George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[158] which have been bound up, and preserved here about a century. Nothing of the sort can be more interesting or curious, especially the many emendations of Milton's poems in his own hand.

Twenty years ago I remember being shown, at Ferrara, the original manuscript of Ariosto's ‘Orlando Furioso,’ and the old librarian pointed out to me, at the bottom of a blotted page, these words, with a date, all in pencil, ‘Vittorio Alfieri vide e venero,’ adding that when Alfieri wrote them, his tears fell so fast that they dropped on the paper and blistered it. It was impossible to avoid having something of the same feeling when looking at these venerable remains of two of the greatest men, in the opposite departments of science and poetry, that the world has ever seen . . . .

There was one thing, however, that Professor Smyth was anxious to show us, and we went, of course, to see it. It is an original portrait of Cromwell, kept in the apartments of the Master of Sydney College. It is in colored chalks, beyond all doubt done from the life, and done, too, after anxiety had made deep lines of care in his face. Smyth will have it that it justifies and illustrates completely the descriptions of his corroding sufferings, given by Hume with such vivacity, immediately after the death of Mrs. Claypole, and immediately before his own. In fact, Mr. Smyth had been carrying the volume of Hume with him all the morning round Cambridge, and now read the passage to us with great spirit and feeling, to justify his opinion. No doubt the picture is very striking, and so is Hume's account of Cromwell, and both belong to anything but a man of an easy or tranquil mind. But I doubt whether Cromwell ever suffered so much from remorse, as Hume, in this particular passage, supposes. Indeed, a few pages later he seems to admit it.

. . . . When we had rested, we went to dinner at Professor Smyth's. He has a very comfortable bachelor establishment in Peter House, the same, I think, that was occupied by Gray the poet, whose successor he is in the chair of History, a place given to him by Lord Lansdowne when the Whigs were in power, above thirty years ago. He received us in his library, which is well stored with a somewhat miscellaneous collection of books, in history and poetry, and the little party soon collected there to the number of eight or ten, including the Vice-Chancellor Worseley, Master of Downing, Mr.Skinner and Mrs. Skinner, counted among the agreeables of Cambridge, and Professor Peacock, counted among the very agreeable. We had a cheerful, pleasant time in the very comfortable dining-room. Worseley is more of a belles-lettres scholar and knows more continental literature than