According to the pathetic, and on the face of it accurately truthful, account of the close of his life in Mr. Forster’s admirable and most graphic life of him, I never knew Landor. For the more than octogenarian old man whom I knew at Florence was clearly not the Landor whom England had known and admired for so many and such honoured years. Of all the painful story of the regrettable circumstances which caused him to seek his last home in Florence it would be mere impertinence in me to speak, after the lucid, and at the same time delicately-touched, account of them which his biographer has given.

I may say, however, that even after the many years of his absence from Florence there still lingered a traditional remembrance of him a sort of Landor legend which made all us Anglo-Florentines of those days very sure, that however blamable his conduct (with reference to the very partially understood story of the circumstances that caused him to leave England) may have been in the eyes of lawyers or of moralists, the motives and feelings that had actuated him must have been generous and chivalrous. Had we been told that, finding a brick wall in a place where he thought no wall should be, he had forthwith proceeded to batter it down with his head, though it was not his wall but another’s, we should have recognised in the report the Landor of the myths that remained among us concerning him. But that while in any degree compos mentis he had under whatever provocation acted in a base, or cowardly, or mean, or underhand manner, was, we considered, wholly impossible.

There were various legendary stories current in Florence in those days of his doings in the olden time. Once so said the tradition he knocked a man down in the street, was brought before the delegato, as the police magistrate was called, and promptly fined one piastre, value about four and sixpence; whereupon he threw a sequin (two piastres) down upon the table and said that it was unnecessary to give him any change, inasmuch as he purposed knocking the man down again as soon as he left the court. We, poteri, as regarded the date of the story, were all convinced that the true verdict in the matter was that of the old Cornish jury, “Sarved un right.”

Landor, as I remember him, was a handsome-looking old man, very much more so, I think, than he could have been as a young man, to judge by the portrait prefixed to Mr. Forster’s volumes. He was a man of somewhat leonine aspect as regards the general appearance and expression of the head and face, which accorded well with the large and massive build of the figure, and to which a superbly curling white beard added not only picturesqueness, but a certain nobility.

Landor had been acquainted with the Garrows, and with my first wife at Torquay; and the acquaintance was quickly renewed during his last years at Florence. He would frequently come to our house in the Piazza dell’ Independenza, and chat for a while, generally after he had sat silent for some little time; for he used to appear fatigued by his walk. Later, when his walks and his visits had come to an end, I used often to visit him in “the little house under the wall of the city, directly back of the Carmine, in a bye-street called the Via Nunziatina, not far from that in which the Casa Guidi stands,” which Mr. Forster thus describes. I continued these visits, always short, till very near the close; for whether merely from the perfect courtesy which was a part of his nature, or whether because such interruptions of the long morning hours were really welcome to him, he never allowed me to leave him without bidding me come again.

I remember him asking me after my mother at one of the latest of these visits. I told him that she was fairly well, was not suffering, but that she was becoming very deaf. “Dead, is she?” he cried, for he had heard me imperfectly, “I wish I was! I can’t sleep,” he added, “but I very soon shall, soundly too, and all the twenty-four hours round.” I used often to find him reading one of the novels of his old friend G.P.R. James, and he hardly ever failed to remark that he was a “woonderful” writer; for so he pronounced the word, which was rather a favourite one with him.

It was a singular thing that Landor always dropped his aspirates. He was, I think, the only man in his position in life whom I ever heard do so. That a man who was not only by birth a gentleman, but was by genius and culture and such culture! very much more, should do this, seemed to me an incomprehensible thing. I do not think he ever introduced the aspirate where it was not needed, but he habitually spoke of ’and, ’ead, and ’ouse.

Even very near the close, when he seemed past caring for anything, the old volcanic fire still lived beneath its ashes, and any word which touched even gently any of his favourite and habitual modes of thought was sure to bring forth a reply uttered with a vivacity of manner quite startling from a man who the moment before had seemed scarcely alive to what you were saying to him. To what extent this old volcanic fire still burned may be estimated from a story which was then current in Florence. The circumstances were related to me in a manner that seemed to me to render it impossible to doubt the truth of them. But I did not see the incident in question, and therefore cannot assert that it took place. The attendance provided for him by the kindly care of Mr. Browning, as narrated by Mr. Forster, was most assiduous and exact, as I had many opportunities of observing. But one day when he had finished his dinner, thinking that the servant did not come to remove the things so promptly as she ought to have done, he took the four corners of the table-cloth (so goes the story), and thus enveloping everything that was on the table, threw the whole out of the window.

