It was perhaps to console the Eternal City for the loss of Sir Robert Peel, extracted from it like an eye-tooth by the pincers of a government courier, or perhaps because I flattered myself that I might be fetched home to be placed like a patch over the raggedness of the affairs of the nation, that I persuaded Nunziata and her husband to conclude the winter, or rather commence the spring, at Rome. We were there for the Holy Week; and a soothing thing it is to dwell in a house which, undivided against itself in matters of religion, continues to lay at the foot of the altar its tribute of all that is fairest to eye or ear; - sweet music, sweet flowers, sweet incense, sweet portraiture of saintly faces, in addition to prostration of soul, and thankfulness of heart. While the English Parliament was squabbling with the Dissenters, and plundering and persecuting in the name of the Lords by rendering the sacraments of the faith a constabulary question, and dogmatizing in the same breath concerning tithes, rates, and the thirty-nine articles, (the venerable Mother Church screaming all the time like a Lucretia!) - it was delightful to offer up our prayers through the harmonies of Pergolese, and dwell together in unity with our Christian brethren !

It has been said that no one appreciates the courage of Luther, till he has assisted at the Easter ceremonies of St. Peter's. Stern as it was, I suspect it would have quailed had he anticipated the number of schisms into which his schism would be subdivided; a Babelonic confusion intended by the great fountain head of religious faith to frustrate the ambition of those who would fain ascend to heaven by distinctions altogether of this world.

As usual, all nations and languages were collected together at Rome for the annual glorification; - among the English, the Mitchelstons, who had been waltzing away the winter at Naples; and the Mereworths who, released from official thraldom, had brought their son to the Continent to spare him the pain of witnessing the happiness of his first love as a wife and mother.

In my opinion, they had better have stayed at home. People who are encouraged to make pets of their griefs till, like other pets, they become overgrown and insup

portable, are far less likely to be cured, than by exposure to the coercion of society of their own class and country. We stand far more in awe of the sneers of our familiar friends, than of a stranger. With his doating parents at his feet, and careless of the opinions of persons he was seeing for the first time and might never see again, Chippenham was growing abrupt, ungracious, and self-opinionated.

The Italians shrugged their shoulders and called him an original! Even I saw him in some danger of becoming that odious thing" an oddity."

I detest singularity. In youth, it is an impertinence, in mature age, a blunder. blunder. Wise people, compelled to move in a crowd, move with it, in order to avoid a struggle in which the crowd must ever have the best of it. A man may entertain peculiar opinions; but to proclaim them by bray of trumpet, is worthy of an ass.

"Le pain de la vérité," says a great writer, "n'est pas fait pour toutes les bouches. On prend un engagement onéreux contre le monde, dès qu'on rompt en visière avec ses avis et son langage!"-for the world is naturally ready to hurl a stone at him who acts as though he felt himself its superior.

I do not wonder that the lad was disgusted with London. As a parti, the eldest son of a wealthy peer, he had undergone all the besiegement which is either the most amusing or the most provoking thing in the world. Such molestations must be taken tragically, or comically, there is no medium. If free in hand and heart to divert oneself, it is pleasant enough to make dupes by affecting dupehood; and pretending to fall into a trap, so as to bring the Lady Grindleshams to the springe. But Chipp chose to take matters au tragique. Chipp, whose wounds were still smarting, was not in the humour to turn the tables. It bored him to death to have fifty notes to answer before he was up, from fifty ladyships having Emilys or Lauras to dispose of, proposing parties to Richmond, or parties to the play. Young ladies forced down a man's throat, become as nauseous as any other dose of physic; and like the hunted beaver, the angry boy had ended by offering to bite off his coronet and throw it to the chaperons.

Seriously, I believe he did answer an invitation to Grindlesham Park, by stating not that he was engaged, but that he had no mind to be engaged; "that he was not a marrying man."-Lady Mereworth assured me her son had made enemies without end in London, by his haughty mode of snapping asunder the matrimonial lasso that Almacks had tried to fling around him; the generous impulses of youth being still too hot in his bosom to be repressed by the Tartufferie of polite life.

Saving for the interval of a few weeks, I had now been more than a year and a half absent from England; and till this reunion with a thorough-going London party, had almost divested myself of my Anglicism. It takes at least a year on the Continent to get the fog thoroughly out of one's skin; till when, we are only partially susceptible of natural enjoyments. The murmurs of Chipp against the shower of arrows directed against him, amused me beyond measure; by recalling the miseries of that factitious order of Life, both above and below being called Human.

