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The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 23: 1853-54
John Gibson Lockhart to Charlotte Lockhart Hope, 16 January 1854
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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Vol. I. Preface
Vol. I Contents.
Chapter 1: 1794-1808
Chapter 2: 1808-13
Chapter 3: 1813-15
Chapter 4: 1815-17
Chapter 5: 1817-18
Chapter 6: 1817-19
Chapter 7: 1818-20
Chapter 8: 1819-20
Chapter 9: 1820-21
Chapter 10: 1821-24
Chapter 11: 1817-24
Chapter 12: 1821-25
Chapter 13: 1826
Vol. II Contents
Chapter 14: 1826-32
Chapter 15: 1828-32
Chapter 16: 1832-36
Chapter 17: 1837-39
Chapter 18: 1837-43
Chapter 19: 1828-48
Chapter 20: 1826-52
Chapter 21: 1842-50
Chapter 22: 1850-53
Chapter 23: 1853-54
Chapter 24: Conclusion
Vol. II Index
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“Rome, January 16, 1854.

“Dear Charlotte,—I was well pleased with all the news of your last, and quite approve especially the kitchen plan, for my recollection of many summer evenings poisoned by smells is lively enough. I have had rather a bad week, and am not yet able to leave my own room; but I daresay, in a day or two, I shall be as well as I have ever managed to feel of late. For a new variety I have been, indeed am, suffering under earache—whence a constant misery, steaming, &c., &c. Never experienced this before. About my last outing was to hear Manning preach an Epiphany sermon in the S. Andrea della Valle, and, as I had not heard him before, I was, of course, greatly struck and pleased with his voice and action—the latter I think the most graceful I ever saw in a pulpit performer. He called since, and made himself very agreeable, and is to show me his college, &c., one afternoon.

“The Admiral is very happy, as the Dorias, Borgheses, and some other princely ones, have been inviting him to dine. Borghese, he reports, feels confident that the Czar will be in London within three years. Well, if so, I calculate Murchison will not cut his old friend, but, on the contrary, patronise us all, to comfort us what he can under our woe about the downfall of the Royal
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Albert—I mean his Siberian doom.1 Certainly I have now had enough, not of Rome, but of that Piazza di Spagna Rome, to which fate at present binds me, and which I should suppose might be very well matched by any three or four crescents of Leamington or Torquay—that is, were such a place so lucky as to have booked half-a-dozen real grandees for the nonce. Philpotts would do well for a Pont. Max., and there would be no difficulty to fill the place of Monsignor Talbot. I was vexed at not seeing the noble Domenichinos of that church when Manning held forth, but most were covered by the delightful red and yellow petticoats, in which it is proper that naves and aisles should be wrapped during high festivals, and the grandest of all, the altarpiece, by a colossal præsepe or group of gigantic wooden dolls, to represent the whole company at Bethlehem—not forgetting, in course, the angels in the vault, or the three black kings and their camels’ heads. Manning calmly said the præsepe was ‘for the people,’ and he hoped I would see the picture by-and-by. To be sure—all quite right.

“Yesterday, a letter from Holt at Paris; mentions some serious money losses, and that he had been over to Versailles, to see a grave which some one unknown had surrounded with violets. If Hope gets to town, I do trust he will show all kindness to that little man, and consult with him

1 The Crimean trouble is referred to.

378 LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART.  
somewhat as to my own matters; for, arrive when I may, I shall find overwhelming botheration, and the necessity, nevertheless, of coming to some speedy arrangement as to future locality, and so on. I suppose the end will be a tiny cot within two or three miles of town, or a sequestered flat near the Clubs, if such a thing be comeatable. It signifies little which; but if I could find that my Duchy need not at all fetter me, as possibly is the fact, then I might take a wider circle of my compasses, and aspire to a garden and a quarter-deck walk of decent amplitude in Herts or Surrey. Other things occur in dreams and visions of the night occasionally—we shall see. I beg my best compliments to Miss Hope Scott, and all other young ladies of Tweedside. You will smile, but I continue to read a good deal, though the most, I own, in bed. Dr. Pantaleone has a good library, and is most liberal with its stores, and I have got through a great many sound books connected with this town and its history.

“I have also taken up Hebrew with an eye to Arabic, that is, in case I should spend a season in the East, after all, before settling down at Hampstead or Watford. I find I can easily recover the Hebrew I had lost—not very much I own—but better than nothing, and I have gone so far at least as to get an Arabic grammar from the most authentic quarter here, through a Mr. Howard, late
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of the Blues, who is now rigged as reverendly as Manning, and probably lodges in the same cloister.—Ever yours affectionately,

“J. G. Lockhart.”