Os my return from the interesting visit to Rome, of which some account has been given in another Preface, I took up my abode in Paris, and, being joined there by my family, continued to reside in that capital, or its en| virons, till about the close of the year 1822. As no life, however sunny, is without its conds, I could not escape, of course, my share of such passing shadows; and this long estrangement from our happy English home, towards which my family yearned even more fondly than myself, had been caused by diffienities of a pecuniary nature, and to a large amount, in which I had been involved by the nduct of the person who acted as my deputy in the small office I held at Bermuda.

That I should ever have come to be chosen for such an employment seems one of those freaks or anomalies of human destiny which bale all ordinary speculation; and went far, Indeed, to realise Beaumarchais' notion of the st of standard by which, too frequently, qualification for place is regulated,—“Il fallut un calculateur; ce fut un danseur qui l'obtint." But however much, in this instance, I suffered from my want of schooling in matters of business, and more especially from my having Deglected the ordinary precaution of requiring security from my deputy, I was more than consoled for all such embarrassment, were it even ten times as much, by the eager kindness with which friends pressed forward to help to release me from my difficulties. Could I venture to name the persons, and they were many,-who thus volunteered their aid, it would be found they were all of them men whose characters enhanced such a service, and that in all, the name and the act reflected honour upon each other.

I shall so far lift the veil in which such delicate generosity seeks to shroud itself, as to mention briefly the manner in which one of

[From the collected edition of 1841, 1842.]

these kind friends,-himself possessing but limited means,-proposed to contribute to the object of releasing me from my embarrassments. After adverting, in his letter, to my misfortunes, and "the noble way," as he was pleased to say, "in which I bore them," he adds,-" would it be very impertinent to say, that I have 500l. entirely at your disposal, to be paid when you like; and as much more that I could advance, upon any reasonable security, payable in seven years?" The writer concludes by apologising anxiously and delicately for "the liberty which he thus takes," assuring me that "he would not have made the offer it he did not feel that he would most readily accept the same assistance from me." I select this one instance from among the many which that trying event of my life enables me to adduce, both on account of the deliberate feeling of manly regard which it manifests, and also from other considerations which it would be out of place here to mention, but which rendered so genuine a mark of friendship from such a quarter peculiarly touching and welcome to me.

When such were the men who hastened to my aid in this emergency, I need hardly say, it was from no squeamish pride,—for the pride would have been in receiving favours from such hands,-that I came to the resolution of gratefully declining their offers, and endeavouring to work out my deliverance by my own efforts. With a credit still fresh in the market of literature, and with publishers ready as ever to risk their thousands on my name, I could not but feel that, however gratifying was the generous zeal of such friends, I should best show that I, in some degree, deserved their offers, by declining, under such circumstances, to accept them.

Meanwhile, an attachment had issued against me from the Court of Admiralty; and as a negotiation was about to be opened with the

American claimants, for a reduction of their large demand upon me,-supposed, at that time, to amount to six thousand pounds,-it was deemed necessary that, pending the treaty, I should take up my abode in France.

To write for the means of daily subsistence, and even in most instances to "forestall the slow harvest of the brain," was for me, unluckily, no novel task. But I had now, in addition to these home calls upon the Muse, a new, painful, and, in its first aspect, overwhelming exigence to provide for; and, certainly, Paris, swarming throughout as it was, at that period, with rich, gay, and dissipated English, was, to a person of my social habits and multifarious acquaintance, the very worst possible place that could have been resorted to for even the semblance of a quiet or studious home. The only tranquil, and, therefore, to me, most precious portions of that period were the two summers passed by my family and myself with our kind Spanish friends, the V *******ls, at their beautiful place, La Butte Coaslin, on the road up to Bellevue. There, in a cottage belonging to M. V ****** *1, and but a few steps from his house, we contrived to conjure up an apparition of Sloperton*; and I was able for some time to work with a feeling of comfort and home. I used frequently to pass the morning in rambling alone through the noble park of St. Cloud, with no apparatus for the work of authorship but my memorandum-book and pencils, forming sentences to run smooth and moulding verses into shape. In the evenings I generally joined with Madame V ******* 1 in Italian duetts, or, with far more pleasure, sat as listener, while she sung to the Spanish guitar those sweet songs of her own country to which few voices could do such justice.

One of the pleasant circumstances connected with our summer visits to La Butte was the near neighbourhood of our friend, Mr. Kenny, the lively dramatic writer, who was lodged picturesquely in the remains of the Palace of the King's Aunts, at Bellevue. I remember, on my first telling Kenny the particulars of

"A little cot, with trees arow,
And, like its master, very low."

my Bermuda mishap, his saying, after a paus of real feeling, "Well, it's lucky you're poet;-a philosopher never could have born it." Washington Irving also was, for a sho time, our visitor; and still recollects, I trus his reading to me some parts of his the forthcoming work, Bracebridge Hall, as we s together on the grass walk that leads to ti Rocher, at La Butte.

Among the writings, then but in embryo, which I looked forward for the means of m enfranchisement, one of the most importan as well as most likely to be productive, w my intended Life of Sheridan. But I soc found that, at such a distance from all the living authorities from whom alone I cou gain any interesting information respecting th private life of one who left behind him so litt epistolary correspondence, it would be who impossible to proceed satisfactorily with th task. Accordingly I wrote to Mr. Murr and Mr. Wilkie, who were at that time th intended publishers of the work, to appri them of this temporary obstacle to its progres

Being thus baffled in the very first of t few resources I had looked to, I next thoug of a Romance in verse, in the form of Letter or Epistles; and with this view sketched out story, on an Egyptian subject, differing much from that which, some years afte formed the groundwork of the Epicures After labouring, however, for some month at this experiment, amidst interruption, diss pation, and distraction, which might well p all the Nine Muses to flight, I gave up t attempt in despair;-fully convinced of t truth of that warning conveyed in some ear verses of my own, addressed to the Invisib Girl:

·

Oh hint to the bard, 'tis retirement alone
Can hallow its harp or ennoble its tone:
Like you, with a veil of seclusion between,
His song to the world let him utter unseen,
&c. &c.

It was, indeed, to the secluded life I l during the years 1813-1816, in a lone cotta among the fields, in Derbyshire, that I ow the inspiration, whatever may have been value, of some of the best and most popul portions of Lalla Rookh. It was amidst t snows of two or three Derbyshire winters th