Part 6

Went to Ehrenbreitstein. Everything broken by gunpowder; immense masses of solid stone and mortar thrown fifty yards from their original situation; ruined walls, gateways, and halls—nothing perfect. Splendid views thence—Coblentz, Rhine, Moselle with its bridge, mountains, cultivation, vines, wilderness, everything below my feet. Mounted again. Passed the Rhine in a boat (rowed), looking very like the Otaheitan canoes. Into the carriage—set off. Scenes increasing in sublimity. The road raised from the side of the river without parapet: two precipices coming to the road headlong. Indeed the river reaches foot to foot—splendid, splendid, splendid. Saw the fort belonging once to Muhrfrey, where he raised customs, and resisted in consequence sixty cities. Arrived at St. Goar. At the first post saw the people in church; went to hear them sing—fine.

_May 13._—Left St. Goar. Found scenery sublime to Bingen. Men with cocked hats and great buckles hacking at the vines. The scenery after Bingen gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity. Immense plain to the mounts, with the Rhine _in medio_, covered with trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to Mayence made by Nap[oleon]; his name has been erased from the inscription on the column commemorative of the work. Insolence of power!

Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above it of red sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prussians, all in the town—belonging to all. The best town we have seen since Ghent.

[Mayence was at this date, locally, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse: but as a fortress it appertained to the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps Bavarians)].

One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday a beautiful appearance—two rainbows, one on the top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced the rainbow-hues.

Arrived at Mayence at 6-1/2. Saw along the Rhine many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord] B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago: written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See _Childe Harold_, from "The Castled Crag of Drachenfels" to "Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine."[5]

_May 14._—From Mayence, where I saw the spot where they said lately stood the house where printing was invented; it had been pulled down by the French. The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the last siege the town underwent. The reliefs—some of which were in a good style—many decapitated. There was a German marshal who was represented as gravely putting forth his powdered head from under a tombstone he has just lifted up—with an inscription saying "I am here."

From Mayence we went to Mannheim through a fine country. Crossed the Rhine on a bridge of boats. Taken very ill with a fever at Mannheim—could not write my Journal.

_May 15._—Being a little recovered, set off. Fine alleys of Lombardy-poplars and horse-chestnuts—neat villages. Entered Carlsruhe through a grove of Scotch firs and other trees that had a fine effect. Saw the Palace.

Entered the inn, and was very ill. Took ipecac and op. gr. 15. Headache, vertigo, tendency to fainting, etc. Magnesia and lemon acid—a little better, no effect.

Went a drive about the town. Saw the neatest town we have yet met with: the only objection is the houses stuccoed white—bad for the eyes. Saw the outside of the Palace, and went into the garden laid out in the English manner.

Went home: dreadful headaches: ate some stewed apples; took some more magn[esia] and acid; had no effect; lay down; got up after two hours. Was just going out when L[ord] B[yron] came to take from my hand a plated candlestick, to give me a brass one. Got on a few steps; fainted. My fall brought the servants to me. Took 4 pills; going out again, when L[ord] B[yron] made the servant put down the plated candlestick, to take up a brass one; went to bed.

[This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd incident, not easily accounted for. One cannot suppose that Byron simply aimed at humiliating or mortifying his physician. There must have been a candle in each candlestick; and it is conceivable that the candle in the brass one was the longer, and therefore the more suitable for an invalid who might have needed it throughout the night.]

Medicine had violent effect: better on the whole, though weak.

Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at my chamber-door, who told me he had heard so bad an account of my positively dying that he came to enquire how I found myself. I asked him in. He took care to tell us he was a great friend of the Grand Duke, who had sent his groom of the stole (he called it stool) in search of lodgings for the worthy Mayor;[6] gave us a long sermon about rheumatism, routes, etc.; left us. In the evening he sent in the _Guide du Voyageur en les pays de l'Europe_, begging in return some of L[ord] B[yron's] poems.

Went out. Saw a church. Columns like firs—Corinthian, golden capitals: loaded everywhere with gilt, perhaps tawdry, but fine-tawdry. The environs are beautiful. Drove a great deal about: fine trees and fine cultivation.

_May 18._—From Carlsruhe to Offenberg; much better. Slept halfway: blinds down the other, so nothing to mention except fine trees, fine cocked hats, fine women, and yellow-coated postillions.

_May 19._—Set off from Offenberg; saw some scenes that pleased me much; hills and clouds upon them; woods with mists. Passed through Freiburg, where we saw the steeple pervious to the top with trellis-work showing the light, which had to my eyes a beautiful appearance.

