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 Another Random Document on
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tomb of the three kings said to be worth three millions of francs, and
an immensely rich treasury wherein was a sacrament worth one
million of francs. In falling down a step I broke a glass, for which
they at first would not take anything—which at last cost me three
francs. Kept countenance amazingly well.
Went to see St. Ursula's Church, where we were shown virgins'
skulls of ninety years old, male and female, all jumbled into a mass
of 11,000 virgins' bones arranged all in order—some gilt, etc. A
whole room bedecked with them. All round, indeed, whatever we
saw were relics, skulls; some in the heads of silver-faced busts,
some arranged in little cells with velvet cases, wherein was worked
the name of each. Paintings of St. Ursula, etc. Asked for a piece out
of the masses: only got a smile, and a point of a finger to an
interdiction in Latin, which I did not read.
We went to see a picture of Rubens, The Nailing of St. Peter to a
Cross; the best design, though not very good, I yet have seen of his.
A German artist copying it spoke English to us.
Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wallraf: got
admission. Found a venerable old man who has spent his life in
making a collection of paintings and other objects of vertù belonging
to his country, Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native town.
[This is no doubt the Wallraf who was joint founder of the
celebrated Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. The statement
which ensues as to an early oil-painter named Kaft is noticeable;
whether correct I am unable to say. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum
does not contain any painting by Tintoretto to which the name
Campavella could apply: there is a fine picture by him of Ovid and
Corinna.]
Many pictures were extremely good, especially painting of
individuals. Kaft was a native of this town, who painted in oil before
oil-painting was known. Saw some Poussins, Claude Lorraines. Some
moderate. A Tintoretto of Campavella beautiful: colouring and
drawing strong and expressive. A Rembrandt and a Teniers, etc. A
master of Rubens. A copy in colours from the drawing of Raphael by
one of his disciples. Cologne has stamped more coins than some
empires, and has coined twenty-six kinds of gold. He had made
drawings of them, but the revolution stopped it. The revolutionary
Gauls, he said with a tear in his eye, had destroyed many very
valuable relics of Cologne; and, pointing to a leaf of a missal with
another tear, he said: "Many like this once adorned our churches:
this is all." He had the original manuscript of Albert le Grand, History
of Animals; Titian's four designs of the Cæsars at Polenham, with his
own handwriting; the Albert Durer's sketch of Christ's head which
belonged to Charles II; and a painting of Albert Durer's Master.[3] He
wishes for a copy of any of Caxton's printing in England.
Went to buy some books. Found Miss Helmhoft, a fine woman.
Had a long confab. Bought more books than I wanted. Heard her
spout German poetry that I did not understand; and laughed at the
oddity of her gesticulation, which she took for laughter at the wit of
a poet who was describing the want of a shirt—and was highly
pleased.
The French destroyed convents, and made of them public places
for walking.
Have been taken for servants, Frenchmen, merchants—never
hardly for English. Saw the Rhine last night—fine mass of water,
wide as the Thames some way below Blackwall; but no tide, and
very deep. Town dirty, very decayed, badly paved, worse lighted,
and few marks of splendour and comfort.
May 10.—We have seen crucifixes for these four days at every
turn, some made of wood, some of stone, etc. Set off, after having
defeated the imposition of a postman, to Bonn; the scenery not
anything particular till we see the Seven Hills, a large amphitheatre
on the right, glimpses on the left of the Rhine, and the Seven Hills.
Bonn at last appeared, with its steeples, and on the neighbouring
hills castles and cots, towers, and (not) towns.[4]
I saw yesterday a picture of Rembrandt's with three lights in it
very well managed, at Wallraf's.
 Saw R. Simmons' writing in the police-book at Bonn, and wrote to
Soane.
[This was John, the son of Sir John Soane, founder of the Soane
Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]
The innkeeper makes you put your name—whence—whither—
profession and age—every night. Rogues all of them, charging
much.