I received many notes from Landor, for the most part on trifling occasions, and possessing little interest. They were interesting, however, to the race of autograph collectors, and they have all been coaxed out of me at different times, save one. I have, however, in my possession several letters from him to my father-in-law, Mr. Garrow, many passages in which are so characteristic that I am sure my readers will thank me for giving them, as I am about to do. The one letter of his that remains to me is, as the reader will see, not altogether without value as a trait of character. The young lady spoken of in it is the same from whose papers in the Atlantic Monthly, entitled “Last Days of Walter Savage Landor,” Mr. Forster has gleaned, as he says, one or two additional glimpses of him in his last Florence home. The letter is without date, and runs as follows:

“MY DEAR SIR, Let me confess to you that I am not very willing that it should be believed desirous” [he evidently meant to write either ‘that I should be believed desirous,’ or ’that it should be believed that I am desirous’] “of scattering my image indiscriminately over the land. On this sentiment I forbade Mr. Forster to prefix an engraving of me over my collected works. If Miss Field wishes one more photograph, Mr. Alinari may send it to her, and I enclose the money to pay for it. With every good wish for your glory and prosperity,

“I remain, my dear sir,

“Very truly yours,

“W.S. LANDOR.”

The writing is that of a sadly shaking hand. The lady’s request would unquestionably have been more sure of a favourable response had she preferred it in person, instead of doing so through me. But I suspect from the phrase “one more,” and the underlining of the word one, that she had already received from him more than one photograph, and was ashamed to make yet another application. But she had led, or allowed, me to imagine that she was then asking for the first time. The care to send the money for the price of the photograph was a characteristic touch. Miss Field was, I well remember, a great favourite with Landor. I remember her telling me that he wished to give her a very large sort of scrap book, in which, among a quantity of things of no value, there were, as I knew, some really valuable drawings; and asking me whether she should accept it, her own feeling leaning to the opinion that she ought not to do so, in which view I strongly concurred. If I remember right the book had been sent to her residence, and had to be sent back again, not without danger of seriously angering him.

Here are the letters I have spoken of, written by Landor to Mr. Garrow. They are all undated save by the day of the month, but the post-marks show them to have been all written in 1836-8. The first is a very long letter, almost the whole of which is about a quarrel between husband and wife, both friends of the writer, which it would serve no good purpose to publish. The following passage from it, however, must not be lost:

“What egregious blockheads must those animals have been who discover a resemblance to my style in Latin or other quotations. I have no need of crutches. I can walk forward without anybody’s arm; and if I wanted one, I should not take an old one in preference. Not only do I think that quotations are deformities and impediments, but I am apt to believe that my own opinion, at least in those matters of which I venture to treat, is quite as good as any other man’s, living or dead. If their style is better than my own, it would be bad policy to insert it; if worse, I should be like a tailor who would recommend his abilities by engrafting an old sleeve on a new coat.... Southey tells me that he has known his lady more than twenty years, that the disproportion of their ages is rational, and that having only one daughter left, his necessary absences would be irksome to her. Whatever he does, is done wisely and virtuously. As for Rogers, almost an octogenarian, be it on his own head! A dry nettle tied to a rose-bud, just enough life in it to sting, and that’s all Lady Blessington would be delighted at any fresh contribution from Miss Garrow. Let it be sent to her at Gore House. I go there to-morrow for ten days, then into Warwickshire, then to Southampton. But I have not given up all hope of another jaunt to Torquay. Best compliments to the ladies.

“Yours ever,

“W.S.L.”

The following is dated the 15th of November, 1837 just half a century ago!

“35, ST. JAMES’S SQUARE, BATH.

