He completes the purchase of Tinley Lodge farm on July 30th. On October 7th he signs his will; and on the 13th of the same month, accompanied by his wife and several of their relatives, sets out on his second journey to France and Italy. On the road, he and Mrs Montefiore resume their Hebrew studies. They visit Paris, Lyons, Turin, Milan, and Carrara; the latter place being of special interest to them on account of their meeting with persons who had been connected in business transactions with Mr Montefiore's father.
1818 (5578 a.m.).—They arrive on the 1st of January at Leghorn, and meet several members of their family. They visit the house where Mr Montefiore was born, and are welcomed there by Mr Isaac Piccioto, who occupied the house at that time; they proceed thence to the burial ground to see the tomb of their uncle Racah, and on the following day leave for Pisa.
There they visit the house and garden of the said uncle Racah, Mr Montefiore observing, that it is a good garden, but a small house; thence they continue their journey to Sienna.
"I had a dispute," he says, "with the postmaster at a place called Bobzena, and was compelled to go to the Governor, who sent with me two gendarmes to settle the affair." "The road to Viterbo," he observes, "I found very dangerous; the country terribly dreary, wild and mountainous, with terrific caverns and great forests."
"On the 15th of January," he continues, "we became greatly alarmed by the vicinity of robbers on the road, and I had to walk upwards of seven miles behind the carriage until we arrived at Rome, whither we had been escorted by two gendarmes."
"In Rome," he says, "we saw this time in the Church of St John, the gate of bronze said to be that of the temple of Jerusalem; we also revisited the workshop of Canova, his studio, and saw all that a traveller could possibly see when under the guidance of a clever cicerone.
"We left Rome on the 11th of February, and passed a man lying dead on the road; he had been murdered in the night. This incident damped our spirits and rendered the journey, which would otherwise have been delightful, rather triste."
On the 3rd of April they arrive at Frankfort-on-the-Main; in May they are again in London, and on the 13st inst., Mr Montefiore, dismissing from his mind (for the time) all impressions of gay France and smiling Italy, is to be found in the house of mourning, expressing his sympathy with the bereaved, and rendering comfort by the material help which he offers in the hour of need.
It is in the house of a devoted minister of his congregation, the Rev. Hazan Shalom, that we find him now performing the duties of a Lavadore, preparing the dead for its last resting-place.
The pleasures of his last journey, and the change of scene and climate appear to have greatly invigorated him, for we find him on another mournful occasion, exhibiting a degree of physical strength such as is seldom met with.