But what did not amuse me, was to learn that Frank Walsingham continued to frequent Graham's and Crockford's, as much as before his marriage; and though Chippenham did not accuse him of neglecting his wife, as he would certainly have done had there been a pretext for the accusation, it was clear that no man, since the time of Sir Boyle Roche's bird, could be in two places at once. Wo worth the woman, - trebly wo worth the wife, - who hath the queen of hearts for her rival!

I ventured to hint in my next letter to Frank that I had heard of his breach of promise both to poor Danby and myself; and to offer him a word or two of advice on the subject of the dice-box. But, alas!

Quæ res in se neque consilium, neque modum
Habet ullum, cum consilio regere non potes.

VOL. II.-11

CHAPTER XII.

-

I fear I'm apt to grow too metaphysical,
The time is out of joint, and so am I.
I quite forget this novel's merely quizzical,
And deviate into matters rather dry.

I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I call
Much too fantastical. Men should know why
They write and for what end. But, note or text,
I never know the word that will come next.

Ιδμεν ψευδέα πολλα λεγειν ετυμοισιν ομοία,
Ιδμεν δ' ευτ' εθελωμεν, αληθέα μυθησασθαι.

BYRON.

HESIOD.

THE taste for a continental life is like a taste for olives. One begins with disgust. The flavour goes against one. -But the zest imparted to the first glass of wine, induces a second trial; and we end by liking olives for themselves, and pretending to like them fifty times more than we do, as evidence of a well-bred predilection.

So is it with the English and Italy. I disliked it at first. Its simplicity of habits appeared to me deficiency of refinement. By degrees, I began to discover a strange luxuriousness of flavour in the enjoyments to which those habits gave rise; and after a time, used to fancy, or at least to swear, that it would be utterly impossible for me ever again to breathe the breath of London. To be sure I had every excuse for trying to believe myself; for Nunziata was so passionately fond of her country, and the Prince so true a patriot, that my affected Italianism was only a more delicate protestation of gratitude.

Just, however, as I was most earnest in my jests against the Mereworths about Britannia being web-footed, and London a smoke-divan, came a letter from Jane that determined me at once to visit England. Walsingham, it seems, had taken offence at my interference; and whereas fellows naturally so well-tempered as himself do not take offence at trifles with a friend, unless irritated in temper by the goadings of conscience, I saw that things were going wrong in Connaught Place.

Jane merely said in her letter words to the effect of, "Dear Cecil, you are my only father now. Do not sow discord between me and husband. my I fear, however, that poor Frank has other things to vex him, besides your rebukes; for he is neither so well nor so happy as I could wish."

Thereupon, I placed my passport and credit with Torlonia in the hands of O'Brien, to make arrangements for our immediate departure for England, while I devoted the remnant of my time in Rome to taking leave of my friends.

I have dwelt so much, of late, on melancholy themes, that I will spare my Public the description of their grief at losing me.- The Princess was in despair; and, if the truth must be told, her state of mind excited such melancholy forebodings in my mind, that I could not leave her, with any degree of comfort to myself, till I had persuaded Chippenham to stay and watch over her. - The Prince was too deeply absorbed by his studies and patriotic interests, to have much leisure for soothing the feelings of one so much younger and more sensitive than himself; and I felt that the sudden loss of my society must be too severe a deprivation, unless the vacancy in their little circle were supplied by a friend who would daily and hourly talk to her of Cecil.

The Mereworths, anxious to return to England, readily embraced my proposal that their son should join the party of the L**is at Lucca for the bathing season; for Chippenham was not to be brought into Parliament till the following year, and they were anxious not to have him idling his time and squandering his happiness in London; more particularly now that his eccentricities had somewhat diminished his favour with the world.— I left him, therefore, to acquire his taste for olives-i. e., the simple but exciting flavour of foreign life, in Nunziata's society. I knew how they would think of me, together, I knew how they would talk of me! As the friend of her friend, she had always borne patiently with his peculiarities; and even if not the object of Cecil's sincere affection, a young man of taste and feeling, like Lord Chippenham, could not but rejoice at the distinction of intimacy with so sweet and accomplished a woman!