May 11.—We saw the first vines a little before entering Cologne
some days ago. We left Bonn at eleven, the town having nothing in
particular. The Seven Hills were the first that struck our sight on one
of the highest pinnacles in Drachenfels, now a mere ruin, formerly a
castle of which many a tale is told. There was by the roadside a
monument raised upon the spot where one noble brother killed
another. Crucifixes all the way. We had the river on one side, whence
rose hills (not mountains) cultivated halfway for vines—and the rest,
nuts, shrubs, oak, etc. Towers on pinnacles, in ruin; villages (with
each its spire) built of mud.
Cultivation in a high degree; no hedges, ground minutely divided
into beds rather than fields; women working in the fields; ox and
horse ploughing; oxen draw by their heads alone. Peasantry happy-
looking and content. Two points particularly struck us—the
Drachenfels, and the view at a distance before coming to Videnhar
when the distant hills were black with the rain. But the whole way it
is one of the finest scenes, I imagine, in the world. The large river
with its massy swells and varied towered banks.
We changed horses at Bemagne, and passed over a road first cut
by Aurelius, Theodoric, and Buonaparte. B[uonaparte]'s name is
everywhere. Who did this? N[apoleon] B[uonaparte].—Who that?—
He. There is an inscription to record this. Andernach—a fine
entrance from Bemagne, with its massy towers and square-spired
church. From Andernach we passed on. Saw on the other side
Neuwied, a town owing its existence to the mere toleration of
religion. It is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since
Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at a distance; went
to it. There was inscribed "The army of the Sambre and the Moselle
to its general-in-chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble
slabs broken, and it is falling. But—
"Glory of the fallen brave
Shall men remember though forgot their grave,"

and the enemies may launch malicious darts against it. After
Andernach the Rhine loses much. The valley is wider, and the
beautiful, after the almost sublime, palls, and man is fastidious.
[The celebrated lyric by Byron introduced into Childe Harold, an
address to his half-sister, is stated farther on to have been written on
this very day. I cite the first stanza—
"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine;
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd a scene which I should see
With double joy wert thou with me."]

About a mile from Coblentz we saw Marceau's tomb—too dark.

Crossed the bridge over the Moselle, entered Coblentz; asked of
military, no pass; went to inns, rascals. Went to the Trois Suisses—
well served; fine view of Ehrenbreitstein fortress in sight. When
French besieged it, Marceau was here at this inn, and the cannon-
ball pierced it several times.—There were 84 French officers here,
when they would not believe the Cossacks would pass; they had to
fly as quick as horses could convey them, for the C[ossacks], getting
into boats, made their horses swim across. C[ossack]s rascals—ate
and drank and never paid. The general of them mean into the
bargain; for he sent the waiter in search of a louis he had never
dropped, and went off.—A flying bridge in face of me.
[Marceau died in 1796 of a wound received near Altenkirchen, at
the age of only twenty-seven. High honours were paid to his remains
both by his own army and by the Austrians whom he had been
combating. Polidori passes rapidly from the affair of Marceau to that
of eighty-four French officers and a body of Cossacks: but it is clear
that these two matters have no real connexion: the latter must
relate to 1815 or 1814. Byron devotes to Marceau two stanzas of
Childe Harold—
"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound.
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,
Our enemy's: but let not that forbid
Honour to Marceau; o'er whose early tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

"Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.

General Hoche, although a separate monument to him was

observed by Byron and Polidori, was in fact buried in the same tomb
with Marceau. He died at Wetzlar in 1797, aged twenty-nine. It may
be noticed that Byron (line 4) writes "heroes'," plural, followed by
"enemy's," singular. "Heroes'" must be intended for both Marceau
and Hoche, and I suspect that "enemy's" is a misprint for
"enemies'."]
May 12.—Got up. Looked at the fine view, and went to the bath,
which was at a maltster's—30 sous. Thence entered a Catholic
church—organ—children singing, which had a fine effect. A copy of
Rubens—lineal. Breakfasted.