I think Charles, when he said, "The German for his horse," remembered the G[erman] postillions; for they talk to theirs, and the horses on their part listen and seem to understand. The greater part of to-day I have found the ladies in a strange costume of short wide red petticoats with many folds, and a hat of straw as wide as a wheel. Arrived at Krolzingen to sleep. Left Krolzingen: got to a hill. Fine view thence: the Alps, the Rhine, the Jura mountains, and a fine plain before us—fine country. Crossed the Rhine, and were in Switzerland. The town upon unequal ground—some parts very high, and some low; the greater part very narrow streets. After tea went to take a walk: went upon the Rhine bridge—upon a hill in the town [Bâle presumably].

_May 21._—Went to see a panorama of Thun, the first Swiss one: crowded foolishly with people, and too small. Saw a gallery that the artist had formed. A fine Raphael, not his; a good Rembrandt, the first I saw historical; a _Circumcision_; a head of the caricaturist David; two heads of Divinity; a _Christ and Virgin_—mere pieces of flesh and drapery. Went to a marchand d'estampes. Saw there _Nelson's Death_, Chatham's ditto, and other pictures of England. _The Dance of Death_ has been destroyed: but it was not Holbein's, but his restorer's. The collection is dispersed, that once was here, of his paintings.

Agreed with a voiturier to take our carriages to Geneva in five days. Set off. Country increases from hills to mountains with great beauty. Passed through Lipstadt and came to ——. Went before supper to climb a hill where we found a goatherd who could not understand the French that asked for milk till it had the commentary, "We will pay for it." The scene was very fine: to the right, beautiful; to the left, it had a tendency to sublimity; on one side, hills covered to the top with trees; on the other, mountains with bald pates. Came down. Found the servants playing at bowls. They were obliged to run the bowls along a narrow board to the men. Supper: read _Arabian Nights_; went to bed.

_May 22._—Left —— at 9; passed the Jura mountains, where we saw some fine castellated scenery, and women ornamented strangely—amazingly short petticoats, not below the knee, with black crape rays round their heads that make them look very spidery. Soleure is a neat town with stone fortifications, and a clean church with fountains before it. The houses in this neighbourhood have a pleasing strange appearance on account of the roofs, which slant out on every side a great way. Immense number of Scotch firs—roads fine. Voituriers slow, and have eight francs of drink-money a day, being two; which being too much according to the _Guide du Voyageur en Europe_, where it is said 1-1/2 fr., we showed it to our courier, who was in a passion. Came to ——, where we slept.

_May 23._—Left ——: got a sight of some fine Alpine snow-capped mountains. Came to Berne; delightfully situated; beautiful streets with arcades all their length. Dined there. Saw a splendidly beautiful view coming down a hill, with hills covered with fir, ash, beech, and all the catalogue of trees; Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts behind, with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived at Morat; neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crown inn. All the way had debates whether clouds were mountains, or mountains clouds.

_May 24._—The innkeeper at Morat, being a little tipsy, and thinking every Englishman (being a philosophe) must be a philosophe like himself, favoured us with some of his infidel notions while serving us at supper. Near Morat was fought the battle wherein the Burgundians were so completely thrashed. Their bones, of which we took pieces, are now very few; once they formed a mighty heap in the chapel, but both were destroyed by the Burgundian division when in Switzerland, and a tree of liberty was planted over it, which yet flourishes in all its verdure—the liberty has flown from the planters' grasp. Saw Aventicum; there remains sufficient of the walls to trace the boundaries of the ancient town; but of all the buildings, both for Gods and men, nothing but a column remains, and that the only remnant for more than a hundred years. There are mosaic pavements, and even the streets may be perceived in a dry summer by the grass being thinner. The mosaic in a barn, probably once of a temple, was pretty perfect till the Gallic cavalry came and turned it into a stable. It is formed of little pieces of black, white, and red bricks; little now remains. There was also a copper vessel in the middle; that too has disappeared. The town is shamefully negligent of the antiquities of their fathers, for there is another more beautiful and perfect mosaic pavement discovered, but which they have allowed the proprietor to cover again with mould rather than buy it. We found in a barn heads, plinths, capitals, and shafts, heaped promiscuously. The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rudeness of first art—a capital of a strange mixed order. There is the Amphitheatre, hollow yet pretty perfect, but no stonework visible; overgrown with trees; the size, my companion told me, was larger than common. In the town there were some beautiful fragments of ornament-sculpture incorporated in the walls; all marble. In the walls of the church we sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison mentions to Julia Alpinula.

[Both to Morat and to Aventicum (Avenches) Byron devotes some stanzas in _Childe Harold_, 63 to 67, and notes to correspond. Morat he terms "the proud, the patriot field." He speaks of the hoard of bones, and says: "I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero," for "careful preservation." His reference to Aventicum and the inscription to Julia Alpinula reads rather curiously in the light of Polidori's avowal that "we sought in vain for the inscription." Byron's readers must always, I apprehend, have inferred the contrary.

