CHAPTER XX.

GENOA.

Removal to Genoa.-Shelley's house at Lerici.-Earthquake at Lerici.-Reputation of Englishmen in Italy for mad courage.Courage of Italians.-Porto Venere.-Fishy population.-Maritime Apennines.-Domiciles at Albaro.-Account of the "Liberal."-Awkward mistake respecting two of its writers.-Lord Byron and Dr. Johnson.

TOWARD the end of September, Lord Byron and myself in different parties, left Pisa for Genoa. Tuscany had been rendered uncomfortable to him by the misadventures both there and at Leghorn; and at Genoa he would hover on the borders of his inclination for Greece. Perhaps he had already made arrangements for going thither.

On our way to Genoa we met at Lerici. He had an illness at that place; and all my melancholy was put to its height by seeing the spot which my departed friend had lived in, and his solitary mansion on the sea-shore. Lerici is wild and retired, with a bay and rocky eminences; the people suited to it, something between inhabitants of sea and land. In the summer time they will be up all night dabbling in the water, and making wild noises. Here Trelawney joined us. He took me to the Villa Magni (the house just alluded to); and we paced over its empty rooms, and neglected garden. The sea fawned upon the shore, as though it could do no harm.

At Lerici we had an earthquake. The shock was the smartest we experienced in Italy. At Pisa there had been a dull intimation of one, such as happens in that city about once in three years. In the neighborhood of Florence wo had another less dull, but lasting only for an instant. was exactly as if somebody with a strong hand had jerked a

It

pole up against the ceiling of the lower room, right under one's feet. This was at Maiano, among the Fiesolan hills. People came out of their rooms, and inquired of one another what was the matter. At Lerici I awoke at dawn with an extraordinary sensation, and directly afterward the earthquake took place. It was strong enough to shake the pictures on the wall; and it lasted a sufficient time to resemble the rolling of a wagon under an archway, which it did both in noise and movement. I got up and went to the window. The people were already collecting in the open place beneath it; and I heard, in the clear morning air, the word Terremoto (earthquake) repeated from one to another. The sensation for the next ten minutes or so was very distressing. You expected the shock to come again, and to be worse. However we had no more of it. We congratulated ourselves the more, because there was a tower on a rock just over our heads, which would have stood upon no ceremony with our inn. They told us, if I remember, that they had an earthquake on this part of the coast of Italy about once every five years. Italy is a land of volcanoes, more or less subdued. It is a great grapery, built over a flue. If the earthquake did not come, it was thought the crops were not so good.

From Lerici, we proceeded part of our way by water, as far as Sestri. Lord Byron went in a private boat; Trelawny in another; myself and family in a felucca. It was pretty to see the boats with their white sails, gliding by the rocks over that blue sea. A little breeze coming on, our seamen were afraid, and put into Porto Venere, a deserted town a short distance from Lerici. I asked them if they really meant to put in, upon which they looked very determined on that point, and said that " Englishmen had no sense of danger.' I smiled to think of the British Channel. I thought also of the thunder and lightning in this very sea, where they might have seen British tars themselves astonished with fear. In Italy, Englishmen are called “the mad English," from the hazards they run. They like to astonish the natives by a little superfluous peril. If you see a man coming furiously down the streets on horseback, you may be

pretty certain he is an Englishman. An English mailcoach, with that cauliflower of human beings a-top of it, lumping from side to side, would make the hearts of a Tuscan city die within them. Not that the Italians are less brave than other nations. The modern Romans have lately shown what they can do in the best old Roman spirit, in spite of their having mounted guard so long under papal umbrellas; and the Piedmontese were among the best soldiers of Napoleon. But habit and imagination soften the bravest, when there seems no necessity for resisting them.

Porto Venere is like a petrified town in a story-book. The classical name allured us, and we roamed over it. It was curious to pass the houses one after the other, and meet not a soul. Such inhabitants as there are, confine them

selves to the sea-shore.

After resting a few hours, we put forth again, and had a lazy, sunny passage to Sestri, where a crowd of people assailed us, like savages at an island, for our patronage and portmanteaus. They were robust, clamorous, fishy fellows, like so many children of the Tritons in Raphael's pictures; as if those plebeian gods of the sea had been making love to Italian chambermaids. Italian goddesses have shown a taste not unsimilar, and more condescending; and English ones, too, in Italy, if scandal is to be believed. But Naples is the head-quarters of this over-growth of wild luxury. Marino, a Neapolitan, may have had it in his eye, when he wrote that fine sonnet of his, full of gusto, brawny and bearded, about Triton pursuing Cymothoe. (See Parnaso Italiano, tom. 41, p. 10.)

