The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori

Borsieri, a man of great mental digestive power and memory, superficially read; author of Il Giorno, a work written with great grace and lightness. He was very intimate with me, Guasco, and Brême. Guasco, a Piedmontese; little reading, but great mental vision and talents. He also was one who attached himself a good deal to me. De Beyle, formerly Intendant des Marchés (I think) to Buonaparte, and his secretary when in the country. A fat lascivious man. A great deal of anecdote about Buonaparte: calls him an inimitable et bon despote. He related many anecdotes—I don't remember them: amongst other things, he said Buonaparte despised the Italians much.

[This last detail is confirmed in Beyle's Reminiscences of Napoleon, published not long ago.]

These four were the usual attendants at De Brême's box.

Monti is a short, roundish, quick-eyed, and rather rascally-faced man, affable, easily fired; talks rather nonsense when off poetry, and even upon that not good. Great imagination; very weak. Republican always in conversation with us; but in the first month, after having declaimed strongly in B[rême']s box about liberty and Germans, just as they were going out he said, "But now let us talk no more of this, on account of my pension." Under the French government he gained a great deal by his various offices; by this one he has been abridged of half. He translated the Iliad of Homer without knowing a word of Greek; he had it translated by his friends, word for word written under the Greek. Easily influenced by the opinions of others; in fact, a complete weathercock. He married the daughter of Pickler, the engraver; a fine woman, and they say an exceedingly good reciter, as he is himself. She has acted in his plays upon the Philodramatic stage. His daughter is married.

Negri—Marchese Negri27—a Genoese, not an improvisatore—very chatty; has at Genoa a most beautiful garden which all the English visit. Related to me Gianni's beginning. Gianni was an apprentice to a stay-maker, when one day an Abate, going into the shop, found him busily engaged in reading. Looking at the book, he asked him if he understood it. He said yes, and, on reading, showed it by his expression. The Abate, who was an improvisatore, asked him to see him next morning; when he improvised before him, and observed that the young Gianni seemed as if his mind was full and wished to give forth. He had him sent to school, and introduced him. Gianni in the Revolution, taking the Liberal side, was obliged to leave Rome, and, going to Genoa, Negri heard by letter of it, and went to seek him, inviting him to dine with him. He refused; and Negri, who had promised his friends that he would be of the party, at the hour of dinner went and found him with his nightcap on, deeply reading his favourite Dante; and in a manner dragged him by force to his house, where Gianni pleased much—and stayed a year at Negri's house, teaching him the art of improvisation. Gianni's improvisations were (many) improvised on the spot by an Abate into Latin verse.—Negri came to Brême's box several times, and had the effect of making all except Brême burst with laughter: me he sent to sleep.

Lord Byron came to Milan, and I saw him there a good deal. He received me kindly, and corrected the English of my essay in The Pamphleteer.28 He visited a good deal Brême's box. Mr. Hobhouse was with him.

Colonel Finch, an extremely pleasant, good-natured, well-informed, clever gentleman; spoke Italian extremely well, and was very well read in Italian literature. A ward of his gave a masquerade in London upon her29 coming of age. She gave to each a character in the reign of Queen Elizabeth to support, without the knowledge of each other, and received them in a saloon in proper style as Queen Elizabeth. He mentioned to me that Nelli had written a Life of Galileo extremely fair, which, if he had money by him, he would buy that it might be published,—in Italy they dare not; and that Galileo's MSS. were in dispute, so that the heirs will not part with them; they contain some new and some various readings. Finch is a great admirer of architecture and Italy.—Wotheron, Mr., a gentleman most peaceable and quiet I ever saw, accompanying Finch; whose only occupation is, when he arrives at a town or other place, to set about sketching and then colouring, so that he has perhaps the most complete collection of sketches of his tour possible. He invited me (taking me for an Italian), in case I went to England, to see him; and, hearing I was English, he pressed me much more.—Locatelli was the physician of the hospital, a good unimpostoring physician. I saw under him a case of pemphizus, and had under my care an hysterical woman.

Jersey, Lady, promised to enquire of her mother, Lady Westmorland, if she would employ me as her physician; but said she thought my having been with Lord B[yron] a great objection.

