Correspondence to this effect—­all on my side—­with her parents decided mine to hasten my removal abroad.  It had always been intended that I should study in Padua, rather than in Paris or Salamanca, if for no better reason than that that had been Father Danvers’ University, and that he knew many of the professors there—­among others, Dr. Porfirio Lanfranchi, who became my host and guardian, and had been class-mate and room-mate of our chaplain’s.  These things matter very little:  I was not consulted in them, and had no objections, as I had no inclinations, for any particular residence in the world.  Before my twenty-first birthday—­ I forget the exact date—­the hour arrived when I received on my knees my mother’s tearful blessing, embraced my brothers and sisters, kissed my father’s hand, and departed for Oxford, where I caught the London mail; and, after a short sojourn in the capital, left England for ever.

I conceive that few further prolegomena are necessary to the understanding of the pages which follow.  Before I touched the Italian soil I was, in the eyes of our law, a grown man, sufficiently robust and moderately well-read.  I was able to converse adequately in French, tolerably in Italian, had a fair acquaintance with the literatures of those countries, some Latin, a poor stock of Greek.  I believe that I looked younger than my age, stronger than my forces, better than my virtues warranted.  Women have praised me for good looks, which never did me any good that I know of; I may say without vanity that I had the carriage and person of a gentleman.  I was then, as I have ever been, truly religious, though I have sometimes found myself at variance with the professional exponents of it.  In later years I became, I believe, something of a mystic, apt to find the face of God under veils whose quality did not always commend itself to persons of less curious research.  On the other hand, I do not pretend to have kept the Decalogue of Moses in its integrity, but admit that I have varied it as my occasions seemed to demand.  I have slain my fellow-man more than once, but never without deliberate intention so to do.  If I have trespassed with King David of Israel, I feel sure that the circumstances of my particular offence are not discreditable to me; and it is possible that he had the same conviction.  For the rest, I have purposely discarded many things which the world is agreed to think highly necessary to a gentleman, but which I have proved to be of no value at all.  I will only add this one observation more.  For my unparalleled misfortunes in every kind of character and dangerous circumstance I am willing to admit that I have nobody to thank but myself.  And yet—­but the reader must be judge—­I do not see how, in any single case, I could have acted otherwise than as I did.  What, then! we carry our fates with us from the cradle to the grave, even as the Spinning Women themselves wind that which was appointed them to wind, and ply the shears and make fruitless their toil when they must; and all that we acquire upon our journey does but make that burden more certainly ours.  What was I but a predestined wanderer—­and fool if you will—­burdened with my inheritance of honourable blood, of religion, of candour, and of unprejudiced enquiry?  How under the sun could I—–?  But let the reader be judge.