‘O Thou! to whom the wearisome disease
Of Past and Present is an alien thing,
Thou pure Existence! whose severe decrees
Forbid a living man his soul to bring
Into a timeless Eden of sweet ease,
Clear-eyed, clear-hearted—lay thy loving wing
In death upon me—if that way alone
Thy great creation-thought thou wilt to me make known[[85]].’
An interesting picture of Milnes at about this period has been drawn by Mr Aubrey de Vere, whom he visited in Ireland during one of his brief absences from Italy.
‘He remained with us a good many days, though when he left us they seemed too few. We showed him whatever of interest our neighbourhood boasts, and he more than repaid us by the charm of his conversation, his lively descriptions of foreign ways, his good-humour, his manifold accomplishments, and the extraordinary range of his information, both as regards books and men. He could hardly have then been more than two-and-twenty, and yet he was already well acquainted with the languages and literatures of many different countries, and not a few of their most distinguished men, living or recently dead. I well remember the vivid picture which he drew of Niebuhr’s profound grief at the downfall of the restored monarchy in France, at the renewal of its Revolution in 1830. He was delivering a series of historical lectures at the time, and Milnes was one of the young men attending the course. One day they had long to wait for their Professor; at last the aged historian entered the lecture-hall, his form drooping, and his whole aspect grief-stricken. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I have no apology for detaining you; a calamity has befallen Europe which must undo all the restorative work recently done, and throw back her social and political progress—perhaps for centuries. The Revolution has broken out again’ (vol. i. p. 115).