[41] I remember that, when I set off in the coach between the two English officers, as we passed before the royal palace to reach Santa Lucia where the skiff awaited, a police inspector exclaimed—“By God! the man in the middle looks to me like Rossetti!” But the coach passed rapidly on, and a few moments afterwards I found myself in the skiff, and then in the ship.
[42] The flagship, a first-class man-of-war. [Rossetti Italianizes the name into Roccaforte, and then proceeds to some jeux de mots on Rocca (which in Italian means fortress). I have had to take the second syllable, fort, for a like purpose.—W.]
[43] The allusion is to the justly-admired lyric by Rossetti, commencing “Nella notte più serena.” See p. 182.—W.
[44] No doubt this is true; the practice of dictation having been frequently adopted by my father after the sight of one eye had been lost totally, and of the other partially. However, the copy of the poem from which I am translating is all in his own handwriting; and very good handwriting it is, though done with some perceptible effort.—W.
[45] The chief poem thus improvised was San Paolo in Malta. See p. 186.—W.
[46] What I indicate regarding the Right Honourable J. Hookham Frere is far less than the truth. The life of that admirable and exemplary man ought to be written. [This was done in publications of the years 1871 and 1899.—W.] All Malta was full of his munificences, and still resounds his praise; and, when in the sequel I quitted that island for England, I found wide-spread confirmation of his repute as a most erudite man, and a genuine Christian. After being English Ambassador in Spain, he settled in Malta, with his sister Susan, to watch over the health of his invalid wife in a mild climate: there he had the grief of losing them both. Oh what excellent women those were! Early in 1846 he himself, struck by apoplexy, closed his beneficent life.
[47] A reference to the progress of constitutional liberty in the Sardinian kingdom.—W.
[48] The name of Minasi was known to me from boyhood; but I am unable to say much about him, or to account in detail for the singular burst of rage and obloquy (here abridged) which my father bestows upon him. He held in London some official appointment (perhaps consular) from the Neapolitan Government, and refugees were prone to speaking of him as a spy—as to which, see p. 98.—W.
[49] Two members of the Ruffo family were conspicuous as Bourbon devotees from 1799 onwards. The Cardinal was the more important and celebrated; but I think the Principe di Castelcicala is here meant. He was an Ambassador, and as such he lived in London for some years during my father’s sojourn.—W.
[50] General Rossaroll headed, in 1821, a short-lived insurrection in Messina.—W.