e, saying:--"Here is a cantator;" a
conventional word recalling some buffooneries in a play, and which
signified:--"Here is a fine sentence!"

Certainly, the autumnal season, sad and rainy as it is, must have had
great influence over him. Could it be otherwise with an organization
like his? From this point of view, his melancholy, like his temperament,
might be considered as hereditary. But would it have been developed
without the aid of other causes?

Let us observe the date of the letter, wherein he blames the season, and
the dates of those received from London, or those he addressed thither.
The coincidence between them will show clearly that when he called
himself melancholy, and accused the season, it occurred precisely on the
day when he was most wearied and overwhelmed by a host of other
disagreeable things. For instance, Murray, whose answers on several
points he had been impatiently expecting, was seized with a new fit of
silence. "There you are at your tricks."[186]

And then, when the silence was broken, the letters almost always brought
him disagreeable accounts. Wishing to disgust him with Italy, they sent
him volumes full of unjust, stupid attacks on Italy and the Italians
whom he liked.

"These fools," exclaimed he, "will force me to write a book myself on
Italy, to tell them broadly _they have lied_."

Nothing was more disagreeable, and even hurtful to him, at this time,
than the report of his return to England; and they wrote him word that
his presence in London was asserted on all sides, that many persons
declared that they had seen him, and that Lady C. L---- had been to call
at his house fully persuaded that he was there.[187]

"Pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to England. They may say
what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. Contradict it."

In consequence of this invention, even his newspapers were no longer
sent to him; and when he spoke of the harm and annoyance thus
occasioned, annoyance increased by Murray's silence, his displeasure
certainly amounted to anger. At this time also he was informed by letter
that some English tourists, on returning home, had boasted that they
_could_ have been presented to him at Venice, but _would not_.

The trial of the unfortunate queen was just coming on at this time, and
the whole proceeding, accompanied as it was with so many cruel, indecent
circumstances, revolted him in the highest degree.

"No one here," said he, "believes a wo