Mounted a calèche, and went to Marceau's monument. The tomb
of heroes made into a certain place very much expressed the
flickering flame of fame. Thence to the Chartreuse: deserted, ruined,
windowless, roofless, and tenantless—with another in sight in the
same state. Plenty of reliefs on the roadside belonging to the Road
to Calvary, an oratory on the hillside, where were many peasants
bowing in reverence. Thence to the flying bridge managed by boats
fastened in the stream with a rope, and by the rudder.
 Saw a motley group of peasants with their head-dresses of gold
and crimson or green with the steel pin. Cocked hat, blue coat and
stockinged heroes with a fork. Officers, artillery-men, etc.; crosses
given apparently with as profuse a hand to the soldiers as to the
roadside.
Went to Ehrenbreitstein. Everything broken by gunpowder;
immense masses of solid stone and mortar thrown fifty yards from
their original situation; ruined walls, gateways, and halls—nothing
perfect. Splendid views thence—Coblentz, Rhine, Moselle with its
bridge, mountains, cultivation, vines, wilderness, everything below
my feet. Mounted again. Passed the Rhine in a boat (rowed), looking
very like the Otaheitan canoes. Into the carriage—set off. Scenes
increasing in sublimity. The road raised from the side of the river
without parapet: two precipices coming to the road headlong.
Indeed the river reaches foot to foot—splendid, splendid, splendid.
Saw the fort belonging once to Muhrfrey, where he raised customs,
and resisted in consequence sixty cities. Arrived at St. Goar. At the
first post saw the people in church; went to hear them sing—fine.
May 13.—Left St. Goar. Found scenery sublime to Bingen. Men
with cocked hats and great buckles hacking at the vines. The
scenery after Bingen gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity.
Immense plain to the mounts, with the Rhine in medio, covered with
trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to Mayence made by
Nap[oleon]; his name has been erased from the inscription on the
column commemorative of the work. Insolence of power!
Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above it of red
sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prussians, all in the town—
belonging to all. The best town we have seen since Ghent.
[Mayence was at this date, locally, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse:
but as a fortress it appertained to the German Confederation, and
was garrisoned by Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly
perhaps Bavarians)].
One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday a beautiful
appearance—two rainbows, one on the top of trees where the
colours of the foliage pierced the rainbow-hues.
Arrived at Mayence at 6-1/2. Saw along the Rhine many fine old
castles. This below is what L[ord] B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh]
some days ago: written May 11 on Rhine-banks. See Childe Harold,
from "The Castled Crag of Drachenfels" to "Still sweeten more these
Banks of Rhine."[5]
May 14.—From Mayence, where I saw the spot where they said
lately stood the house where printing was invented; it had been
pulled down by the French. The gallery I could not see, because the
keeper had taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw the
cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the last siege the town
underwent. The reliefs—some of which were in a good style—many
decapitated. There was a German marshal who was represented as
gravely putting forth his powdered head from under a tombstone he
has just lifted up—with an inscription saying "I am here."
From Mayence we went to Mannheim through a fine country.
Crossed the Rhine on a bridge of boats. Taken very ill with a fever at
Mannheim—could not write my Journal.
May 15.—Being a little recovered, set off. Fine alleys of Lombardy-
poplars and horse-chestnuts—neat villages. Entered Carlsruhe
through a grove of Scotch firs and other trees that had a fine effect.
Saw the Palace.
Entered the inn, and was very ill. Took ipecac and op. gr. 15.
Headache, vertigo, tendency to fainting, etc. Magnesia and lemon
acid—a little better, no effect.
Went a drive about the town. Saw the neatest town we have yet
met with: the only objection is the houses stuccoed white—bad for
the eyes. Saw the outside of the Palace, and went into the garden
laid out in the English manner.
Went home: dreadful headaches: ate some stewed apples; took
some more magn[esia] and acid; had no effect; lay down; got up
after two hours. Was just going out when L[ord] B[yron] came to
take from my hand a plated candlestick, to give me a brass one. Got
on a few steps; fainted. My fall brought the servants to me. Took 4
pills; going out again, when L[ord] B[yron] made the servant put
down the plated candlestick, to take up a brass one; went to bed.