“I should be very ungrateful if I did not often think of you. But among my négligences, I must regret that I did not carry away with me the address of our friend Bezzi.” [A Piedmontese refugee who was a very intimate friend of Garrow’s. I knew him in long subsequent years, when political changes had made it possible for him to return to Italy. He was a very clever and singularly brilliant man, whose name, I think, became known to the English public in connection with the discovery of the celebrated portrait of Dante on a long whitewashed wall of the Bargello, in Florence. There was some little jealousy about the discovery between him and Kirkup. The truth was that Kirkup’s large and curious antiquarian knowledge led him to feel sure that the picture must be there, under the whitewash; while Bezzi’s influence with the authorities succeeded in getting the wall cleared of its covering.] “I am anxious to hear how he endures his absence from Torquay, and I will write to him the moment I hear of him. Tell Miss Garrow that the muses like the rustle of dry leaves almost as well as the whispers of green ones. If she doubts it, entreat her on my part to ask the question of them. Nothing in Bath is vastly interesting to me now. Two or three persons have come up and spoken to me whom I have not seen for a quarter of a century. Of these faces I recollect but one, and it was the ugliest! By the same token but here the figure of aposiopesis is advantageous to me old Madam Burridge, of my lodgings, has sent me three large forks and one small, which I left behind. She forgot to send another of each. What is worse, I left behind me a three-faced seal, which I think I once showed you. It was enclosed in a black rough case. This being of the time of Henry the Eighth, and containing the arms of my family connections, I value far above a few forks, or a few dozens. It cannot be worth sixpence to whoever has it. One of the engravings was a greyhound with an arrow through him, a crest of my grandmother’s, whose maiden name was Noble. If you pass by, pray ask about it not that I am ever disappointed at the worst result of an inquiry. I am afraid the ladies of your house will think me imprudent; and what must be their opinion, if you let it transpire that I have furthermore invested a part of my scrip in the beaver trade. Offer my best regards to them all, and believe me,

“My dear sir,

“Yours very sincerely,

“W.S.L.”

The following is dated only January 2nd, but the post-mark shows it to have been written from Bath on that day, 1838.

“MY DEAR SIR, Yesterday there were lying across my fender three or four sheets of paper, quite in readiness to dry themselves, and receive my commands. One of these, I do assure you, was destined for Torquay, but the interruption of visitors would allow me time only to cover half a one with my scrawl. Early last week I wrote a long letter to Bezzi, but wanted the courage to send it. I wish him to remain in England as much almost as you yourself can do. But if after promising his lady” [it is noteworthy that such a master of English as Landor, should use, now for the second time in these letters, this ugly phrase] “to let her try the air of Italy, he should withdraw, she might render his life less comfortable by reproaches not altogether unmerited. When she gets there she will miss her friends; she will hear nothing but a language which is unknown to her, and will find that no change of climate can remove her ailments. I offered my house to Bezzi some time ago, with its two gardens and a hundred acres of land, all for a hundred a year. But I am confident my son will never remain in England, and after the expiration of the year will return to Tuscany. Bezzi cannot find another house, even without garden, for that money. James paid for a worse twelve louis a month, although he took it for eight months. So the houses in Tuscany are very far from inviting to an economist, although vastly less expensive than at Torquay, the rival of Naples in this respect as in beauty.... I have found my seal in a waistcoat pocket. I do not think the old woman stole the forks, but she knew they were stolen.... Kenyon has something of Falstaff about him, both in the physical and the moral. But he is a friendly man, of rare judgment in literary works, and of talents that only fall a little short of genius.

“God preserve you from your Belial Bishop!” [Philpotts]. “What an incumbent! I would not see the rascal once a month to be as great a man as Mr. Shedden, or as sublime a genius as Mr. Wise,” [word under the seal] “would drown me in bile or poison me with blue pills. A society has been formed here, of which the members have come to the resolution of making inquiries at every house about the religion of the inmates, what places of worship they attend, &c., &c. Is not it hard upon a man, who has changed a couple of sovereigns into half-crowns for Christmas boxes, to be forced to spend ten shillings for a horsewhip, when he no longer has a horse? Our weather here is quite as mild and beautiful as it can possibly be at Torquay. Miss Garrow, I trust, has listened to the challenges of the birds, and sung a new song. As Bezzi is secretary and librarian, I must apply to him for it, unless she will condescend to trust me with a copy. I will now give you a specimen of my iron seal, brass setting and pewter mending.

“Yours ever,

“W.S.L.”

