comparatively favourable opinion, for he
admitted that he had feared insanity, and therefore had "feared
_them_." On the 29th October he sailed for Malta, and on the 20th
November Sir Walter insisted on being landed on a small volcanic
island which had appeared four months previously, and which
disappeared again in a few days, and on clambering about its crumbling
lava, in spite of sinking at nearly every step almost up to his knees,
in order that he might send a description of it to his old friend Mr.
Skene. On the 22nd November he reached Malta, where he looked eagerly
at the antiquities of the place, for he still hoped to write a
novel--and, indeed, actually wrote one at Naples, which was never
published, called _The Siege of Malta_--on the subject of the Knights
of Malta, who had interested him so much in his youth. From Malta
Scott went to Naples, which he reached on the 17th December, and where
he found much pleasure in the society of Sir William Gell, an invalid
like himself, but not one who, like himself, struggled against the
admission of his infirmities, and refused to be carried when his own
legs would not safely carry him. Sir William Gell's dog delighted the
old man; he would pat it and call it "Poor boy!" and confide to Sir
William how he had at home "two very fine favourite dogs, so large
that I am always afraid they look too large and too feudal for my
diminished income." In all his letters home he gave some injunction to
Mr. Laidlaw about the poor people and the dogs.

On the 22nd of March, 1832, Goethe died, an event which made a great
impression on Scott, who had intended to visit Weimar on his way back,
on purpose to see Goethe, and this much increased his eager desire to
return home. Accordingly on the 16th of April, the last day on which
he made any entry in his diary, he quitted Naples for Rome, where he
stayed long enough only to let his daughter see something of the
place, and hurried off homewards on the 21st of May. In Venice he was
still strong enough to insist on scrambling down into the dungeons
adjoining the Bridge of Sighs; and at Frankfort he entered a
bookseller's shop, when the man brought out a lithograph of
Abbotsford, and Scott remarking, "I know that already, sir," left the
shop unrecognized, more than ever craving for home. At Nimeguen, on
the 9th of June, while in a steamboat on the Rhine, he had his most
serious attack of apoplexy, but would not discontinue his journey, was
li