| PAGE |
| I. |
| My birth and parentage—My education, beginning eighty-four years ago, still incomplete—Death of my father | 1 |
| II. |
| Obscure origin of Hakes and Gordons | 3 |
| III. |
| My sister and my brother—Mischief, a sign of health in children—Friendship, a graft that can only be made while we are growing | 6 |
| IV. |
| My aunt Wallinger—My vivid memory—Our relations in Yorkshire, the Rimington family—My mother’s uncles, the Clarkes | 8 |
| V. |
| The Clarkes and the Pollocks—William Clarke a governor of St. Paul’s and of Christ’s Church Schools—He gave Sir Frederick Pollock a presentation to the one and me to the other. My first school-days at Hertford, and how after measles and scarlet fever I was sent home in order to die | 11 |
| VI. |
| My rapid recovery and return to mischief after my illness, and the brutal treatment I received from the boys while I was falling sick | 15 |
| VII. |
| From school to Seaford for the holidays, spent by me and my cousin, a Shore, with the Wallingers—The rotten borough, its owners and surroundings—My aunt Shore, a sister of my mother, and the Shore family—Mrs. Wallinger’s despotic kindness to her nephews—Our Denton cousins, the Gwynnes—The Reverend William Gwynne and his lady, also my mother’s sister | 17 |
| VIII. |
| The Gwynne family—Character of Mrs. Gwynne, and of her husband—The training of their offspring | 21 |
| IX. |
| My monastic life in London—The cloisters, the dormitories, the playground—The influence of their history on the boyish mind—I am ordered to fight | 24 |
| X. |
| Influence of Shakespeare and Virgil over me—“Cozing” after bed-time; story-telling; the reading of forbidden books; the novels of the past; the new novel now worn out—The great epochs, all of a transitory duration, except that of religion | 27 |
| XI. |
| The classical masters—The dress of the clergy—The writing masters—The lower officials—steward, beadles—No teaching except Greek, Latin, writing and arithmetic. Religion not taught, only heard | 30 |
| XII. |
| On bishop, priests, and deacons | 34 |
| XIII. |
| Henry William Gordon, my uncle, mixes his blood with that of Enderby, whence sprang a giant of middle stature, Chinese Gordon | 36 |
| XIV. |
| My last holiday spent in the mediÆval city of Exeter—The dead weight of the clergy relieved by Yates acting Falstaff—Professor Shelden and his mummy—Squire Northmore and his great discovery—Gifford and his Mastership of the Rolls | 39 |
| XV. |
| Lifelong friendships, their physiology—The king’s ward—Games—Handsome boys, and others | 43 |
| XVI. |
| Boys of some mark—Christ’s unrevisited—Life at Woolwich—Drawing-room manners—Colonel Wylde—Soldiers the best servants | 47 |
| XVII. |
| Seaford revisited—The Wallinger family—A domestic seaside season of relatives and friends not unknown to fortune | 50 |
| XVIII. |
| Vaulting ambition, a retrospect—Gravitation of my mother from west to south—She settled at Lewes—My intellect, dieted on its sense of nothingness, takes growth—The process of brain-culture, and its accessories | 53 |
| XIX. |
| Youth—Our first recognition of Nature as something more than ourselves—My modesty always in proportion to my ignorance—My early habit of pumping those who knew more than myself—A country town, a cemetery in which great men are buried alive—Gideon Mantell, prince of geologists—Sir John Shelley and Sir George Shiffner, the last of the pigtail wearers—They represent Lewes in those Tory times | 56 |
| XX. |
| A county town has many mansions, in which the small succeed to the great—Mantell, surgeon-apothecary: his struggles—Lord Egremont’s bounty—He removes to Brighton, sells his museum, vanishes again—The liberality of Government to art, but not to science—Minor celebrities of Lewes | 59 |
| XXI. |
| I become a student of medicine under Thomas Hodson, a great operator—The superior skill of the surgeon, who knows exactly what he is about—Hodson’s strange character—His pre-eminence in county practice—Glynde, Lord Hampden, John Ellman, and south-down mutton | 62 |
| XXII. |
| John Ellman, a sketch—The south-down sheep not extinct—Lord Hampden’s funeral—Southover—The three weird sisters—My studies continued in London at St. George’s—Dr. Thomas Young,
in the Examiner—Harrison Ainsworth—The novel in general—The origin of “Parables and Tales”—Rossetti, HÜffer, and “The Cripple”—“The Blind Boy,” and Morley’s Fortnightly Review—I go to Bath—Beckford’s cemetery and tomb—Proceed to Germany—The wonders of Stassfurt—The old Saxon church—Dr. DuprÉ, my son-in-law, at Stassfurt | 233 |
| LIX. |
| My daughter’s marriage—The breakfast and the wedding guests—The likeness of Mr. DuprÉ, the elder, to the Bonapartes—His relationship to that family by descent—The French family of DuprÉ; the Buckinghamshire branch—Salt-water in England confined to the coast—Germany soaked in it—The drinking pilgrims—Their bodily sins—Family rambles—My youngest son, Henry, a student at Giessen, joins me in Turin—An autumn in Genoa | 241 |