The mention of Bishop Philpotts (though not by name) in the foregoing letter, reminds me of a story which used to be told of him, and which is too good to be lost, even though thus parenthetically told. When at Torquay he used to frequent a small church, in which the service was at that time performed by a very young curate of the extra gentle butter-won’t-melt-in-his-mouth kind, who had much objection to the phrase in the Communion service, “eateth and drinketh his own damnation,” and ventured somewhat tremblingly to substitute “condemnation” for the word which offended him. Whereupon the orthodox Bishop reared his head, as he knelt with the rest of the congregation and roared aloud “Damnation!” Whether the curate had to be carried out fainting, I don’t remember.

The next letter of Landor’s that I have is dated 13th April, St. James’s Square, Bath. The postmark shows that it was written in 1838.

“MY DEAR SIR, I have had Kenyon here these last four days. He tells me that he saw Bezzi in London, and that we may entertain some hopes that he will be induced to remain in England. All he wants is some employment; and surely his powerful friends among the Whigs could easily procure him it. But the Whigs of all scoundrelly factions, are, and have ever been, the most scoundrelly, the most ungenerous, the most ungrateful. What have they done for Fonblanque, who could have kicked them overboard on his toe-nail? Their abilities put together are less than a millionth of his; and his have been constantly and most zealously exerted in their favour. My first conversation with Kenyon was about the publication of his poems, which are just come out. They are in part extremely clever; particularly one on happiness and another on the shrine of the Virgin. He was obliged to print them at his own expense; and his cousin, Miss Barrett, who also has written a few poems of no small merit, could not find a publisher. These, however, bear no proportion to Miss Garrow’s. Yet I doubt whether publishers and the folks they consult would find out that.

“Southey was about to write to me when his brothers death, by which six children come under his care, interrupted him. I wish I possessed one or two of Miss Garrow’s beautiful poems, that I might ask his opinion and advice about them. His opinion I know would be the same as mine; but his advice is what I want. Surely it cannot be requisite and advantageous to withhold them from the world so long as you imagine. In one single year both enough of materials and of variety for a volume might be collected and prepared. Would Miss Garrow let me offer one to the Book of Beauty? I shall be with Lady Blessington the last day of the present month. One of the best poems of our days” [on death], “appeared in the last Book of Beauty. But in general its poetry is very indifferent. With best regards to the ladies,

“I am ever, my dear sir,

“Yours most sincerely,

“W.S.L.”

The following, dated merely “Gore House, Sunday morning,” was written, or at least posted, on the 14th May, 1838.

“MY DEAR SIR, It is impossible you should not often have thought me negligent and ungrateful. Over and over again have I redd [sic], the incomparably fine poetry you sent me; and intended that Lady Blessington should partake in the high enjoyment it afforded me. I had promised her to be at Gore House toward the end of April, but I had not the courage to face all my friends. However, here I came on Friday evening; and before I went to bed I redd to her ladyship what I promised her. She was enchanted. I then requested her to toss aside some stuff of mine, and to make way for it in the next Book of Beauty. The gods, as Homer says, granted half my prayer, and it happened to be (what was not always the case formerly) the better half. She will insert both. It is only by some such means as that that the best poetry in our days comes with mincing step into popularity. Mine being booted and spurred, both ladies and gentlemen get out of the way of it, and look down at it with a touch of horror.

“Now for news, and about your neighbours. Captain Ackland is going to marry a niece of Massy Dawson. Mischievous things are said about poor Lady M , all false, you may be sure. Admiral Aylmer after all his services under Nelson, &c., &c., is unable to procure a commission in the marines for his nephew, Frederick Paynter. Lord A. will not ask. I am a suitor to all the old women I know, and shall fail too, for it is not the thing they want me to ask of them.

“I see two new Deputy Lord-Lieutenants have been appointed for the County of Monmouth. My estate there is larger than the Lord Lieutenant’s; yet even this mark of respect has not been paid me. It might be, safely. I shall consider myself sold to the devil, and for more than my value, when I accept any distinction, or anything else from any man living. The Whigs are growing unpopular, I hear. I hope never to meet any of them. Last night, however, I talked a little with Grantley Berkeley, and told him a bit of my mind. You see, I have not much more room in my paper, else I should be obliged to tell you that the bells are ringing, and that I have only just time to put on my gloves for church.

“Adieu, and believe me with kindly regards to the ladies,

“Yours,

“W.S.L.”

The last in this series of letters which has reached my hands is altogether undated, but appears by the post-mark to have been written from Bath, 19th July, 1838.