[I have an impression, not a secure one, that Dr. Polidori did act to some extent as Lady Westmorland's medical adviser. It would here appear that her Ladyship was not very partial to Byron; and Byron must have repaid her dislike, for I find, in a letter of his to Murray, November 1817, that Polidori was in the way of receiving "the patronage of Frederic North, the most illustrious humbug of his age and country, and the blessing of Lady Westmorland, William Ward's mad woman." Joseph Severn the painter (Keats's friend), who saw a good deal of Lady Westmorland at one time, terms her "this impulsive, arrogant, dictatorial, but witty and brilliant woman."]

Lloyd;—as I was moving in the pit, found him, and never saw a person so glad in my life. He offered me half of the money he had at his banker's, as he thought I must be much embarrassed. Told me Brelaz and Bertolini seemed to be together, and that the man seemed worked off his legs.

My life at Milan was very methodical. I got up, went to the hospital, breakfasted, came home, studied, dined, and then at 7 went to the theatre. Between breakfast and study went to de Brême to help him in English. It was proposed too, by him, to teach English, which I had intended to do.

I saw only the dome under which is the chapel of St. Borromeo—very rich in silver, crystal, and jewels. The body is vested in pontificals, and quite dry. The orbits seem only filled with a little heap of black dirt, and the skull etc. is black. There is here the gnometer of Cassini. They preserve here a nail of the cross of Christ.—St. Ambrose, the ancient Cathedral. It was at the gates of this that Theodosius was refused entrance.—The Brera library; and the Ambrosian, where I saw the Virgil with marginal notes of Petrarch; some of the pieces of MSS. of the Plautus and Terence, fragments edited by Mai.—Some of the paintings there are beautiful. The Milanese Raphael has some heads expressing such mild heavenly meekness as is scarcely imagined.

[This Raphael is, as many readers will know, the Sposalizio, or Espousal of the Virgin Mary and Joseph. Being an early work by the master, it exhibits, in its "mild heavenly meekness," more of the style of Perugino than of that which became distinctive of Raphael in his maturity.]

When at Milan, I spent almost all my money in books, buying nearly 300 volumes, not being able to resist that thirst for printed sheets, many of which I never shall read.

Swarrow, the Governor of Milan, when the Emperor was there, accompanying him to the theatre, saw that one poor man in the pit, leaning against a box, had dared to keep his hat on. Violently enraged, he enters the box, without leave or saying a word; and, leaning over the box with all his orders dangling at his breast, applies two hearty slaps to the poor man's cheeks, and then, rising majestically, leaves the box, and goes to receive the despot's smile. This making a great hubbub, and exciting a great deal of ridicule against the noble police-officer, he insisted with the police-director that not a word more should be allowed to be said.

When at Milan, there came Sgricci, a Tuscan, under the patronage of Monti, who puffed him most egregiously, especially his tragic improvisati. I accompanied de Brême to Casa Crivelli, where I saw Swarrow and a cardinal; a dried-up ganache[?] with a face of malice that had dried up with the features of the face, but still remained sketched there in pretty forcible lines. The improvisator entered; yellow boots with trousers, blue coat, and a Flemish collar to his shirt. He began The Loves of Psyche and Cupid; commonplace, unpoetic rhymes. Coriolanus, a tragedy; such an abominable opiate that, in spite of my pinching myself and Cavalier Brême rousing me every minute, I found myself, when ended, roused by the applause from a pleasant nap. Heard him again at the theatre; terza rima; The Grief of Mausolea.30 The only bearable parts were those about Aurora, night, etc., which he had beforehand prepared, to clap-in at convenience, from the Gradus ad Parnassum. The tragedy being drawn out, first came The Death of Socrates. He came forward, saying that, this subject being undramatizable, he would, if the public insisted, attempt it, but that he had rather another might be drawn. Montezuma came out. "Oh," says he, "this will touch your passions too much, and offend many probably personally." The public here stoutly hissed, and insisted he should proceed; he as stoutly called on the boy to draw, which he did, and, there coming forth Eteocles and Polynices, he was satisfied, making olla podrida scenica of French ragouts, Italian minestras, and Greek black soup. It was reported that Monti's taking him up was by the persuasion of his daughter. An epigram was written upon Sgricci, as follows nearly—

"In questi tempi senza onore e mertoLavora Sgricci in vano, ha un altro il serto."

