, and benedicite! Thou
wert in Naples by great Virgil's tomb, and borest dust from Posilippo's
grot, and hast been wetted by the dainty spray from bays and shoals of
old Etrurian name. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! And thou wert in
the old Egyptian realm: I had thee on that morning 'neath the palms when
long I lingered where of yore had stood the rose-red city, half as old as
time. Farewell, my coat, and benedicite! It was a lady called thee into
life. She said, Methinks ye need a velvet coat. It is a seemly guise to
ride to hounds. Another gave me whip and silvered spurs. Now all have
vanished in the darkening past. Ladies and all are gone into the gloom.
Farewell, my coat, and benedicite. Thou'st had a venturous and traveled
life, for thou wert once in Moscow in the snow. A true Bohemian thou
hast ever been, and as a right Bohemian thou wilt die, the garment of a
roving Romany. Fain would I see and hear what thou'rt to know of
reckless riding and the gypsy _tan_, of camps in dark green lanes, afar
from towns. Farewell, mine coat, and benedicite!

VII. OF CERTAIN GENTLEMEN AND GYPSIES.

One morning I was walking with Mr. Thomas Carlyle and Mr. Froude. We
went across Hyde Park, and paused to rest on the bridge. This is a
remarkable place, since there, in the very heart of London, one sees a
view which is perfectly rural. The old oaks rise above each other like
green waves, the houses in the distance are country-like, while over the
trees, and far away, a village-looking spire completes the picture. I
think that it was Mr. Froude who called my attention to the beauty of the
view, and I remarked that it needed only a gypsy tent and the curling
smoke to make it in all respects perfectly English.

"You have paid some attention to gypsies," said Mr. Carlyle. "They're
not altogether so bad a people as many think. In Scotland, we used to
see many of them. I'll not say that they were not rovers and reivers,
but they could be honest at times. The country folk feared them, but
those who made friends wi' them had no cause to complain of their
conduct. Once there was a man who was persuaded to lend a gypsy a large
sum of money. My father knew the man. It was to be repaid at a certain
time. The day came; the gypsy did not. And months passed, and still the
creditor had nothing of money but the memory of it; and ye remember
'_nessun maggior dolore_,'--that there's na greater grief than to
remem