“MY DEAR SIR, There is one sentence in your letter which shocked me not a little. You say ’The Whigs have not offered you a Deputy Lieutenantcy; so cheap a distinction could not have hurt them. But then you are too proud to ask,’ &c. Do you really suppose that I would have accepted it even if it had been offered? No, by God! I would not accept any distinction even if it were offered by honest men. I will have nothing but what I can take. It is, however, both an injustice and an affront to confer this dignity on low people, who do not possess a fourth of my property, and whose family is as ignoble as Lord Melbourne’s own, and not to have offered the same to me. In the eleventh page of the Letters I published after the quelling of Bonaparte are these words: ’I was the first to abjure the party of the Whigs, and shall be the last to abjure the principles. When the leaders had broken all their promises to the nation, had shown their utter incapacity to manage its affairs, and their inclination to crouch before the enemy, I permitted my heart after some struggles to subside and repose in the cool of this reflection Let them escape. It is only the French nation that ever dragged such feebleness to the scaffold,’ Again, page 35 ’Honest men, I confess, have generally in the present times an aversion to the Whig faction, not because it is suitable either to honesty or understanding to prefer the narrow principles of the opposite party, but because in every country lax morals wish to be and are identified with public feeling, and because in our own a few of the very best have been found in an association with the very worst.’ Whenever the Tories have deviated from their tenets, they have enlarged their views and exceeded their promises. The Whigs have always taken an inverse course. Whenever they have come into power, they have previously been obliged to slight those matters, and to temporise with those duties, which they had not the courage either to follow or to renounce.

“And now, my dear sir, to pleasanter matters. I have nothing in the press, and never shall have. I gave Forster all my works, written or to be written. Neither I nor my family shall have anything to do with booksellers. They say a new edition of my Imaginary Conversations is called for. I have sent Forster a dozen or two of fresh ones, but I hope he will not hazard them before my death, and will get a hundred pounds or near it for the whole.

“If ever I attended a public dinner, I should like to have been present at that which the people gave to you. Never let them be quiet until the Church has gone to the devil, its lawful owner, and till something a little like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are to be Lords, it is but right and reasonable that the Queen should be Pope. Indeed, I have no objection to this, but I have to the other. What a singularity it is that those who profess a belief in Christ do not obey Him, while those who profess it in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh are obedient to their precepts, if not in certain points of morality, in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, but a vile writer, worse than Bulwer. I breakfasted in company with him at Milman’s. Macaulay was there, a clever clown, and Moore too, whom I had not seen till then. Between those two Scotchmen he appeared like a glow-worm between two thistles. There were several other folks, literary and half literary, Lord Northampton, &c., &c. I forgot Rogers. Milman has written the two best volumes of poetry we have seen lately; but when Miss Garrow publishes hers I am certain there will be a total eclipse of them. My friend Hare’s brother, who married a sister of the impudent coxcomb, Edward Stanley, has bought a house at Torquay, and Hare tells me that unless he goes to Sicily be shall be there in winter. If so, we may meet; but Bath is my dear delight in all seasons. I have been sitting for my picture, and have given it to Mrs. Paynter. It is admirably executed by Fisher.

“Yours ever,

“W.S.L.”

These letters are all written upon the old-fashioned square sheet of letter paper, some gilt-edged, entirely written over, even to the turned-down ends, and heavily sealed.

Mr. Forster says no word about the Deputy-Lieutenantcy, and Landor’s anger and disgust in connection with it. He must necessarily have known all about it, but probably in the exuberance of his material did not think it worth mentioning. But it evidently left almost as painful an impression on Landor’s mind as the famous refusal of the Duke of Beaufort to appoint him a justice of the peace.

During the later portion of my life at Florence, and subsequently at Rome, Mr. G.P. Marsh and his very charming wife were among our most valued friends for many years. Marsh was an exception to the prevailing American rule, which for the most part changes their diplomatists with the change of President. He had been United States minister at Constantinople and at Turin before he came to Florence with the Italian monarchy. At Rome he was “the Dean” of the diplomatic body, and on many occasions various representative duties fell upon him as such which were especially unwelcome to him. The determination of the Great Powers to send ambassadors to the Court of the Quirinal instead of ministers plenipotentiary, as previously, came as a great boon to Mr. Marsh. For as the United States send no ambassadors, his position as longest in office of all the diplomatic body no longer placed him at the head of it.

