ships cruising in those waters.  Every ship was a home, and every officer a friend.  He had a boundless capacity for good-fellowship.  At Messina he chronicles the brilliant spectacle of Lord Nelson’s fleet passing through the straits in search of the French fleet that had lately got out of Toulon.  In less than a year Nelson’s young admirer was one of the thousands that pressed to see the remains of the great admiral as they lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the flag that had floated at the masthead of the Victory.

From Sicily he passed over to Naples in a fruit boat which dodged the cruisers, and reached Rome the last of March.  Here he remained several weeks, absorbed by the multitudinous attractions.  In Italy the worlds of music and painting were for the first time opened to him.  Here he made the acquaintance of Washington Allston, and the influence of this friendship came near changing the whole course of his life.  To return home to the dry study of the law was not a pleasing prospect; the masterpieces of art, the serenity of the sky, the nameless charm which hangs about an Italian landscape, and Allston’s enthusiasm as an artist, nearly decided him to remain in Rome and adopt the profession of a painter.  But after indulging in this dream, it occurred to him that it was not so much a natural aptitude for the art as the lovely scenery and Allston’s companionship that had attracted him to it.  He saw something of Roman society; Torlonia the banker was especially assiduous in his attentions.  It turned out when Irving came to make his adieus that Torlonia had all along supposed him a relative of General Washington.  This mistake is offset by another that occurred later, after Irving had attained some celebrity in England.  An English lady passing through an Italian gallery with her daughter stopped before a bust of Washington.  The daughter said, “Mother, who was Washington?” “Why, my dear, don’t you know?” was the astonished reply.  “He wrote the ‘Sketch-Book.’” It was at the house of Baron von Humboldt, the Prussian minister, that Irving first met Madame de Stael, who was then enjoying the celebrity of “Delphine.”  He was impressed with her strength of mind, and somewhat astounded at the amazing flow of her conversation, and the question upon question with which she plied him.

In May the wanderer was in Paris, and remained there four months, studying French and frequenting the theaters with exemplary regularity.  Of his life in Paris there are only the meagerest reports, and he records no observations upon political affairs.  The town fascinated him more than any other in Europe; he notes that the city is rapidly beautifying under the emperor, that the people seem gay and happy, and ’Vive la bagatelle!’ is again the burden of their song.  His excuse for remissness in correspondence was, “I am a young man and in Paris.”