er in 1830, he declined to continue these annuities.
Representations were made to the Government, and the then Prime
Minister, Earl Grey, offered Coleridge a private grant of L200 from the
Treasury, which he declined.

The pension from the Society or the Privy Purse of George iv., which Mr.
Hookham Frere told Sir Walter he had made up to Coleridge, was one
hundred guineas.

[500] Afterwards Lord Berwick.

[501] The travellers established themselves in the Palazzo Caramanico as
soon as they were released from quarantine.

[502] A brother of Malcolm Laing, the historian.

[503] An account is given by Sir William Gell of an excursion by sea to
the ruins of such a Roman villa on the promontory of Posilipo, to which
he had taken Sir Walter in a boat on the 26th of January.--_Life_, vol.
x. pp. 157-8.

[504] For a picturesque sketch of Naples during the insurrection of 1647
see Sir Walter's article on Masaniello and the Duke of Guise.--_Foreign
Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. pp. 355-403.

[505] See Appendix iv.: "A former Empress." Sir Walter no doubt means
the mother of Conradin of Suabia, or, as the Italians call him,
Corradino,--erroneously called "Empress," though her husband had
pretensions to the Imperial dignity, disputed and abortive. For the
whole affecting story see _Histoire de la Conquete de Naples_, St.
Priest, vol. iii. pp. 130-185, especially pp. 162-3.

[506] A variation of the lines on Alphonso's capture of the city in
1442:--

"And then he looked on Naples, that great city of the sea, 'O city,'
saith the King, 'how great hath been thy cost, For thee I twenty
years--my fairest years--have lost.'"

--Lockhart's _Spanish Ballads_, "The King of Arragon."

1832.

JANUARY.

_January 5_.--Went by invitation to wait upon a priest, who almost
rivals my fighting bishop of Malta. He is the old Bishop of
Tarentum,[507] and, notwithstanding his age, eighty and upwards, is
still a most interesting man. A face formed to express an interest in
whatever passes; caressing manners, and a total absence of that rigid
stiffness which hardens the heart of the old and converts them into a
sort of petrifaction. Apparently his foible was a fondness for cats; one
of them, a superb brindled Persian cat, is a great beauty, and seems a
particular favourite. I think we would have got on well together if he
could have spoken English, or I French or Latin; but _helas!_ I once saw
at Lord Yarmouth's house a Persi