Not ill he chose these flowers
With mild, reproving eyes,
Emblems of tender chiding,
And love divinely wise.
For his were generous learning
And reconciling art;
Oh, not with fleeting presence
My friend and I could part.
Oh, not where he is lying
With dear ancestral dust,
Not where his household traces
Grow sad and dim with rust;
But in the ancient city
And from the quaint old door,
I'm watching, at my window,
His coming evermore.
For Death's eternal city
Has yet some happy street;
'Tis in the Via Felice
My friend and I shall meet.
Adolph Mailliard, the husband of my youngest sister, had been an intimate friend of Joseph Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano. My sister was in consequence invited more than once to the Bonaparte palace. The father of the family was Prince Charles Bonaparte, who married his cousin, Princess Zénaïde. She had passed some years at the Bonaparte villa in Bordentown, N. J., the American residence of her father, Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain. This princess, who was tant soit peu gourmande said one day to my sister, "What good things they have for breakfast in America! I still remember those hot cakes." The conversation was reported to me, and I managed, with the assistance of the helper brought from home, to send the princess a very excellent bannock of Indian meal, of which she afterwards said, "It was so good that we ate what was left of it on the second day." This reminds me of a familiar couplet:—
"And what they could not eat that night
The queen next morning fried."
Among the friends of that winter were Sarah and William Clarke, sister and brother of the Rev. James Freeman Clarke. It was in their company that Margaret Fuller made the journey recorded in her "Summer on the Lakes." Both were devoted to her memory. I afterwards learned that William Clarke considered her the good genius of his life, her counsel and encouragementhaving come to his aid in a season of melancholy depression and self-depreciation. Miss Clarke was characterized by an exquisite refinement of feeling and of manner. She was also an artist of considerable merit. This was the first of many winters passed by her in Rome.