[This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd incident, not
easily accounted for. One cannot suppose that Byron simply aimed at
humiliating or mortifying his physician. There must have been a
candle in each candlestick; and it is conceivable that the candle in
the brass one was the longer, and therefore the more suitable for an
invalid who might have needed it throughout the night.]
Medicine had violent effect: better on the whole, though weak.
Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at my chamber-
door, who told me he had heard so bad an account of my positively
dying that he came to enquire how I found myself. I asked him in.
He took care to tell us he was a great friend of the Grand Duke, who
had sent his groom of the stole (he called it stool) in search of
lodgings for the worthy Mayor;[6] gave us a long sermon about
rheumatism, routes, etc.; left us. In the evening he sent in the Guide
du Voyageur en les pays de l'Europe, begging in return some of
L[ord] B[yron's] poems.
Went out. Saw a church. Columns like firs—Corinthian, golden
capitals: loaded everywhere with gilt, perhaps tawdry, but fine-
tawdry. The environs are beautiful. Drove a great deal about: fine
trees and fine cultivation.
May 18.—From Carlsruhe to Offenberg; much better. Slept
halfway: blinds down the other, so nothing to mention except fine
trees, fine cocked hats, fine women, and yellow-coated postillions.
May 19.—Set off from Offenberg; saw some scenes that pleased
me much; hills and clouds upon them; woods with mists. Passed
through Freiburg, where we saw the steeple pervious to the top with
trellis-work showing the light, which had to my eyes a beautiful
appearance.
I think Charles, when he said, "The German for his horse,"
remembered the G[erman] postillions; for they talk to theirs, and the
horses on their part listen and seem to understand. The greater part
of to-day I have found the ladies in a strange costume of short wide
red petticoats with many folds, and a hat of straw as wide as a
wheel. Arrived at Krolzingen to sleep. Left Krolzingen: got to a hill.
Fine view thence: the Alps, the Rhine, the Jura mountains, and a
fine plain before us—fine country. Crossed the Rhine, and were in
Switzerland. The town upon unequal ground—some parts very high,
and some low; the greater part very narrow streets. After tea went
to take a walk: went upon the Rhine bridge—upon a hill in the town
[Bâle presumably].
May 21.—Went to see a panorama of Thun, the first Swiss one:
crowded foolishly with people, and too small. Saw a gallery that the
artist had formed. A fine Raphael, not his; a good Rembrandt, the
first I saw historical; a Circumcision; a head of the caricaturist David;
two heads of Divinity; a Christ and Virgin—mere pieces of flesh and
drapery. Went to a marchand d'estampes. Saw there Nelson's Death,
Chatham's ditto, and other pictures of England. The Dance of Death
has been destroyed: but it was not Holbein's, but his restorer's. The
collection is dispersed, that once was here, of his paintings.
Agreed with a voiturier to take our carriages to Geneva in five
days. Set off. Country increases from hills to mountains with great
beauty. Passed through Lipstadt and came to ——. Went before
supper to climb a hill where we found a goatherd who could not
understand the French that asked for milk till it had the commentary,
"We will pay for it." The scene was very fine: to the right, beautiful;
to the left, it had a tendency to sublimity; on one side, hills covered
to the top with trees; on the other, mountains with bald pates. Came
down. Found the servants playing at bowls. They were obliged to
run the bowls along a narrow board to the men. Supper: read
Arabian Nights; went to bed.
May 22.—Left —— at 9; passed the Jura mountains, where we
saw some fine castellated scenery, and women ornamented
strangely—amazingly short petticoats, not below the knee, with
black crape rays round their heads that make them look very
spidery. Soleure is a neat town with stone fortifications, and a clean
church with fountains before it. The houses in this neighbourhood
have a pleasing strange appearance on account of the roofs, which
slant out on every side a great way. Immense number of Scotch firs
—roads fine. Voituriers slow, and have eight francs of drink-money a
day, being two; which being too much according to the Guide du
Voyageur en Europe, where it is said 1-1/2 fr., we showed it to our
courier, who was in a passion. Came to ——, where we slept.
