HOME LIFE. 353 



from the contemplation of the burning mountain, was spent in 

 visiting the various museums, where they were treated with 

 extreme courtesy by the curators, and honoured with marks of 

 especial attention from the Duca della Torre and Colonel Poli. 

 In striking contrast to this behaviour was the reception they 

 met with from Dr. Thompson, who, when applied to by the 

 travellers, accompanied by a Neapolitan gentleman of distin- 

 guished learning, for permission to see through his museum, 

 acceded to their request with the exceedingly discourteous re- 

 mark : 'You must please divide your party, gentlemen ; I can 

 keep my eyes upon two, but four are too many to watch.' 1 



On their return to Eome the travellers made but a short 

 sojourn in the Eternal City, and on September 17 started on 

 their homeward route to Germany. They took their journey 

 by way of the mountains, for the sake of instituting a chemical 

 analysis of the celebrated springs at the baths of Nocera, and 

 on September 22 they entered Florence. They visited the 

 splendid galleries of the city of the Arno, under the guidance 

 of Fabbroni, a distinguished connoisseur, who gave them the 

 astounding intelligence in answer to their inquiry as to the 

 amount of variation in the magnetic needle at Florence, that 

 the fine instruments in the Grand Duke's Museum of Natural 

 Science had never been brought into use, for fear of injuring 

 the polish of the metal. 



Passing hastily through Bologna and Milan, where they 

 were at some pains to find out Volta, the three friends crossed 

 the pass of St. Grothard on October 14 and 15. A short 

 summary of the remainder of the journey is contained in the 

 following letter, addressed probably to Spener or Sander, a 

 bookseller in Berlin : 



'Heilbronn: October 28, 1805. 



' Dear Sir, I have been prevented by the war from carrying- 

 out my original intention of visiting Vienna and Freiberg. I 

 should have very much liked to have compared my manuscript 

 with the Vienna Codex, since I have had engraved portions 

 of the Mexican Codex in the Vatican, and of the one in the 



1 Franz Arago's l Sammtliche Werke, deutsche Uebersetzung,' vol. iii. 

 p. 20. 



YOL. I. A A 



