8o LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



at work on a classic group, which he had composed with great taste, 

 and was finishing in the first style of elaborate sculpture. The group 

 consisted of Andromache in the imploring attitude of utter despair, 

 whilst the unfeeling conquerors of Troy were in the act of throwing 

 her poor boy Astyanax over the battlements. 



" I was invited to see in Florence a bird, a mouse, and a piece of 

 heart and liver, which by a chemical process (only known to the in- 

 ventor) had become as hard as stone. I had been given to under- 

 stand that I should find the bird and mouse as perfect in their form 

 as when alive ; but upon examination, the anatomy appeared shrunk 

 and injured, the plumage of the bird and the fur of the mouse were 

 wrong at all points, so that I left the room with disappointment in 

 my looks. Probably corrosive sublimate had been the chief agent 

 in causing these substances to become so very hard. 



" Although I was much on the watch for birds from Florence to 

 Rome, I saw very few indeed j some dozens of coots on the waters, 

 a heron or two rising from the marshes, with here and there a noisy 

 blackbird rushing from the bush on the road-side, and a scanty show 

 of hooded crows passing from tree to tree, were nearly all there was 

 to tell us that animated nature had not entirely abandoned the parts 

 through which we were travelling. 



" I had a little adventure on the road from Baccano to Rome not 

 worth relating, but which I deem necessary to be introduced here 

 in order that some of my friends in the latter city, and others in 

 England, may not give me credit for an affair which deserves no 

 credit at all. These good friends had got it into their heads that I 

 had reached Rome after walking barefoot for nearly twenty miles, 

 in order to show my respect and reverence for the sacred capital of 

 the Christian world. Would that my motive had been as pure as 

 represented ! The sanctity of the churches, the remains of holy 

 martyrs which enrich them, the relics of canonised saints placed in 

 such confusion throughout them, might well induce a Catholic tra- 

 veller to adopt this easy and simple mode of showing his religious 

 feeling. But, unfortunately, the idea never entered my mind at the 

 time : I had no other motives than those of easy walking and of 

 self-enjoyment The affair which caused the talk took place as 

 follows : 



