But the colloquial use of a language must be acquired when the organs are young and lissom.  I began too late.  And besides, I have laboured under the great disadvantage that my deafness prevents me from sharing in the hourly lessons which those who hear all that is going on around them profit by.

Besides the above-mentioned historical works, I wrote well nigh a score, I think, of novels, which also had no great, but a fair, share of success.  The majority of them are on Italian subjects; and these, if I may be allowed to say so, are good.  The pictures they give of Italian men and women and things and habits are true, vivid, and accurate.  Those which I wrote on English subjects are unquestionably bad.  I had been living the best part of a life-time out of England; I knew but little comparatively of English life, and I had no business to meddle with such subjects.  But besides all this, I was always writing in periodical publications of all sorts, English and American, to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if brought together, would exceed that of all the many volumes I am answerable for.  No! my life in that Castle of Indolence—­Italy—­was not a far-niente one!

We were great at picnics in those Florence days.  Perhaps the most favourite place of all for such parties was Pratolino, a park belonging to the Grand Duke, about seven miles from Florence, on the Bologna road.  These seven miles wave almost all more or less up hill, and when the high ground on which the park is situated has been reached, there is a magnificent view over the Val d’Arno, its thousand villas, and Florence, with its circle of surrounding hills.

There was once a grand ducal residence there, which was famous in the later Medicean days for the multiplicity and ingenuity of its water-works.  All kinds of surprises, picturesque and grotesque effects, and practical jokes, had been prepared by the ingenious, but somewhat childish skill of the architect.  Turning the handle of a door would produce a shower-bath, sofas would become suddenly boats surrounded by water, and such like more or less disagreeable surprises to visitors, who were new to the specialties of the place.  But all this practical joking was at length fatal to the scene of it.  The pipes and conduits got out of order, and eventually so ruined the edifice that it had to be taken down, and has never been replaced.

But the principal object of attraction—­besides the view, the charming green turf for dining on, the facility for getting hot water, plates, glasses, &c., from a gardeners house, and a large hall in the same, good for dancing—­was the singular colossal figure, representing “The Apennine,” said to have been designed by Michael Angelo.  One used to clamber up inside this figure, which sits in a half crouching attitude, and reach on the top of the head a platform, on which four or five persons could stand and admire the matchless view.