Mr. Marsh was a man of very large and varied culture. A thorough classical scholar and excellent modern linguist, philology was perhaps his most favourite pursuit. He wrote various books, his best I think a very large octavo volume, entitled not very happily Man in Nature. The subject of it is the modifications and alterations which this planet has undergone at the hands of man. His subject leads him to consider much at large the denudation of mountains, which has caused and is causing such calamitous mischief in Italy and the south of France. He shows very convincingly and interestingly that the destruction of forests causes not only floods in winter and spring, but drought in summer and autumn. And the efforts which have recently been made in Italy to take some steps towards the reclothing of the mountain sides, have in great measure been due to his work, which has been largely circulated in an Italian translation.

The following letter which I select from many received from him, is not without interest. It is dated 30th November, 1867.

“DEAR SIR, I return you Layard’s article, which displays his usual marked ability, and has given me much pleasure as well as instruction. I should much like to know what are his grounds for believing that ’a satisfactory settlement of this Roman question would have been speedily brought about with the concurrence of the Italian Government and the Liberal party in Rome, and with the tacit consent of the Emperor of the French, had it not been for the untoward enterprise of Garibaldi,’ . I certainly have not the slightest ground for believing any such thing; nor do I understand to whom the settlement referred to would have been ‘satisfactory.’ Does Mr. Layard suppose that any conceivable arrangement would be satisfactory both to the Papacy and to Italian Liberals out of Rome? The Government of Italy, which changes as often as the moon, might have accepted something which would have satisfied Louis Napoleon, Antonelli, and the three hundred nobili of Rome, who waited at dinner, napkin on arm, on the Antiboini, to whom they gave an entertainment, but the people?

“I send you one of Ferretti’s pamphlets, which please keep. And I enclose in the package two of Tuckerman’s books. If you could turn over the leaves of these and say to me in a note that they impress you favourably, and that you are not displeased with his magazine article, I will make him a happy man by sending him the note.

“Very truly yours,

“GEO.P. MARSH.”

I did more than “turn over the leaves” of the book sent, and did very truly say that they had interested me much. It is rather suggestive to reflect how utterly unintelligible to the present generation must be the term “Antiboini” in the above letter, without a word of explanation. The highly unpopular and objectionable “Papal Legion” had been in great part recruited from Antibes, and were hence nicknamed “Antiboini,” and not, as readers of the present day might fairly imagine, from having been the opponents of any “boini.”

The personal qualities of Mr. Marsh had obtained for him a great, and I may indeed say, exceptional degree of consideration and regard from his colleagues of the diplomatic body, and from the Italian ministers and political world generally. And I remember one notable instance of the manifestation of this, which I cannot refrain from citing. Mr. Marsh had written home to his Government some rather trenchantly unfavourable remarks on some portion of the then recent measures of the Italian Ministry. And by some awkward accident or mistake these had found their way into the columns of an American newspaper. The circumstances might have given rise to very disagreeable and mischievous complications and results. But the matter was suffered to pass without any official observation solely from the high personal consideration in which Mr. Marsh was held, not only at the Consulta (the Roman Foreign Office), but at the Quirinal, and in many a Roman salon.

Mr. Marsh died full of years and honours at a ripe old age. But the closing scene of his life was remarkable from the locality of it. He had gone to pass the hot season at Vallombrosa, where a comfortable hotel replaces the old forestieria of the monastery, while a School of Forestry has been established by the Government within its walls. Amid those secular shades the old diplomatist and scholar breathed his last, and could not have done so in a more peaceful spot. But the very inaccessible nature of the place made it a question of some difficulty how the body should be transported in properly decorous fashion to the railway station in the valley below a difficulty which was solved by the young scholars of the School of Forestry, who turned out in a body to have the honour of bearing on their shoulders the remains of the man whose writings had done so much to awaken the Government to the necessity of establishing the institution to which they belonged.

Mrs. Marsh, for so many years the brightest ornament of the Italo-American society, and equally admired and welcomed by the English colony, first at Florence and then at Rome, still lives for the equal delight of her friends on the other side of the Atlantic. I may not, therefore, venture to say more of “what I remember” of her, than that it abundantly accounts for the feeling of an unfilled void, which her absence occasioned and occasions in both the American and English world on the banks of the Tiber.