May 23.—Left ——: got a sight of some fine Alpine snow-capped
mountains. Came to Berne; delightfully situated; beautiful streets
with arcades all their length. Dined there. Saw a splendidly beautiful
view coming down a hill, with hills covered with fir, ash, beech, and
all the catalogue of trees; Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts
behind, with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived at Morat;
neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crown inn. All the way had
debates whether clouds were mountains, or mountains clouds.
May 24.—The innkeeper at Morat, being a little tipsy, and thinking
every Englishman (being a philosophe) must be a philosophe like
himself, favoured us with some of his infidel notions while serving us
at supper. Near Morat was fought the battle wherein the
Burgundians were so completely thrashed. Their bones, of which we
took pieces, are now very few; once they formed a mighty heap in
the chapel, but both were destroyed by the Burgundian division
when in Switzerland, and a tree of liberty was planted over it, which
yet flourishes in all its verdure—the liberty has flown from the
planters' grasp. Saw Aventicum; there remains sufficient of the walls
to trace the boundaries of the ancient town; but of all the buildings,
both for Gods and men, nothing but a column remains, and that the
only remnant for more than a hundred years. There are mosaic
pavements, and even the streets may be perceived in a dry summer
by the grass being thinner. The mosaic in a barn, probably once of a
temple, was pretty perfect till the Gallic cavalry came and turned it
into a stable. It is formed of little pieces of black, white, and red
bricks; little now remains. There was also a copper vessel in the
middle; that too has disappeared. The town is shamefully negligent
of the antiquities of their fathers, for there is another more beautiful
and perfect mosaic pavement discovered, but which they have
allowed the proprietor to cover again with mould rather than buy it.
We found in a barn heads, plinths, capitals, and shafts, heaped
promiscuously. The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and
beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rudeness of first art—a
capital of a strange mixed order. There is the Amphitheatre, hollow
yet pretty perfect, but no stonework visible; overgrown with trees;
the size, my companion told me, was larger than common. In the
town there were some beautiful fragments of ornament-sculpture
incorporated in the walls; all marble. In the walls of the church we
sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison mentions to Julia
Alpinula.
[Both to Morat and to Aventicum (Avenches) Byron devotes some
stanzas in Childe Harold, 63 to 67, and notes to correspond. Morat
he terms "the proud, the patriot field." He speaks of the hoard of
bones, and says: "I ventured to bring away as much as may have
made a quarter of a hero," for "careful preservation." His reference
to Aventicum and the inscription to Julia Alpinula reads rather
curiously in the light of Polidori's avowal that "we sought in vain for
the inscription." Byron's readers must always, I apprehend, have
inferred the contrary.
"By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild bewildered gaze
Of one to stone converted by amaze,
Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands,
Making a marvel that it not decays,
When the coeval pride of human hands,
Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.

"And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!—

Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave
Her youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would crave
The life she lived in; but the judge was just,—
And then she died on him she could not save.
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."
 Byron's note runs thus: "Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess,
died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to
death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered
many years ago. It is thus: 'Julia Alpinula hic jaceo. Infelicis patris
infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non
potui: Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no
human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of greater
interest. These are the names and actions," etc.]
I copied the one below on account of its medical tendency. The
letters in this as well as in all the other inscriptions are formed like
our Roman print, not in the least imperfect: "Nvminib. Avg. et Genio
Col. I. El. Apollini Sagr. 9. Postum Hermes lib. Medicis et Professorib,
D.S.D."
From Aventicum or Avenches we went to Payerne. We have seen
in many places boys leading goats just in the antique style. Thence
we went to Moudon—dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine
view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to the view
descending to Morat.
Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein —— defended
himself against the French who besieged it for a month: looks so
weak, it seems a wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so
interesting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical-roofed and no
battlements. We saw the lake, but for a long time doubted whether
it was a cloud below, a mist before, or water beneath us. Entered
Lausanne.