"By a lone wall a lonelier column rears A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days. 'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, And looks as with the wild bewildered gaze Of one to stone converted by amaze, Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands, Making a marvel that it not decays, When the coeval pride of human hands, Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.

"And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!— Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave Her youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claim Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would crave The life she lived in; but the judge was just,— And then she died on him she could not save. Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."

Byron's note runs thus: "Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago. It is thus: 'Julia Alpinula hic jaceo. Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of greater interest. These are the names and actions," etc.]

I copied the one below on account of its medical tendency. The letters in this as well as in all the other inscriptions are formed like our Roman print, not in the least imperfect: "Nvminib. Avg. et Genio Col. I. El. Apollini Sagr. 9. Postum Hermes lib. Medicis et Professorib, D.S.D."

From Aventicum or Avenches we went to Payerne. We have seen in many places boys leading goats just in the antique style. Thence we went to Moudon—dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to the view descending to Morat.

Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein —— defended himself against the French who besieged it for a month: looks so weak, it seems a wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so interesting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical-roofed and no battlements. We saw the lake, but for a long time doubted whether it was a cloud below, a mist before, or water beneath us. Entered Lausanne.

_May 25._—Left Lausanne, after having looked at a bookseller's, who showed me a fine collection of bad books for four louis. Enquired for Dewar: name not known. We went along the lake, that a little disappointed me, as it does not seem so broad as it really is, and the mountains near it, though covered with snow, have not a great appearance on account of the height [of the] lake itself. We saw Mont Blanc in the distance; ethereal in appearance, mingling with the clouds; it is more than 60 miles from where we saw it. It is a classic ground we go over. Buonaparte, Joseph, Bonnet, Necker, Staël, Voltaire, Rousseau, all have their villas (except Rousseau). Genthoud, Ferney, Coppet, are close to the road.

[Perhaps some readers may need to be reminded who Bonnet was. He was a great physicist, both practical and speculative, Charles Bonnet, author of a _Traité d'Insectologie_, a _Traité de l'usage des Feuilles_, _Contemplations de la Nature_, _Palingénésie Philosophique_, and other works. Born in Geneva in 1720, he died in 1793.]

We arrived at Sécheron—where Lord Byron, having put his age down as 100, received a letter half-an-hour after from Inn Keeper?—a thing that seems worthy of a novel. It begins again to be the land of the vine. Women, who till the Pays de Vaud were ugly, improving greatly.

_May 26._—After breakfast, and having made up the accounts to to-day, and having heard that the voituriers made a claim of drink-money all the way back, we ordered a calèche; but, happening to go into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering, we pushed out upon the Leman Lake. After rowing some time, happening to come to the ferry, we found the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it was _pris pour un monsieur Anglais_, who happened to be ——.[7] We got another, and went out to bathe. I _rode_ first with L[ord] B[yron] upon the field of Waterloo; _walked_ first to see Churchill's tomb; _bathed and rowed_ first on the Leman Lake.—It did us much good. Dined; entered the calèche; drove through Geneva, where I saw an effect of building that pleased me: it was porticoes from the very roof of the high houses to the bottom.

Went to the house beyond Cologny that belonged to Diodati. They ask five-and-twenty louis for it a month. Narrow, not true. The view from his house is very fine; beautiful lake; at the bottom of the crescent is Geneva. Returned. Pictet called, but L[ord] B[yron] said "not at home."

[There were two Genevan Pictets at this date, both public men of some mark. One was Jean Marc Jules Pictet de Sergy, 1768 to 1828; the other, the Chevalier Marc Auguste Pictet, 1752 to 1825. As Polidori speaks farther on of Pictet as being aged about forty-six, the former would appear to be meant. He had been in Napoleon's legislative chamber from 1800 to 1815, and was afterwards a member of the representative council of Geneva.—The Villa Diodati was the house where Milton, in 1639, had visited Dr. John Diodati, a Genevese Professor of Theology. Polidori's compact phrase, "narrow, not true," is by no means clear; perhaps he means that some one had warned him that the Villa Diodati (called also the Villa Belle Rive) was inconveniently narrow, but, on inspecting the premises, he found the statement incorrect.]

_May 27._—Got up; went about a boat; got one for 3 fr. a day; rowed to Sécheron. Breakfasted. Got into a carriage. Went to Banker's, who changed our money, and afterwards left his card. To Pictet—not at home. Home, and looked at accounts: bad temper on my side. Went into the boat, rowed across to Diodati; cannot have it for three years; English family. Crossed again; I went; L[ord] B[yron] back. Getting out, L[ord] B[yron] met M[ary] Wollstonecraft Godwin, her sister, and Percy Shelley. I got into the boat into the middle of Leman Lake, and there lay my length, letting the boat go its way.

