Napoleon. After waiting some minutes in the ante-room I was introduced by Count Drouot, and found him standing alone in a small room. He was dressed in a green coat, with a hat in his hand, very much as he is painted; but, excepting the resemblance of dress, I had a very mistaken idea of him from his portrait. He appears very short, which is partly owing to his being very fat; his hands and legs being quite swollen and unwieldy. That makes him appear awkward, and not unlike the whole-length figure of Gibbon the historian. Besides this, instead of the bold-marked countenance that I expected, he has fat cheeks, and rather a turn-up nose, which, to bring in another historian, makes the shape of his face resemble the portraits of Hume. He has a dusky grey eye, which would be called vicious in a horse, and the shape of his mouth expresses contempt and decision. His manner is very good-natured, and seems studied to put one at one's ease by its familiarity; his smile and laugh are very agreeable; he asks a number of questions without object, and often repeats them, a habit which he has no doubt acquired during fifteen years of supreme command. To this I should also attribute the ignorance he seems to show at times of the most common facts. When anything that he likes is said, he puts his head forward, and listens with great pleasure; . . . but when he does not like what he hears, he turns away as if unconcerned, and changes the subject. From this one might conclude that he was open to flattery and violent in his temper.

Lord John was with the Emperor an hour and a half, conversing on many subjects—the Russell family, Lord John's own allowance from the Duke, the state of Spain and Italy, the character of the Duke of Wellington, and the arrangements likely to be made at Vienna for the pacification of Europe. He used to say in his old age that, as the Emperor became interested in his conversation, he fell into the singular habit which he had acquired, and pulled him by the ear. Two days afterwards Lord John left Elba for Civita Vecchia and Rome. But amidst the interests of the Eternal City he unfortunately omitted to continue his diary, and only resumed it, some weeks afterwards, at Terracina on the road to Naples. On Tuesday, February 7, he left Naples for Pæstum, stopping at Pompeii, where he made the characteristic observation that 'everyone was slain in his vocationthe rich man carrying away his money, the priests eating, and

the soldiers entertaining a woman.' After leaving Pompeii, Lord John thought the descent to Salerno 'one of the most magnificent views I ever saw.' On arriving at Pæstum, he described one of its temples as the most perfect specimen of Greek architecture that I have had the luck to see;' and, on his return to Rome, he was delighted with Frascati and Tivoli.

On March 28, 1815, Lord John 'left Rome, not without regret ;.. it is a dull place, but full of inspirations which come athwart its habitual gloom and make it interesting.' Lord John took the road to Sienna and Florence, which he reached on April 1; and, after only a two days' stay, went on to Bologna.1 His route then lay through Modena, Parma, Milan, Verona, Venice, Padua; across the Brenner to Innspruck, by Stuttgart and Mannheim to Mayence, down the Rhine to Coblentz and Bonn; and so through Aix, Brussels, and Ghent to Ostend and England.

This journey, like many of the journeys which Lord John Russell took in his youth, is accomplished annually now by hundreds, or thousands, of Englishmen. In 1814, the Continent had been closed by war, and the conditions of travel made the grand tour only possible to rich men. Lord John's homeward journey, moreover, derived an additional interest from the circumstances of the time in which it was undertaken. For Napoleon, in March, having escaped from Elba, landed in France; and his return, prompted on his part by 'un peu d'espoir et beaucoup de désespoir,' 2 animated some struggling nationalities with hope, and filled some baffled statesmen with despair.

1 It may be of interest to insert Lord John's views of art in 1815. The School of Painting of Bologna is very ancient and famous. . . . Ludovico Caracci restored it, and founded the school so well known of his cousins Guido, Guercino, Albano, and Domenichino. Except Raphael, there is nothing in the Roman school to compare to these names, and each excels him in one department. Guido is my favourite. His colouring is bad; out he has a noble and a simple manner. Perhaps I like him because he is more easily understood by an ignorant person.'

The phrase is Count Mosbourg's, a Minister of Murat, and is quoted by Lord John in his letter to Mr. Van de Weyer giving an account of his interview with Napoleon. It has recently been requoted by Mr. Clayden in his Rogers and his Contemporaries.

In Italy the feeling was in Napoleon's favour. At Sienna, on the last day of March, Lord John went into

the Casino of the Nobili, where they were all very animated about the news. One man spoke very eloquently on the miserable condition of Italy, which felt every convulsion of Europe directly, but was not considered in the wise arrangements of the high and mighty

allies.

Two days afterwards he records at Florence a rumour that

The Neapolitans had entered Bologna-great alarm among the English. Rogers off in a hurry, all the horrors of captivity in his face. And when he reached Bologna—

He found the town in a great state of joy without any riot. Joachim Murat had two days before proclaimed the independence of Italy. The people here hate the Germans for many reasons. Owing to these causes, many volunteers (2,000, they say) have appeared; and the few scholars left in the University all took up arms at the command of their professor, probably very glad to get rid of his lectures.