From Sestri we proceeded over the maritime part of the Apennines to Genoa. Their character is of the least interesting sort of any mountains, being neither distinct nor wooded but undulating, barren, and coarse; without any grandeur but what arises from an excess of that appearance. They lie in a succession of great doughy billows, like so much enormous pudding, or petrified mud.

Genoa again! With what different feelings we beheld it from those which enchanted us the first time! Mrs. Shelley, who preceded us, had found houses both for Lord

Byron's family and my own at Albaro, a neighboring village on a hill. We were to live in the same house with her; and in the Casa Negroto we accordingly found an English welcome. There were forty rooms in it, some of them such as would be considered splendid in England, and all neat and new, with borders and arabesques. The balcony and staircase were of marble; and there was a little flowergarden. The rent of this house was twenty pounds a year. Lord Byron paid four-and twenty for his, which was older and more imposing, with rooms in still greater plenty, and a good piece of ground. It was called the Casa Saluzzi.* Mr. Landor and his family had occupied a house in the same village the Casa Pallavicini. He has recorded an interesting dialogue that took place in it.† Of Albaro, and the city itself, I shall speak more at large in the course of the chapter.

The Genoese post brought us the first number of our new quarterly, the Liberal, accompanied both with hopes and fears, the latter of which were too speedily realized. Living now in a separate house from Lord Byron, I saw less of him than before; and, under all the circumstances, it was as well for though we had always been on what are called "good terms," the cordiality did not increase. His friends in England, who, after what had lately taken place there in his instance, were opposed, naturally enough, to his opening new fields of publicity, did what they could to prevent his taking a hearty interest in the Liberal; and I must confess, that I did not mend the matter by my own inability to fall in cordially with his ways, and by a certain jealousy of my position, which prevented me, neither very wisely nor justly, from manifesting the admiration due to his genius, and reading the manuscripts he showed me with a becoming amount

* Are the Saluzzi family from Chaucer's Country of Saluces, whose "Markis" married the patient Griselda? Saluces was in the maritime Apennines, by Piedmont, and might have originated a family of Genoese nobles. Classical and romantic associations meet us in such abundance at every turn in Italy, that upon the least hint a book speaketh.

† Imaginary Conversations, vol. i. p. 179, second edition.

of thanks and good words. I think he had a right to feel this want of accord in a companion, whatever might be its value. A dozen years later, reflection would have made me act very differently. At the same time, though the Liberal had no mean success, he unquestionably looked to its having a far greater; and the result of all these combined circumstances was, that the interest he took in it cooled in proportion as it should have grown warm, and after four numbers it ceased. They were all published during our residence in this part of Italy. Lord Byron contributed some poems, to which his customary publisher had objected on account of their fault-finding in Church and State, and their critical attacks on acquaintances. Among them was the Vision of Judgment, the best satire since the days of Pope. Churchill's satires, compared with it, are bludgeons compared with steel of Damascus. Hazlitt contributed some of the most entertaining of his vigorous essays; and Shelley had left us his masterly translation of the May-day Night in Faust. As to myself, if I may speak of my own articles after these, I wrote by far the greater number, perhaps nearly half the publication; but I was ill; and with the exception of one or two, I hope they were not among my best. This, however, did not hinder great puzzlement among the critics of that day. I say it with not the slightest intention of self-compliment; and I should think him a very dull fellow who supposed it.

Puzzlement and posement of various sorts awaited many readers of the Liberal. A periodical work which is understood to be written by known authors, whose names are neverthelsss unaffixed to their contributions, has the disadvantage of hazarding uneasiness to the minds of such readers as pique themselves on knowing a man's style without really being sure of it. They long to assign the articles to this and that author, but they fear to be mistaken. The perplexity irritates them; they are forced to wait the judgments of others; and they willingly comfort the wound given to their self-love by siding with such as are unfavorable, and pronouncing the articles to be of an undistinguishable mediocrity. I do not know how far this kind of dilemma may