Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part.  And the phrase is justified by my having acted it many years afterwards in a totally different company—­I the only remaining brick of the old edifice—­and to audiences not one of whom could have witnessed the performances of those earlier days.  Mrs. Richie, an American lady—­who had, I think, been known on a London stage under the name of “Mowatt”—­was in those latter days, now so far away in the dim past, our manageress.  Mrs. Proby, the wife, now I am sorry to say the widow, of the British Consul, was on that occasion our Mrs. Malaprop, and was an excellent representative of that popular lady, though she will, I am sure, forgive me for saying not so perfect a one as my mother.

Quite indescribably strange is the effect on my mind of looking back at my three Thespian avatars—­Falstaff at Cincinnati, Acres and Sir Anthony in Grand Ducal Florence, and Sir Anthony again in a liberated Tuscany!  I seem to myself like some old mail-coach guard, who goes through the whole long journey, while successive coachmen “Leave you here, sir!” But then in my case the passengers are all changed too; and I arrive at the end of the journey without one “inside” or “outside” of those who started with me!  I can still blow my horn cheerily, however, and chat with the passengers, who joined the coach when my journey was half done, as if they were quite old fellow travellers!

It must not be imagined, however, that that pleasant life at Florence was all cakes and ale.

I was upon the whole a hard worker.  I wrote a series of volumes on various portions of Italian, and especially Florentine, history, beginning with The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici.  They were all fairly well received, the Life of Filippo Strozzi perhaps the most so.  But the volume on the story of the great quarrel between the Papacy and Venice, entitled Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar, was, I think, the best.  The volumes entitled A Decade of Italian Women, and dealing with ten typical historic female figures, has attained, I believe, to some share of public favour.  I see it not unfrequently quoted by writers on Italian subjects.  Then I made a more ambitious attempt, and produced a History of the Commonwealth of Florence, in four volumes.

Such a work appeals, of course, to a comparatively limited audience.  But that it was recognised to have some value among certain Anglo-Saxons whose favourable judgment in the matter was worth having, may be gathered from the fact that it has been a text-book in our own and in transatlantic universities; while a verdict perhaps still more flattering (though I will not say more gratifying) was given by Professor Pasquale Villari (now senator of the kingdom of Italy), who, in a letter in my possession, pronounces my history of Florence to be in his opinion the best work on the subject extant.