Memoir of Francis Hodgson
Henry Drury to Francis Hodgson, [1820]
My dear Hodgson,—Adieu pro tempore. With a Roman friend I am off for Rome
on the 24th of this month (August) for two months. As I travel in an English
landaulet over the Alps; where, when
Italiam læti socii clamore salutant, |
![]()
![]()
| 112 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. | |
![]()
the echo shall reverberate to the Peak in a letter from
your Drury. Seriously, all my arrangements are made, my
money and carriage arrangements particularly; and, as I was always of a roaming
disposition, I intend to stretch so far across the Pomptina Palus as to visit
the præceps Anio at Tivoli. Old John
Heath supplies letters of credit to all the principal cities,
and my companion is Williams’s brother, of the
Ionian corps, who has resided abroad sixteen years, and who was my former
companion to Paris and the Low Countries. I can speak French fluently, and
Italian is all but his native tongue. If you write to me at Genoa, poste restante (you must pay your postage, and the foreign post days in London are
Fridays and Tuesdays), on or about the 3rd August, I shall be sure to receive
your letter on my return, as also another, ten days afterwards, directed to me,
poste restante, at Lyons. This will be kind-hearted
and charitable, my Narva, and on my
honour you shall hear from me while others are taking their siesta. Our
delightful tour is thus arranged. We have a very nice warranted landaulet, with
a seat behind that the view may not be incommoded. We post all the way to Rome
and back; and, as seven weeks are allowed us, shall be impudent enough to ![]()
| FOREIGN TRAVEL IN 1820. | 113 |
![]()
take eight (!) We dine with
Merivale at six next Monday, and get
to Dover, travelling all night; from Calais to Dijon, through Cambray and
Rheims, we shall go day and night without stopping, and cutting the often-seen
Paris. From Dijon over the Jura to Geneva. We then take slowly the north of the
Lake, for its views, Lausanne, Vevay, etc., till the roads join and conduct us
through the Vallais over the Simplon. Envy me in the Simplon.
Drury on an alp! Thence to the ‘Te Lari maxime,’ the Lago Maggiore, on which
we are to sail to the Isole Borrome’e, sending our carriage round to
Arona, as one does from Whittlesea Mere to Yaxley Barracks. Milan, two days
allowed. Cross the Po over the bridge of boats at Piacenza; Bologna, and so
forth to Florence; thence the high road by Arezzo, Terni, &c., over the
Apennines to Rome. We shall return by Siena to Leghorn. From thence I must
either accompany my carriage through the Mediterranean in a felucca to Genoa,
or be carried in a sedan chair the same distance. I am
not quite clear that I shall not prefer the latter. From Genoa I shall go
through the unhealthy rice grounds of Alexandria to Turin, thence by Mont Cenis
to Lyons, Paris, &c.
Do you pray for those who travel by land or by ![]()
| 114 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. | |
![]()
water; and if the malaria, and its dreadful consequences
in the Campagna, with which I am threatened, and against which the vox universa guards me, should carry me off, Debita spargas lacryma favillam Pinguis amici. |
![]()
Adieu, but write for Heaven’s sake to Genoa and
Lyons, and eke to Paris a week after. I sincerely hope your new Poems sell
well, for though I love Bertram Risinghame
better than Cain, and Wilfrid better than Abel, yet that does not make me the less inclined to the
sobriety and elegance of the Muse of my oldest friend.
H. D.
John Heath (1749-1830)
Merchant of Geneva; his son John Benjamin attended Harrow with Byron and married Sophia,
sister of the poet Robert Bland.
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
John Herman Merivale (1779-1844)
English poet and translator, friend of Francis Hodgson, author of
Orlando in Ronscevalles: a Poem (1814). He married Louisa Drury, daughter of the
headmaster at Harrow, and wrote for the
Monthly Review while
pursuing a career in the law.
