Elizabeth Vassall Fox Holland

“ Berwick remains the whole summer. Lord Palmerston, comically enough, calls them ‘Cymon and Iphigenia,’ for till their attachment began Ld. B. was never heard to speak: love roused him.
On the 23rd the Websters left Naples for Capua, ‘the antidote to all pleasure at present from its filth and dulness,’ and continuing their journey crossed the River Garigliano.
The gayest scenes until Mola di Gaeta, the verdure, the festoons of vines hanging between the trees, with the glow of a crimson sun sinking into the Mediterranean. ”

“ Trevor’s foreign missions drew her upon the Continent, where she has remained mostly for these last eighteen years. The first thing she did was to live apart from him, and keep up a love correspondence with him; hence to the world they appeared enamoured of one another. She is a little mad, and parsimony is her chief turn. She is good-natured, and a little clever. Trevor has no judgment and slender talents. His foibles are very harmless, and his whole life has been insipidly good. His ridicules are a love of dress coats, volantes, and always speaking French. ”

“ It being the eve of Mimi’s marriage, I slept at Ly. Bessborough’s, that I might be ready in time for the wedding. I invited my party to supper; the four gallants, the Dss. of Devonshire came, and the Duke of Bedford. The change in former is painful to see; scarcely has she a vestige of those charms that once attracted all hearts. Her figure is corpulent, her complexion coarse, one eye gone, and her neck immense. How frail is the tenure of beauty! ”

“ Saturday was the last morning I passed in Naples. I quitted those scenes of tranquil pleasure and harmless gratification with unfeigned regret. But ah me! what can please or cheer one who has no hope of happiness in life. Solitude and amusement from external objects is all I hope for: home is the abyss of misery! I am but as a zero in society, attached to none, belonging to none I esteem. ”

“ The streets are wide, clean, and well paved. The houses, like those in dear, dear Italy, built on arcades, an admirable convenience for the foot passengers in the rains of winter or the heats of summer. I think it must fill the mind of a true John Bull with envy to see the town of a province like this, or a small capital like Turin, surrounded with public walks, extensive avenues, and magnificent approaches, whilst their own metropolis can be approached only by shabby, narrow turnpike roads. ”

“ I felt melancholy at the sight of Lausanne now, deserted by all the cheerful band who had assisted in making me pass cheerfully some of the pleasantest hours of my uncomfortable life. Gibbon’s house is abandoned; he is in England. Poor Ly. Sheffield’s apartment will never again contain her; she is no more. Mde. de Juigné is again no more. All my friends are living in obscure poverty, or have fallen in the field of battle. The English here are the Cholmondeleys, the old Duchess of Ancaster, Ld. Morpeth, his friend who travels with him, and various other English, and the son of an Irish bishop. ”

“ In all the collections much escapes me, as I am always accompanied by one whose impetuosity compels me to hasten from objects I would willingly contemplate, and whose violence of temper throws me into agitations that prevent me distinguishing the objects when they are before me. Much as I endure now, yet it is infinitely more bearable than formerly; experience and a better knowledge of the world makes me laugh at menaces that used to terrify me out of my senses. ”

“ November 1st, ’97.—The peace with Emperor and the Republic is certain, and a guerre à mort between this island and all the vast power of the brave, conquering French. How this country can get out of the mauvais pas it is in remains to be seen. I think it is, from the obstinacy and folly of the Government, lost, and that completely by its own fault.
Le bien nous le faisons, le mal c’est la fortune;
On a toujours raison, le destin toujours tort.
Unjust as mankind is, it can hardly rest the blame of our destruction upon Fortune. ”

“ They called the Sun the greatest luminary, to honour it with a feminine name, and the moon, which is inferior, by a masculine one. This spirit melted into chivalry, and it is to the preux chevaliers, the Arthurs, the Orlandos, and the Round Table, that we owe our present situation in society. However, the Saracens were a great and enlightened people, and till lately literature and science have never fairly been grateful for what they owe them, and half the world to this day even confound them with those savages, the Turks. ”

“ I never could approve the necessity of inculcating an eternal view of death; we daily feel that it is inevitable from the frequent derangement of our fragile bodies, and as it neither makes us wiser or happier to be in expectation of the event and certainly embitters enjoyments, I disapprove of the system. The opposite extreme is ridiculous, and the great Empress of Russia showed her own littleness in forbidding mourning and the sight of funerals, especially as she was so prodigal of the lives of her subjects. ”

“ La Cava and Vietri are charmingly situated in their different styles; the first has all the beauties of social life, small neat cottages interspersed amongst vineyards, olives, and myrtles, upon the side of a hill inclining towards a small torrent. The whiteness of the [17] houses contrasted with the verdure of spring vegetation in the foreground, and the boldness of the scraggy rocks behind make a lovely picture and fill the mind with pleasing sensations at the sight of comfort and tranquillity, a lot that rarely befalls the peasantry of France and England. ”

“ Florence, October 4th, 1795.—The first and strongest sensation one feels on entering Italy is the recollection of those historical events that from childhood are [136] impressed upon the mind, and those classical sentiments that one strives both from vanity and taste to bring back to memory; but when the turbulence of the imagination subsides, and a long residence in the country familiarises one with objects so attractive, modern Italy, her poets, historians, and artists, arrest the attention very justly by the admiration to which they are entitled. ”

“ The Dora Baltea is a rapid torrent, which runs into the Po near Turin. The Isère rises on the French side of the mountain, and finds its way into the Rhône. The Dora comes raving with great impetuosity and swiftness—a just emblem of time, that rushes forward and never is retarded. ”