[The translation of this couplet is—"In these times without honour and merit Sgricci labours in vain—another man wears the wreath." It will be seen that the epigram, if such it can be considered, runs in favour of Sgricci. He was a native of Arezzo, and, as our text shows, a renowned improvisatore. I happen to possess a printed tragedy of his, Ettore, which is notified as having been improvised in the Teatro Carignano, Turin, on June 13, 1823. Shelley in January 1821 attended one of Sgricci's improvisations, and was deeply impressed by it as a wonderful effort, and even, considered in itself, a fine poetic success. In 1869, being entrusted with some MS. books by Shelley through the courtesy of his son the late Baronet, I read a tribute of some length which the great English poet had paid to the Italian improvisatore: it has not yet been published, and is included, I suppose, among the Shelley MSS. bequeathed to the Bodleian Library. The subject on which Shelley heard Sgricci improvise was Hector (Ettore). One rather suspects that the Ettore improvised in 1823 may have been partly reminiscent of its predecessor in 1821. The portrait of Sgricci, a man of some thirty-five years of age, appears in the book which I possess: it shows a costume of the fancy-kind that Polidori speaks of. I have looked through the tragedy, and do not concur in the tone of ridicule in which Polidori indulges. An improvise can only be criticized as an improvise, and this appears to me a very fair specimen.—As I have had occasion here to re-mention Shelley, I may as well add that Medwin (Life of Shelley, vol. i, p. 250), says that the poet had no animosity against Polidori, consequent upon any past collisions: "Shelley I have often heard speak of Polidori, but without any feeling of ill-will."]

Going one evening with L[ord] B[yron] and Mr. H[obhouse] to B[rême]'s box, Mr. Hobhouse, Borsieri, and myself, went into the pit, standing to look at the ballet. An officer in a great-coat came and placed himself completely before me with his grenadier's hat on. I remarked it to my companions: "Guarda a colui colla sua berretta in testa" (I believe those were my words), waiting a few minutes to see if he would move. I touched him, and said, "Vorrebbe farmi la grazia di levarsi il cappello purch'io vegga?" He turning said "Lo vorreste?" with a smile of insult. I answered: "Sì, lo voglio."31 He then asked me if I would go out with him. I, thinking he meant for a duel, said, "Yes, with pleasure"; and called Mr. Hobhouse to accompany me. He did. When passing by the guard-house he said, "Go in, go in there"; I said I would not, that it was not there I thought of going with him. Then he swore in German, and drew half his sabre with a threatening look, but Hobhouse held his hand. The police on guard came, and he delivered me to their custody. I entered the guard-house, and he began declaiming about the insult to one like him. I said I was his equal, and, being in the theatre, to any one there. "Equal to me?" he retorted; "you are not equal to the last of the Austrian soldiers in the house"; and then began abusing me in all the Billingsgate German he was master of—which I did not know till afterwards. In the meanwhile the news had spread in the theatre, and reached de Brême and L[ord] Byron, who came running down, and tried to get me away, but could not on any plea. De Brême heard the secretary of police say to the officer: "Don't you meddle with this, leave it to me." De Brême said he would go to Bubna immediately, and get an order for my dismission; on which the officer took Lord Byron's card, as bail that I would appear to answer for my conduct on the morrow. Then I was released.

Next morning I received a printed order from the police to attend. As soon as I saw the order I went to De Brême, who accompanied me to the gate. I entered.

"Where do you wish your passport viséd for?"

"I am not thinking of going."

"You must be off in four-and-twenty hours for Florence."

"But I wish for more time."

"You must be off in that time, or you will have something disagreeable happen to you."

Brême, upon hearing this, immediately set off to Bubna, and I to Lord Byron, who sent Mr. Hobhouse in company of Colonel McSomething to Swarrow to ask that I might not be obliged to go. They went. Swarrow received them with a pen in his hand; said it was a bagatelle; that the Secretary of Police had been there in the morning, and that he had told him of it. That it was nothing, that I should find myself as well off in any other city as there, and that, if I stayed, something worse might happen. Hobhouse tried to speak. S[warrow] advanced a foot; "Give my compliments to Lord Byron; am sorry I was not at home when he called." "But if this is so mere a trifle …"—"I hope Lord Byron is well"; advancing another foot, and then little by little got them so near the door that they saw it was useless, and left him. De Brême in the meanwhile had been to Bubna. Bubna received him very politely, and said he had already seen Colonel M., who had explained to him the whole; and that for the mistake of speaking to the officer on guard he thought it enough that I had been put under arrest. "I am much obliged to you, and am glad then that my friend will not have to leave Milan." "What do you mean?" Brême explained. "It is impossible, there must be some mistake, for I have had no memorial of it. I will see Swarrow this evening about it." De Brême mentioned with what idea I had left the theatre. Bubna said that German soldiers had one prejudice less; and at the theatre in the evening I heard many instances of the officers of the Austrian Army acting meanly in this respect. Amongst others, Bubna's son, being challenged for insulting a lady at a public ball, accepted the challenge, but said there were several things he had to settle first, and that he would appoint a day for the following week. He left Milan the Saturday before. A young Italian had a dispute with a Hussar officer, and challenged him, for which he was brought before the police and reprimanded. Some days after, the officer, standing at a coffee-room door, asked him if he wished to settle the affair with him. He said yes, and they immediately entered. The officer spoke to several of his companions in the room, and they all struck the young man, and pushed him out. He could get no redress.