On his arrival at Modena he found that there had been fighting all day, and much confusion.' But on April 12

he writes-

The Neapolitan troops went out last night without doing any mischief. A German picquet came in about eight in the morning; a division soon after followed, received with loud huzzas by the people, who, however, seem to me to have their minds sufficiently free from any bias to take the side of the strongest. The Grand Duke popular. And in closing his diary in Italy, he writes

The French Government, though not good, very useful to prepare the people for a better; the Austrians dull, sleepy, and perhaps as arbitrary; the French by far the best liked of the two, as they are gay and spend their money. Napoleon is respected by all. Of course there is a party for, and a party against him, but I believe the former the strongest. Every man is for himself; there is no national feeling, and nobody to head it if there were. The plea of a federative government, if supported by England, would have partisans.

On May 5 Lord John began the 'very long and tedious' ascent of the Brenner, and turned his back upon Italy. Three days afterwards

history. Italian.

I struck into Germany, which I passed through after the traveller's usual manner, without knowing anything of the people, language, or Only observed that the race was entirely different from the Alehouses instead of confectioners, hardware instead of books, whitewashed small country houses instead of large architectural palaces, cleanliness instead of taste, and honest sulkiness instead of roguish vivacity. 'L'homme est méchant et misérable,' says Bayle, but not universally-'méchant' in the south, 'misérable' in the north.

Though Lord John only crossed the Brenner on May 5, he was speaking in the House of Commons on June 5, and protesting against the new war, 'which he declared to be impolitic in its origin, unjust in its object, and injurious in its consequences.' His protest did not, of course, affect the issue. Ministers succeeded in obtaining the supplies which they sought, and their chosen chief, by his famous victory, gave enduring peace to Europe. The session was rapidly concluded, and Parliament separated without having a further opportunity of listening to Lord John Russell's eloquence.

The story of Lord John Russell's life has now been brought down to a distinct halting-place. With the commencement of the following session he was destined to take a more active part both in politics and literature. The boy had ripened into the man, and the business of his life was thenceforward to be more serious. Yet it is worth while, before closing this chapter, to review the incidents which have already been related. An attempt has been made to give a picture of a delicate boy gradually increasing in strength, but whose weakness interfered with the usual routine of edu cation. We have seen him at a bad private school at Sunbury, for a few months enduring the rough life of a fag at Westminster, for some years living with a private tutor in Kent, and with Professor Playfair in Edinburgh. At these various places he acquired a knowledge of a good deal of Latin, and of a little Greek, and some acquaintance with mathematical and physical sciences. Yet, so far as education goes, his furniture was unusually defective. He had no pretensions to be called a scholar. His knowledge was, in fact, the exact reverse of that which an ideal scholar is said to

possess. Instead of being so intent on the trees as to neglect the forest, he was so occupied with the forest that he knew too little about the trees. He read his Virgil and his Homer as he read his Dryden and his Young, and did not suffer his attention to be diverted from their thoughts and language to a study of the Greek digamma.

Yet, if he had not much pretensions to exact knowledge, his reading was wider than that of most of his contemporaries; and he had not merely a large acquaintance with authors of many nations, he had thought on what he read. His mind, too, had been enlarged by intercourse with superior men, and by the opportunities of foreign travel. Few men of his age, standing on the threshold of a career, had seen so much that was worth seeing. He had knowledge of every division of the United Kingdom. In London he had breakfasted with Mr. Fox, he was a frequent guest at Lord Holland's dinner-table, he was acquainted with all the prominent leaders of the Whig party, he had already become a member of Grillion's Club. In Dublin he had seen all that was best in society; in Edinburgh he had mixed with all that was best in letters. He had already made the acquaintance of Mr. Moore in one capital; he was on terms of intimacy with Mr. Jeffrey in the other. He had dined with Mr. Parr at Birmingham, with Bishop Watson on Windermere ; he had walked with Sir Walter Scott along the banks of the Tweed, and he had passed a night in the poet's home at Ashestiel. He had travelled through the highlands of Scotland, and had carefully examined the great manufacturing industries of England. Abroad, his opportunities had been even greater. He had read his Camoens in Portugal, his Tasso in Italy; he had traversed the Italian Peninsula from Naples to Venice; he had journeyed through the length of Spain; he had ridden with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras; he had watched a French advance in force in the neighbourhood of Burgos; he had gazed from a British position near La Rune over Southern France. He had conversed with Napoleon in Elba; and he had hurried home to denounce in his place in the House of Commons the inception of a new war.

Was there