Early one night in December 1827, the Blessingtons, the D’Orsays and Marianne Power arrived in Rome to find that the palace hired for their accommodation was entirely unsuitable and insufficient. House-hunting once again was the order of the day, the outcome being the renting of the two principal floors of the Palazzo Negroni for six months at one hundred guineas per month. Additional and doubtless unnecessary furniture was hired at a further cost of twenty guineas. It is quite amusing to hear of the domesticated Lady Blessington undertaking the transformation of countless yards of white muslin into window curtains and to see to a dozen or so of eiderdown pillows being recased so that the hardness of half-stuffed sofas might be softened. Her account of the advantages of possessing a fourgon must be given in her own words, which could not be re-written without diminishing their merit:—

“Thence comes the patent brass bed, that gives repose at night; and the copious supply of books, which ensure amusement during the day. Thence emerges the modern invention of easy-chairs and sofas to occupy the smallest space when packed; batteries de cuisine, to enable a cook to fulfil the arduous duties of his mÉtier; and, though last, not least, cases to contain the delicate chapeaux, toques, bÉrets; and bonnets of a Herbault, too fragile to bear the less easy motion of leathern bandboxes crowning imperials.”

Doubtless the noble authoress found it impossible to write unadulterated Saxon after listening through so many hours to D’Orsay’s gallant but broken English.

At this time there were many English folk in Rome, to accommodate whose insular fancies there were English shops, including a confectionery establishment, which contributed to the indigestions of the British and the entertainment of the Romans. It was the custom then for English travellers at Rome to make a point of doing what the Romans did not do; happily all that has been changed for the better and to-day the Britisher abroad, and equally his cousins from America, behave themselves with consideration and becoming modesty, always.

Here, as at Naples, D’Orsay made a large and interesting circle of friends. Among these was to be numbered the French Ambassador, the Duc de Laval-Montmorenci, an antique who afforded much amusement. He is described as having been a curious mixture of opposites; simple and at the same time acute, well-bred and clownish, ostentatious and prudent, witty and wise—the last a very rare combination; an old-fashioned beau in spite of his short memory and his deafness, his short sight and his unfortunate stammer; a capital hand at an anecdote, good-tempered, good-humoured. One of his quaint peculiarities was the habit of falling asleep during a conversation; then an awakening after a few minutes’ nap to exclaim:—“Oui, oui, vous avez bien raison, c’est clair: je vous fais mes compliments: c’est impossible d’Être plus juste.”

“Middle Ages” Hallam was another friend of these days, when also Walter Savage Landor was met again.

The time was passed in a round of merry makings by all save the silent child-wife.

Then in May their backs were turned upon Rome, or as Lady Blessington has it—“We leave the Eternal City—perhaps to see it no more. This presentiment filled me with sadness when I this evening from the Monte Pincio saw the golden sun sink beneath his purple clouds, his last beams tinging with a brilliant radiance the angel on the fortress of St Angelo, and the glorious dome of St Peter’s.”

Of all their friends the one with whom they were most loath to part was Sir William Gell, who when bidding farewell to Lady Blessington said: “You have been visiting our friend Drummond’s grave to-day, and if you ever come to Italy again, you will find me in mine.”

He died some eight years later, on 4th April 1836. Of his last days Keppel Craven wrote an account to Lady Blessington:—

“He never ceased, I don’t say for an hour, but an instant, to have a book open before him; and though he sometimes could not fix his eyes for two minutes at a time on its contents, he nevertheless understood it, and could afterwards talk of the work in a manner which proved, that while his mental powers were awake, they were as strong as ever—more especially his memory; but the state he was in, caused much confusion in his ideas of time and distance, of which he was aware, and complained of.”

The first Lord Lytton wrote of Gell: “I never knew so popular or so petted a man as Sir William Gell; every one seems to love him.”

Gell was a capital letter-writer, as the following example will suffice to show. In April 1824, he writes to Lady Blessington:

“I did really arrive at Rome … having experienced in the way every possible misfortune, except being overturned or carried into the mountains. In short, I know nothing to equal my journey, except the ninety-nine misfortunes of Pulicinella in a Neapolitan puppet-show. I set out without my cloak in an open carriage; my only hope of getting warmer at St Agatha was destroyed by an English family, who had got possession of the only chimney. I had a dreadful headache, which, by-the-bye, recollecting to have lost at your house by eating an orange, I tried again with almost immediate effect. Next morning one grey horse fell ill at the moment of being put to the carriage, and has continued so ever since, so that I have had to buy another, which is so very (what they call) good, that it is nearly as useless as the other, so that I never go out without risking my neck. When, at length, I got to Rome in a storm of sleet, I found a bill of an hundred and fifty dollars against me for protecting useless lemon-trees against the frost of the winter, which, added to the expense of the new horse and the old one have ever since caused the horrors of a gaol to interpose themselves between me and every enjoyment, and so much for the ugly side of the question.”

Through Loretto, Ancona, Ravenna, Ferrara, Padua, the Blessingtons and company made their way to Venice, where they halted for several weeks, and where once again they forgathered with Landor. Then by Verona and Milan to Genoa, and in June 1828 they arrived in Paris.