The first note is on a passage in which D'Israeli, in allusion to Lord Byron, traces his fondness for oriental scenery to his having read Rycaut at an early age. On this Lord Byron observes, that he read every book relating to the east before he was ten years old, including De Tott and Cantemir as well as Rycaut: at that age, he says that he detested all poetry, and adds, "when I was in Turkey, I was oftener tempted to turn mussulman than poet: and have often regretted since that I did not."
At page 99 D'Israeli says,
"The great poetical genius of our times has openly alienated himself from the land of his brothers" (over the word brothers Lord Byron has written Cains.) "He becomes immortal in the language of a people whom he would contemn, he accepts with ingratitude the fame he loves more than life, and he is only truly great on that spot of earth, whose genius, when he is no more, will contemplate his shade in sorrow and in anger."
Lord Byron has underlined several words in this passage, and writes thus in the margin:
"What was rumoured of me in that language, if true, I was unfit for England; and if false, England was unfit for me. But 'there is a world elsewhere.' I have never for an instant regretted that country,—but often that I ever returned to it. It is not my fault that I am obliged to write in English. If I understood any present language, Italian, for instance, equally well, I would write in it:—but it will require ten years, at least, to form a style. No tongue so easy to acquire a little of, and so difficult to master thoroughly, as Italian."
The next note is amusing; at page 342 is mentioned the anecdote of Petrarch, who when returning to his native town, was informed that the proprietor of the house in which he was born had often wished to make alterations in it, but that the town's-people had risen to insist that the house consecrated by his birth should remain unchanged;—"a triumph," adds D'Israeli, "more affecting to Petrarch than even his coronation at Rome."
Lord Byron has written in the margin—"It would have pained me more that the proprietor should often have wished to make alterations, than it would give me pleasure that the rest of Arezzo rose against his right (for right he had:) the depreciation of the lowest of mankind is more painful, than the applause of the highest is pleasing. The sting of the scorpion is more in torture than the possession of any thing short of Venus would be in rapture."
The public gardens are the work of the French, and occupy the extremity of one of the islands. They contain the only trees I have seen at Venice:—a few rows of dwarfish unhappy-looking shrubs, parched by the sea breezes, and are little frequented. We found here a solitary gentleman, who was sauntering up and down with his hands in his pockets, and a look at once stupid and disconsolate. Sometimes he paused, looked vacantly over the waters, whistled, yawned, and turned away to resume his solemn walk. On a trifling remark addressed to him by one of our party, he entered into conversation, with all the eagerness of a man, whose tongue had long been kept in most unnatural bondage. He congratulated himself on having met with some one who would speak English; adding contemptuously, that "he understood none of the outlandish tongues the people spoke hereabouts:" he inquired what was to be seen here, for though he had been four days in Venice, he had spent every day precisely in the same manner; viz. walking up and down the public gardens. We told him Venice was famous for fine buildings and pictures; he knew nothing of them things. And that it contained also, "some fine statues and antiques"—he cared nothing about them neither—he should set off for Florence the next morning, and begged to know what was to be seen there? Mr. R—— told him, with enthusiasm, "the most splendid gallery of pictures and statues in the world!" He looked very blank and disappointed. "Nothing else?" then he should certainly not waste his time at Florence, he should go direct to Rome; he had put down the name of that town in his pocket-book, for he understood it was a very convenient place: he should therefore stay there a week; thence he should go to Naples, a place he had also heard of, where he should stay another week: then he should go to Algiers, where he should stay three weeks, and thence to Tunis, where he expected to be very comfortable, and should probably make a long stay; thence he should return home, having seen every thing worth seeing. He scarcely seemed to know how or by what route he had got to Venice—but he assured us he had come "fast enough;"—he remembered no place he had passed through except Paris. At Paris he told us there was a female lodging in the same hotel with himself, who by his description appears to have been a single lady of rank and fashion, travelling with her own carriages and a suite of servants. He had never seen her; but learning through the domestics that she was travelling the same route, he sat down and wrote her a long letter, beginning "Dear Madam," and proposing they should join company, "for the sake of good fellowship, and the bit of chat they might have on their way." Of course she took no notice of this strange billet, "from which," added he with ludicrous simplicity, "I supposed she would rather travel alone."
Truly, "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time." After this specimen, sketched from life, who will say there are such things as caricatures?