[Here I find it difficult to understand the phrase—"Cannot have it (Villa Diodati) for three years—English family." It must apparently mean either that an English family were occupying or had bespoken Villa Diodati, and would remain there for three years to come (which is in conflict with the fact that Byron soon afterwards became the tenant); or else that Byron thought of renting it for a term as long as three years, which was barred by the previous claim of some English family. On the whole, the latter supposition seems to me the more feasible; but one is surprised to think that Byron had any—even remote—idea of remaining near Geneva for any such great length of time. This sets one's mind speculating about Miss Clairmont, with whom (as is well known) Byron's amour had begun before he left London, and who had now just arrived to join him at Sécheron; had he at this time any notion of settling down with her in the neighbourhood for three years, more or less? It is a curious point to consider for us who know how rapidly he discarded her, and how harshly he treated her ever afterwards. Miss Clairmont, we see, was now already on the spot, along with Percy and Mary Shelley; in fact, as we learn from other sources, they had arrived at Sécheron, Dejean's Hôtel de l'Angleterre, as far back as May 18, or perhaps May 15—and Byron now for the first time encountered the three. It appears that he must have met Mary Godwin in London, probably only once—not to speak of Clare. Shelley, to the best of our information, he had never till now seen at all. Polidori here terms Clare Clairmont the "sister" of "M. Wollstonecraft Godwin"; and in the entry for May 29 he even applies the name Wollstonecraft Godwin to Clare; and it will be found as we proceed that for some little while he really supposed the two ladies to be sisters in the right sense of the term, both of them bearing the surname of Godwin. In point of fact, there was no blood-relationship—Mary being the daughter of Mr. and the first Mrs. Godwin, and Clare the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clairmont. It may be as well to add that the letters addressed by Miss Clairmont to Byron, before they actually met in London, have now (1904) been published in _The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals_, vol. iii, pp. 429-437; and they certainly exhibit a degree of forwardness and importunity which accounts in some measure for his eventual antipathy to her.]

Found letter from De Roche inviting me to breakfast to-morrow; curious with regard to L[ord] B[yron]. Dined; P[ercy] S[helley], the author of _Queen Mab_, came; bashful, shy, consumptive; twenty-six; separated from his wife; keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who practise his theories; one L[ord] B[yron]'s.

[This is a very noticeable jotting. Shelley appears to have come in alone on this occasion, and we may infer that some very confidential talk ensued between him and Byron, in the presence of Polidori. He was not at this date really twenty-six years of age, but only twenty-three. "Bashful, shy," is an amusingly simple description of him. As to "consumptive," we know that Shelley left England under the impression that consumption had him in its grip, but this hardly appears to have been truly the case. Polidori, as a medical man, might have been expected to express some doubt on the subject, unless the poet's outward appearance looked consumptive. Next we hear that Shelley "keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who practise his theories"—_i.e._ set the marriage-laws at defiance, or act upon the principle of free love. One might suppose, from this phrase, that Polidori believed Shelley to be the accepted lover of Miss Clairmont as well as of Mary Godwin; but the addition of those very significant words—"One, Lord Byron's"—tells in the opposite direction. These words can only mean (what was the fact) that one of these ladies, viz. Miss Clairmont, was Lord Byron's mistress. Therefore Polidori, in saying that Shelley "kept the two daughters of Godwin," may presumably have meant that he housed and maintained Clare, while he was the _quasi_-husband of Mary. Whether Polidori now for the first time learned, from the conversation of Byron and Shelley, what was the relation subsisting between Clare and Byron, or whether Byron had at some earlier date imparted the facts to him, is a question which must remain unsolved. The latter appears to me extremely probable; for Byron had certainly arranged to meet Clare near Geneva, and he may very likely have given the requisite notice beforehand to his travelling physician and daily associate. My aunt Charlotte Polidori was not an adept in Shelleian detail: if she had been, I fear that these sentences would have shocked her sense of propriety, and they would have been left uncopied. They form the only passage in her transcript which bears in any way upon the amour between Lord Byron and Miss Clairmont; to the best of my recollection and belief there was not in the original Diary any other passage pointing in the same direction.—I may observe here that there is nothing in Polidori's Journal to show that the Shelley party were staying in the same Sécheron hotel with Lord Byron. Professor Dowden says that they were—I suppose with some sufficient authority; and I think other biographers in general have assumed the same.]

Into the calèche; horloger's at Geneva; L[ord] B[yron] paid 15 nap. towards a watch; I, 13: repeater and minute-hand; foolish watch.