[This affair of Dr. Polidori's shindy in the theatre excited some remark. His feelings in favour of Italy and Italians were keen, as he was himself half Italian by blood; and he was evidently not disinclined to pick a quarrel with an Austrian military man. He was indiscreet, and indeed wrong, in asking an Austrian officer on guard to take off his cap; and, although he addressed the officer at first in courteous terms, his expression "Lo voglio" was not to be brooked even by a civilian. Lord Byron mentioned the matter in a letter to his sister, November 6, 1816, as follows: "Dr. Polidori, whom I parted with before I left Geneva (not for any great harm, but because he was always in squabbles, and had no sort of conduct), contrived at Milan, which he reached before me, to get into a quarrel with an Austrian, and to be ordered out of the city by the Government. I did not even see his adventure, nor had anything to do with it, except getting him out of arrest, and trying to get him altogether out of the scrape." And on the same day to Thomas Moore. "On arriving at Milan I found this gentleman in very good society, where he prospered for some weeks; but at length, in the theatre, he quarrelled with an Austrian officer, and was sent out by the Government in twenty-four hours. I could not prevent his being sent off; which, indeed, he partly deserved, being quite in the wrong, and having begun a row for row's sake. He is not a bad fellow, but young and hot-headed, and more likely to incur diseases than to cure them." Beyle likewise has left an account of the affair, translated thus. "One evening, in the middle of a philosophical argument on the principle of utility, Silvio Pellico, a delightful poet, came in breathless haste to apprise Lord Byron that his friend and physician Polidori had been arrested. We instantly ran to the guard-house. It turned out that Polidori had fancied himself incommoded in the pit by the fur cap of the officer on guard, and had requested him to take it off, alleging that it impeded his view of the stage. The poet Monti had accompanied us, and, to the number of fifteen or twenty, we surrounded the prisoner. Every one spoke at once. Polidori was beside himself with passion, and his face red as a burning coal. Byron, though he too was in a violent rage, was on the contrary pale as ashes. His patrician blood boiled as he reflected on the slight consideration in which he was held. The Austrian officer ran from the guard-house to call his men, who seized their arms that had been piled on the outside. Monti's idea was excellent: 'Sortiamo tutti—restino solamente i titolati' (Let us all go out—only the men of title to remain). De Brême remained, with the Marquis di Sartirana, his brother, Count Confalonieri, and Lord Byron. These gentlemen having written their names and titles, the list was handed to the officer on guard, who instantly forgot the insult offered to his fur cap, and allowed Polidori to leave the guard-house. In the evening, however, the Doctor received an order to quit Milan within twenty-four hours. Foaming with rage, he swore that he would one day return and bestow manual castigation on the Governor who had treated him with so little respect."—One other observation of Beyle, regarding Polidori and Byron, may be introduced here. "Polidori informed us that Byron often composed a hundred verses in the course of the morning. On his return from the theatre in the evening, still under the charm of the music to which he had listened, he would take up his papers, and reduce his hundred verses to five-and-twenty or thirty. He often sat up all night in the ardour of composition."—As Polidori's passport is prominently mentioned at this point of the Diary, I may add a few particulars about it. It was granted on April 17, 1816, by the Conte Ambrogio Cesare San Martino d'Aglia, Minister of the King of Sardinia in London; and it authorized Polidori to travel in Italy—no mention being made of Switzerland, nor yet of Lord Byron. The latest visa on the passport is at Pisa, for going to Florence. This is signed "Il Governatore, Viviani," whom we may safely assume to have been a relative of Shelley's Emilia. The date of this final visa is February 17, 1817.]

