It was during this second visit that I became acquainted with Henry
Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling, and at that time first secretary of
the British legation. My visits were generally, perhaps always, paid
to him when he was in bed, where he was lying confined by, if I
remember rightly, a broken leg, I used to find his bed covered with
papers and blue-books, and the like. And I was told that the whole, or
at all events the more important part of the business of the embassy
was done by him as he lay there on the bed, which must have been for
many a long hour a bed of suffering.
Despite certain affectations--which were so palpably affectations, and
scarcely pretended to be aught else, that there was little or nothing
annoying or offensive in them--he was a very agreeable man, and was
unquestionably a very brilliant one. He came to dine with me, I
remember, many years afterwards at my house in Florence, when he
insisted (the dining-room being on the first floor) on being carried
up stairs, as we thought at the time very unnecessarily. But for
aught I know such suspicion may have wronged him. At all events his
disability, whatever it may have been, did not prevent him from making
himself very agreeable.
One of our guests upon that same occasion (I must drag the mention of
the fact in head and shoulders here, or else I shall forget it), was
that extraordinary man, Baron Ward, who was, or perhaps I ought to say
at that time had been, prime minister and general administrator to the
Duke of Lucca.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53