, ‘You know what my dearest Emily asked of me in her last words. I have tried to do as she wished, and you, my dear, have been such a good and kind daughter to me, you have almost made me wish to live.’
“I have been spending charming days with Hugh Pearson. He says, ‘What will become of a country in which the upper classes are content to be fed upon Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ’ and the middle classes upon Moody and Sankey?’ He told me of Justice Knight Bruce’s capital lines—
‘The ladies praise our curate’s eyes;
I cannot see their light divine:
He always shuts them when he prays,
And, when he preaches, closes mine.’ ”
XVIII
LONDON WALKS AND SOCIETY
“It is an inexpressible pleasure to know a little of the world, and to be of no character or significancy in it.”—Steele.
“Arranging long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we’ve set ourselves!
How still the lonely room appears!
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures.”
“Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.”—Quarles.
“No, when the fight begins within himself,
A man’s worth something.”—Browning.
MY three thick volumes of the “Cities of Northern and Central Italy” appeared in the autumn of 1875, a very large edition (3000 copies) being printed at once. They were immediately the object of a most violent attack from Mr. Murray, who saw in them rivals to his well-known red handbooks. A most virulent and abusive article appeared upon my work in the Athenæum, accusing me, amongst other things, of having copied from Murray’s Handbooks without acknowledgment, and quoting, as proof, passages relating to Verona in both books, which have the same singular mistake. It was certainly a curious accident which made me receive the proof-sheets of Verona when away from home on a visit at Tunbridge Wells, where the only book of reference accessible was Murray’s “Handbook of Northern Italy,” which I found in the house, so that the mistakes in my account of Verona were actually copied from Murray’s Handbook, to which I was indebted for nothing else whatever, as (though much delighted with them when they first appeared) I had for years found Murray’s Handbooks so inefficient, that I had never bought or made any use of them, preferring the accurate and intelligent Handbooks of the German Gsel-fels. Mr. Murray further took legal proceedings against me, because in one of my volumes I had mentioned that the Italian Lakes were included in his Swiss rather than his Italian Handbooks: this having been altered in recent years, but having been the case in the only volumes of his Handbooks I had ever possessed. On all occasions, any little literary success I met with excited bitter animosity from Mr. Murray.
Another curious attack was made upon me by the eccentric Mr. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Conquest. He had published in the Saturday Review a series of short articles on the Italian cities, which I always felt had never received the attention they deserved, their real interest having been overlooked owing to the unpopularity of the dogmatic and verbose style in which they were written. Therefore, really with the idea of doing Mr. Freeman a good turn, I had rather gone out of my way to introduce extracts from his articles where I could, that notice might thus be attracted to them—an attention for which I had already been thanked by other little-read authors, as, whatever may be the many faults of my books, they have always had a large circulation. But in the case of Mr. Freeman, knowing the singular character of the man, I begged a common friend to write to his daughter and amanuensis to mention my intention, and ask her, if her father had no objection to my quoting from his articles, to send me a list of them (as they were unsigned), in order that I might not confuse them with those of any other person. By return of post I received, without comment, from Miss Freeman, a list of her father’s articles, and I naturally considered this as equivalent to his full permission to quote from them. I was therefore greatly surprised, when Mr. Freeman’s articles appeared soon afterwards in a small volume, to find it introduced with a preface, the whole object of which was, in the most violent manner, to accuse me of theft. I immediately published a full statement of the circumstances under which I had quoted from Mr. Freeman in sixteen different newspapers. Mr. Freeman answered in the Times by repeating his accusation, and in the Guardian he added, “Though Mr. Hare’s conduct was barefaced and wholesale robbery, I shall take no further notice of him till he has stolen something else.”[187]
Mr. Freeman made himself many enemies, but he did not make me one; he was too odd. His neighbour, the Dean of Wells, Johnson, could not bear him. When there was an Archæological Meeting at Wells, it was thought that peace might be made if the Dean could be persuaded to propose the historian’s health at the dinner. The Dean was quite willing, but he began his speech unfortunately with—“I rise with great pleasure to propose the health of our eminent neighbour, Mr. Freeman the historian, a man who—in his own personal characteristics—has so often depicted for us the savage character of our first forefathers.”
But in spite of these little catastrophes attending its publication, I am certain that “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” which cost me far more pains and labour, and which is more entirely original, than all my earlier books put together, was by far the best of my writings, up to that time.
Before the book was out, I was already devoted to a new work, suggested by the great delight I had long