We took boat near the lighthouse at the point of the right horn of the bay, which makes a sort of natural port for Genoa; but the wind was high, and the waves long and rough, so that I did not feel quite recompensed by the view of the city, splendid as it was, for the danger apparently incurred.  The boatman (I had only one) encouraged me, saying, we were quite safe; but I was not a little glad when we gained the shore, though Shelley and Byron—­one of them at least who seemed to have courted agitation from every quarter—­would have probably rejoiced in such a situation.  More than once, I believe, were they both in extreme danger even on the Lake of Geneva.  Every man, however, has his fears of some kind or other, and, no doubt, they had theirs.  Of all men whom I have ever known, Coleridge had the most of passive courage in bodily trial, but no one was so easily cowed when moral firmness was required in miscellaneous conversation or in the daily intercourse of social life.

300.

    ‘How lovely—­didst thou appear, Savona’ (ll. 209-11).

There is not a single bay along this beautiful coast that might not raise in a traveller a wish to take up his abode there; each as it succeeds seems more inviting than the other; but the desolated convent on the cliff in the bay of Savona struck my fancy most; and had I, for the sake of my own health or of that of a dear friend, or any other cause, been desirous of a residence abroad, I should have let my thoughts loose upon a scheme of turning some part of this building into a habitation, provided as far as might be with English comforts.  There is close by it a row, or avenue (I forget which), of tall cypresses.  I could not forbear saying to myself, ’What a sweet family walk, or one for lonely musings, would be found under the shade!’ but there probably the trees remain little noticed and seldom enjoyed.

301. p ‘_This flowering Broom’s dear Neighbourhood_’ (l. 378). p

The Broom is a great ornament through the months of March and April to the vales and hills of the Apennines, in the wild part of which it blows in the utmost profusion, and of course successively at different elevations as the season advances.  It surpasses ours in beauty and fragrance; but, speaking from my own limited observation only, I cannot affirm the same of several of their wild Spring flowers, the primroses in particular, which I saw not unfrequently but thinly scattered and languishing as compared with ours.

302. The Religious Movement in the English Church.

In the printed Notes there is the following on Aquapendente:  ’It would be ungenerous not to advert to the religious movement that, since the composition of these verses in 1837, has made itself felt, more or less strongly, throughout the English Church; a movement that takes for its first principle a devout deference to the voice of Christian antiquity.  It is not my office to pass judgment on questions of theological