t primitive kind. He went in whenever
he pleased, broke his head against sharp stones if he went in with that
end foremost, floundered about till he was all over bruises, and then
climbed and staggered out again. "Everybody wears a dress. Mine
extremely theatrical: Masaniello to the life: shall be preserved for
your inspection in Devonshire-terrace." I will add another personal
touch, also Masaniello-like, which marks the beginning of a change
which, though confined for the present to his foreign residence and
removed when he came to England, was resumed somewhat later, and in a
few more years wholly altered the aspect of his face. "The moustaches
are glorious, glorious. I have cut them shorter, and trimmed them a
little at the ends to improve the shape. They are charming, charming.
Without them, life would be a blank."

FOOTNOTES:

[78] He regretted one chance missed by his eccentric friend, which he
described to me just before he left Italy. "I saw last night an old
palazzo of the Doria, six miles from here, upon the sea, which De la Rue
urged Fletcher to take for us, when he was bent on that detestable villa
Bagnerello; which villa the Genoese have hired, time out of mind, for
one-fourth of what I paid, as they told him again and again before he
made the agreement. This is one of the strangest old palaces in Italy,
surrounded by beautiful _woods_ of great trees (an immense rarity here)
some miles in extent: and has upon the terrace a high tower, formerly a
prison for offenders against the family, and a defence against the
pirates. The present Doria lets it as it stands for L40 English--for the
year. . . . And the grounds are no expense; being proudly maintained by the
Doria, who spends this rent, when he gets it, in repairing the roof and
windows. It is a wonderful house; full of the most unaccountable
pictures and most incredible furniture: every room in it like the most
quaint and fanciful of Cattermole's pictures; and how many rooms I am
afraid to say." 2nd of June, 1845.

[79] "We have had a London sky until to-day," he wrote on the 20th of
July, "gray and cloudy as you please: but I am most disappointed, I
think, in the evenings, which are as commonplace as need be; for there
is no twilight, and as to the stars giving more light here than
elsewhere, that is humbug." The summer of 1844 seems to have been,
however, an unusually stormy and wet season. He wrote to me on the 21st
of October that they had had, so f