| LX. |
| The Riviera Levante—Nervi—Its charm of scenery and colour, which commissions me to write “The Painter”—The Palazzo Rosso—The coast of Genoa spoilt by its fortifications—The vineyards and villas—The Villa Paganini—A feast of grapes—A knife-fight—The Via Nuova—The statue of Columbus—We proceed to Spezia—Lerici, Shelley’s last home but one—The Temple of Venus—The marble hills of Carrara—Florence once more—Old friends replaced by new—Madame Mazzini, now the wife of Signor Villari, a senator and Minister of Education—My longings to see Florence again—The Tuscans—Their bright intellects and fine faces—The kindness and attentions of the Italians to strangers | 244 |
| LXI. |
| At Florence after forty years—My pleasant apartments on the Lungarno—I repeat my old walks—I still receive reviews of “Parables and Tales,” always in their favour—My visit to Rossetti at Kelmscott—I describe his home while there in a poem—“Reminiscence”—My next work, “New Symbols”—Rossetti’s remarks on certain stanzas of “The Birth of Venus,” and “Michael Angelo”—William Rossetti reviews “New Symbols” in The Academy, in 1876 | 248 |
| LXII. |
| The music of sympathy—Friends at Florence—Professor Schiff—Capponi and a dog that would bay the moon—Madame Schiff and her circle—I prepare “Ecce Homo” here, also “Lucella”—My studies for “Michael Angelo”—My poem of “Pythagoras”—In 1874, still at Florence, I wrote an article on Schiff’s work for The Practitioner—My correspondence—The friends I leave behind | 251 |
| LXIII. |
| I take train for Venice—Every one on first seeing it says he shall stay a long time; no one stays more than a fortnight—The Piazza San Marco; all peace and quiet; no sound of voices, or wheels, or hoofs—One’s coffee turns to nectar as one feeds on the Duomo—The palace of the Doges more majestic than Man—How to imagine what Venice is—The calle and dainty marble bridges—The little canals, where some keep their own gondola as we do our own carriage—One takes a gondola at the Piazzetta—One sweeps by lovely palaces on a Grand Canal—One gets out at the Rialto—This fine old palace is the General Post Office, that is the Fondaco dei Turchi—Then the Palazzi Pesaro, La Ça Doro, Guistiniani, and Foscari—The Arsenal—The Gallery of Art—Churches angular—Churches domed—The Via Garibaldi—The squares of St. Maurizio and St. Stephano—Venice very cold in March—San Marco the most perfect square on earth—The two Othello families—No fear of being run over by cabs—The opera at Venice—The island of Lido—Venice compared to a picture book—Across the Brenner by way of Verona—Munich—Stassfurt again—Excursions to the Harz—The Brocken, the Affenthaler valley—The castle of Falconstein—Proposal for a monument to Goethe—Return to Italy over the Brenner—My travelling companions—Florence, the Perseus and the Loggia dei Lanzi—The inspired evangelists of art—I saw my estimable friends the Villaris again—On my way to Rome | 255 |
| LXIV. |
| A young Jesuit—The lake of Perugia and the hill cities—Urbs recondita, cittÁ rovinata—The Pantheon, the palace of the CÆsars that was—The skeleton of the Forum—The antiquarian genius—The transfiguration of Rome and the Transfiguration of Raphael—The Laocoon—The Apollo Belvidere, alias Lord Chesterfield’s transfiguration—The Ariadne—The Athlete, at the end of a Via di Scolpitura—The Barbarini Palace and Beatrice Cenci—The Ghetto, the Cenci palace—The Romans proud of Rome—A worn-out pedigree—The Corso, the Piazza Colonna—St. Paul replaces Marcus Aurelius Antoninus—The obelisk in the Piazza di Monti Clitorio—The Palazzo Doria Pamfili—Upstairs to the Capitol—Stopped on one’s way by two lions spurting water—Castor and Pollux; their nags—The Campidoglio—Marcus Aurelius taking his ride into future times—The museum of the modern Capitol | 265 |
| LXV. |
| “What come ye for to see?”—The graves of Keats and Shelley—The church of San Paolo fuori—St. Peter’s rise from the dead—The tomb of the Scipios—The catacombs of the early Christians—The old cloisters of San Paolo—St. Peter’s palace, the Vatican—The Sixtine Chapel in which Michael Angelo re-creates the world | 275 |
| LXVI. |
| Faithful to England for a time—A summer passed at Ballenstedt—The castle of Blankenburg, the billiard-room and chapel—The situation of Ballenstedt: forest, hills, and lakes—Its vicinity to the Affenthaler valley—Reflections on paper—I am my own posterity—My writings since my eightieth year have delivered my message—The human comedy—I insinuate that I am the only English epigrammatist, par excellence—The general incapacity of appreciation—Short poems have often a biographic flavour—Further useless reflections—The almost imperceptible difference between man and man | 280 |
| LXVII. |
| The importance of religion, being a sermon preached to stones—I essay to hope backwards, and fail | 286 |
| LXVIII. |
| Philographs
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