146 REMINISCENCES OF A SPOETSMAN. 



smaller towns and villages being perforemd by priests, 

 who I have heard are particularly attentive to their 

 flocks. But how much it is to be regretted that they 

 have not sufficient power over the minds of their parish- 

 ioners to convince them of the atrocity of the crime 

 of assassination. 



As my leave of absence was now nearly expired, I felt, 

 on being obliged to return to '• the little military hot- 

 house," in much the same state of feeling as a boy who 

 leaves a kind home to return to school; for Mr. Hill's 

 urbanity of manner, his hospitality, and his anxious de- 

 sire to afford his English friends good field sport, made 

 this separation a cause of great regret to me.* I took 

 an affectionate leave of my friends at Cagliari, not one 

 of whom is now alive. It is one of the most distressing 

 circumstances of old age that you see gradually one old 

 friend after another dropping off: — 



" Now kmdred merit fills the sable bier, 

 Now lacerated fi-iendship claims a tear ; 

 New forms arise, and different views engage, 

 Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage." 



Johnson — Vanity of Human Wishes. 



I was now anxiously seeking some conveyance to 

 Malta, as I had no time unfortunately to remain for a 

 grand battue about to take place in some of the forests, 

 in which wild boars, stags, spotted deer, &c., were ex- 

 pected to afford much sport. The packet from England 

 would not arrive for some time, but Mr. Hill kindly 

 procured me a passage on board a brig of w^ar on her 



* Some years after I saw Mr. Hill in London, and at that time he 

 was om- minister at Naples, whore, I have understood, he was as popular 

 as he had been at Cagliari. He has now been dead for several years, 

 and hie brother succeeded to the title of Lord Berwick. 



