, _ennui_, and restlessness, peculiar to his
character.

"I spent many days without leaving the house, my chief employment being
to stand at the window, and make signs, and hold brief dialogues with a
young lady opposite; the rest of the day I spent in sleeping, in
thinking of I know not what, and generally crying, I knew not why."

All through life he was subject to these periodical fits, which came on
every spring, and materially influenced his powers of composition.

He proceeded afterwards to France, expecting to be delighted with Paris;
but on arriving there he found it so unlike what he had anticipated,
that he burst into a violent fit of passion at having made so much
haste, undergone so much fatigue, and had his fancy excited to such a
pitch of frenzy, only to plunge into that filthy sewer, as he calls it!
His anger is quite ludicrous; but he, notwithstanding, remained there
five months, during which time he was presented to Louis XV. at
Versailles, but the cold reception he met with greatly annoyed him.

"Although I had been told that the king did not speak to ordinary
foreigners, and although I did not care much for his notice, yet I could
not swallow the Jove-like superciliousness of the monarch, who surveyed
from head to foot the people presented to him, without appearing to
receive the slightest impression. It was as if somebody said to a giant,
'I beg to present an ant to you;' and he were either to stare or to
smile, or to say, it may be, 'Oh, what a little creature!'"

He was as much delighted with England as he had been disgusted with
France. He falls into perfect raptures when speaking of our national
character and our national institutions, and regrets that it was not in
his power to remain here for ever. In June, 1768, he went to Holland,
and at the Hague fell violently in love with the wife of a rich
gentleman whom he knew. When the lady was obliged to go into
Switzerland, he was thrown into such a state of frenzy that he attempted
to commit suicide, by tearing off the bandages from the place where he
had had himself bled, under pretence of illness. His servant, however,
suspected his intentions, and prevented him from carrying his resolution
into effect. He gradually recovered his spirits, and determined to
return to Italy. On reaching Turin, he was seized by a desire to study.
The book in which he took most delight was Plutarch's Lives:

"Some of these, such as Timoleon, Caesar, Brutus, Pelop