October 30.—Got up early next morning, packed up my books and things; then went to seek for a coach that was parting for Lodi. Found one, and fixed that a vetturino, who was going to set off next day for Florence, should take me up at Lodi. Went to see de Brême. He told me he had been to Bubna's, but that he had found him out at a council of war, and that he had left an order none should follow him. I took leave of de Brême, and wept in his arms like a child, for his kindness and friendship had been dear to me. I took leave of L[ord] B[yron], H[obhouse], and Guasco. The last offered me his services in any way, and said he should take it as a favour the oftener he was applied to. I got into the coach with only 5 louis in my pocket, leaving my books in the care of de Brême, and left Milan with rage and grief so struggling in my breast that tears often started in my eyes, and all I could think of was revenge against Swarrow and the officer in particular, and a hope that before I left Italy there might be a rising to which I might join myself. I arrived at Lodi; wrote to Lloyd to ask him to lend me some money, and went to bed exhausted.

October 31.—Up at 9: breakfasted. Went to see the Duomo and other churches without feeling interest; the hospital, which is a magnificent building. Returning to the inn, I met the vetturino. I found in the coach a Prussian student of Heidelberg who had made the campaigns of '13 and '14 with the rest of his companions, and who was banished Heidelberg for slapping a Russian in the face. Growled against his king for not keeping his promise; hated the French, and gave me an interesting account of the way of spending the winter evenings in his part of Germany, Pomerania; the young working at some pursuit of hand, the old relating their tale of youth. A Milanese woman and son. We went that evening to Casal Panterlungo. Supped and went to bed, I and the Prussian in the same room.

November 2.—Up at 4. Across the Taro to Parma. Went, in spite of my having so little money, in search of books—Boccaccio's Fiammetta. The Cathedral and Baptistery. From Parma to Reggio, a beautiful town with fine palaces and porticoes, though, on account of the few inhabitants, appearing a huge sepulchre. To Rubiera: supped and slept.

November 3.—Up at 4. Through Modena, where I saw the Duomo, and the Tower which contains the Lecchia porticoes—palaces of the Duke—four orders heaped one on the other. Here they examined my box, and were going to send it to the dogana on account of books; when, upon my saying I was a physician, they let them pass.

At Bologna supped with the Prussian. To the opera. Saw a ballet, extremely ridiculous: barbarian dances with astonishing powers of limbs forming in the air [postures] out and in on their feet.

November 4.—Up at 9. Went to see the churches and (a) private gallery. After dinner roamed about the town in a most melancholy mood, entering the churches and sitting in the dark for an hour, etc. Went to the Theatre of Cento Cavalli: beautiful Greek architecture. To bed—a play.

November 5.—At 10, expecting to have been called before, the vetturino came, saying he would not go, since I had hindered the Prussian from setting off on Monday, without security; and that he would go to the police to gain it from the Prussian that he should be paid at Florence. After a good deal of disputing I gave it, in a promissory note that I would pay if he could not. Found afterwards it was only to get time.

Went to see the churches, the public place, San Prospero, the Neptune. After dinner to Madonna Santa Lucia. Along the portico "Questo è da vendere"32 was written on portions of the wall. The public cemetery. Saw a coffin, when dark, brought into the church with torches. The poor are separated from the rich, and have only the turf upon them: the rich groan under the weight of marble. The priests, monks, nuns, etc., all in separate squares; a cardinal's hat covering a death's head.

Returned to Bologna. Went to the theatre. Saw Agnese: wept like a child: the acting of the madman inimitable. Went to bed.

November 6.—Up at 11. Set off with the Prussian and an Italian officer across the Apennines. Oxen in continual use. Misty, so could not enjoy the view. Dreadful winds to Pianoro. That evening the officer related all the services he had been in; French liberty, Consulship, Emperor. Refused by the Austrians; went to Murat, and now going to offer himself to the Pope; if not accepted, to America. For which side? "Spanish or Creole."33 He had the unfeelingness to joke upon his father's being killed in the time of the liberty-rows, saying he got that for not changing; on which I felt so nettled that I spoke for half-an-hour upon the ruin the fickleness of the Italians had brought upon themselves. He felt, I think, ashamed; at least he gave up that kind of light talk.