“ His politics he conducts so that he may be in power with either side—a shabby mode of proceeding, unless it is founded upon indifference to both sides, and merely to secure safety in commotions; and even then the safety of it is doubtful. Timidity in public life I own I despise, for though I feel very lukewarm it is from the effect of circumstances and reasoning, and not disposition; for were I to indulge my nature my principles are à la hauteur de la révolution. I must either be one of the greatest patriots or tyrants that have lived. ”

“ In the Commons, Ld. Granville makes his maiden oratorical essay. These sessions will be diverting to a bystander. Tierney, notwithstanding his very superior abilities, is more perplexed than any of them. He cannot stand ridicule, and dares not alone without any support encounter the flings, as he calls them, about O’Connor. Therefore he means to begin first, and declare his error in having thought favourably of him; in short, to say he is a rogue and deceived him. The world are so illiberal that a recantation is more frequently ascribed to timidity than it is to candour. ”

“ To a young and pretty woman, blessed with buoyant spirits, of an age to realise the pleasures of life, and with every wish to enjoy them to the full, this quiet country life must soon have become irksome. Even with everything in her favour she might naturally have desired to see more of the world than she was likely to find in the green fields of Sussex, varied by an occasional visit to London. ”

“ Passed through a neat town, to which our inn was a suburb. Kept ascending for miles. A magnificent torrent roaring at our feet and the sharp pinnacles of the Apennines springing above our heads. The industry of the inhabitants is manifested by their cultivating every little spot that is accessible to the foot of man, and success warrants their enterprise, as the production is abundant, and the walls prop up the little field. ”

“ In my way I shall wash the walls of Vienna, Presburg, and Belgrade, and then in company with the waters of Poland and of Russia will try to live in harmony with the waters of the Euxine Sea.’ ‘And I,’ says the merry southern drop, ‘will rush on to the rapid Rhine, wash the coast of the brave and hardy Swiss, will then avoid the once cheerful Frenchmen, and frisk down to the North Sea,’ and, if he is of my mind, will avoid the chalky coast of England. ”

“ I turned my back on Italy with regret. The men carried me backwards down the mountain. The snow on this side very deep, and they waded through it with great labour; they often fell, but I was neither hurt nor frightened. My intrepidity is more owing to an indifference about life than to natural courage. I have nothing to love, so life is not to me invaluable. Half-way we stopped to look at the melancholy receptacle for the bodies of those who perish on the mountains. There is only one body ”

“ Wycombe ought not to prove him unreasonable, for he has an eccentric and impracticable character to deal with, who is to the full as suspicious as himself and as jealous of control. The collision of two such dispositions frequently kindles up a furious flame, but at the bottom each loves the other too well for the rage to settle into permanent estrangement, but every moment of each of their lives is embittered by interference on one part and resistance on the other.
Ld. L., in his old age, surrounded with dignities and wealth, is helpless, and more an object of pity than of envy. ”

“ He found the party in a desperate, languishing state, himself full of ambition and life, and that in that party he must have contented himself with a very subaltern post; whereas the reputation that Sheridan, in his over-zeal, had anticipated for him made him an object worth getting to the others. He is, in his heart, the veriest Jacobin there is, and would, if he were not in power, manifest his principles in a most dangerous, innovating Opposition. He abhors titles, and the aristocracy of hereditary nobility ”

“ Turkheim is the capital of the States of the unlucky Count of Leiningen who was seized in his palace by the Patriots, who keep him as a hostage for Camus, Beurnonville, and the other deputies delivered by Dumouriez to the Austrians. The road is all alive; troops, recruits, baggage waggons, ammunition waggons, sick and wounded, stragglers, cavalry, all proclaim the direful din of arms is at hand. ”

“ Ld. Morpeth is perfect in person and manner; he has the air noble without haughtiness, and his mirth is cheerful, not boisterous. What Ld. Wycombe said of him is very descriptive, ‘He is an excellent specimen of aristocracy.’ He has inherited a considerable portion of his father’s love of fashion, but as it does not run away with him, I see no fault in it, tho’ he sometimes allows his judgment to be guided by it. His understanding is excellent; he is fond of literature, and is reckoned a good scholar. ”

“ Florence, 10th January.—On the 8th of January I arrived here, and found to my supreme delight both my dear children perfectly well. Webby surprisingly improved. The baby is as perfect a lazzarone as the Chiaia ever produced: in the first place, he has the appetite and digestion of a Neapolitan. He is a nice child, but far from pretty. I found no less than five letters cautioning me strongly against going to Naples with the baby, as there rages in the town a malignant species of smallpox, to which 7000 infants have fallen victims, and amongst them poor Lady Plymouth’s infant. ”

“ A thousand people were enjoying themselves among their families in their gala clothes, dining under the prettiest rustic arcades ornamented in the best possible taste: this number all fed, even existing, by the bounty of the King, and each pouring out the sincerest benediction upon him for his bounty. I wished this picture of happiness of his own creation might excite the disposition to extend the blessings of ease and security by encouraging industry in Calabria and other parts of his dominions, where the wretched peasant is ferocious from ignorance and sloth. ”

“ With a very good understanding and great information he is as unassuming as the most modest youth could be; but he has some violent prejudices that are very diverting. They are chiefly owing to the French Revolution. He has so great a dread of French principles that he condemns everything that his ardent imagination can torture into a tendency towards them. His fancy is so good-humoured that it is more a scene of mirth than disputation when he gets upon the subject of politics. Yesterday the Bessbro’s dined here, Ld. Boringdon, and G. Leveson; Beauclerk came in ye evening and slept. ”