But the gayety visible at this period in his writings and his conduct
was not, however, uninterrupted. For such cheerfulness to be constant,
neither a continuation of the causes producing it, nor yet the absence
of English papers and reviews could quite suffice. It was necessary that
no letters should come, awakening painful remembrances that had
slumbered awhile, that there should be no necessity for selling his
property in England,--a matter always complicated, and difficult of
execution at a distance, and which forced upon him cares and occupations
most opposed to his character, while affording sad proof of the
negligence, ingratitude, and other faults of those intrusted with the
management of his affairs. It would have required that friends who had
neglected to prevent his departure, should not, when weary of seeing him
no more, have conspired to bring about his return, devising a good means
of so doing by obstacles thrown in the way of a successful issue to his
affairs, which happy conclusion was absolutely necessary for his peace
and independence. We see by his letters, written during the summer of
1818, that he was tormented in a thousand ways; sometimes not receiving
any accounts, sometimes being advised to come nearer London, then,
again, having no tidings of how several thousands had been disposed of.
Besides that, he had constantly before his eyes a spectacle most painful
for a generous heart to witness. That was Venice choked and expiring in
the grip of her foreign rulers. The humiliation thus inflicted on the
city of his dreams, and its noble race of inhabitants, and which was
every instant repeated and proclaimed by the brutal voice of drums and
cannons, with a thousand added vexations (necessary, perhaps, for
keeping up an abhorred sway), caused infinite suffering to his just and
liberal nature, raising emotions of anger and pitying regret, that
flowed from his pen in sublimely indignant language. Thereupon, the
despots, unable to impose silence upon him, revenged themselves in
various ways, echoing reports spread in London, and inventing new
fables, which the idle people of Venice, more idle than elsewhere, and
even the gondoliers repeated in their turn to strangers, to amuse and
gain a few pence. We pass over any details of the persecution inflicted
on him by English tourists, who, not actuated by sympathy, but out of
sheer curiosity and eagerness to pick up all the gossip and idle tales
in circulation,