May 25.—Left Lausanne, after having looked at a bookseller's,
who showed me a fine collection of bad books for four louis.
Enquired for Dewar: name not known. We went along the lake, that
a little disappointed me, as it does not seem so broad as it really is,
and the mountains near it, though covered with snow, have not a
great appearance on account of the height [of the] lake itself. We
saw Mont Blanc in the distance; ethereal in appearance, mingling
with the clouds; it is more than 60 miles from where we saw it. It is
a classic ground we go over. Buonaparte, Joseph, Bonnet, Necker,
Staël, Voltaire, Rousseau, all have their villas (except Rousseau).
Genthoud, Ferney, Coppet, are close to the road.
[Perhaps some readers may need to be reminded who Bonnet
was. He was a great physicist, both practical and speculative,
Charles Bonnet, author of a Traité d'Insectologie, a Traité de l'usage
des Feuilles, Contemplations de la Nature, Palingénésie
Philosophique, and other works. Born in Geneva in 1720, he died in
1793.]
We arrived at Sécheron—where Lord Byron, having put his age
down as 100, received a letter half-an-hour after from Inn Keeper?—
a thing that seems worthy of a novel. It begins again to be the land
of the vine. Women, who till the Pays de Vaud were ugly, improving
greatly.
May 26.—After breakfast, and having made up the accounts to to-
day, and having heard that the voituriers made a claim of drink-
money all the way back, we ordered a calèche; but, happening to go
into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering, we pushed out
upon the Leman Lake. After rowing some time, happening to come
to the ferry, we found the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it
was pris pour un monsieur Anglais, who happened to be ——.[7] We
got another, and went out to bathe. I rode first with L[ord] B[yron]
upon the field of Waterloo; walked first to see Churchill's tomb;
bathed and rowed first on the Leman Lake.—It did us much good.
Dined; entered the calèche; drove through Geneva, where I saw an
effect of building that pleased me: it was porticoes from the very
roof of the high houses to the bottom.
Went to the house beyond Cologny that belonged to Diodati. They
ask five-and-twenty louis for it a month. Narrow, not true. The view
from his house is very fine; beautiful lake; at the bottom of the
crescent is Geneva. Returned. Pictet called, but L[ord] B[yron] said
"not at home."
[There were two Genevan Pictets at this date, both public men of
some mark. One was Jean Marc Jules Pictet de Sergy, 1768 to 1828;
the other, the Chevalier Marc Auguste Pictet, 1752 to 1825. As
Polidori speaks farther on of Pictet as being aged about forty-six, the
former would appear to be meant. He had been in Napoleon's
legislative chamber from 1800 to 1815, and was afterwards a
member of the representative council of Geneva.—The Villa Diodati
was the house where Milton, in 1639, had visited Dr. John Diodati, a
Genevese Professor of Theology. Polidori's compact phrase, "narrow,
not true," is by no means clear; perhaps he means that some one
had warned him that the Villa Diodati (called also the Villa Belle
Rive) was inconveniently narrow, but, on inspecting the premises, he
found the statement incorrect.]
May 27.—Got up; went about a boat; got one for 3 fr. a day;
rowed to Sécheron. Breakfasted. Got into a carriage. Went to
Banker's, who changed our money, and afterwards left his card. To
Pictet—not at home. Home, and looked at accounts: bad temper on
my side. Went into the boat, rowed across to Diodati; cannot have it
for three years; English family. Crossed again; I went; L[ord] B[yron]
back. Getting out, L[ord] B[yron] met M[ary] Wollstonecraft Godwin,
her sister, and Percy Shelley. I got into the boat into the middle of
Leman Lake, and there lay my length, letting the boat go its way.
[Here I find it difficult to understand the phrase—"Cannot have it
(Villa Diodati) for three years—English family." It must apparently
mean either that an English family were occupying or had bespoken
Villa Diodati, and would remain there for three years to come (which
is in conflict with the fact that Byron soon afterwards became the
tenant); or else that Byron thought of renting it for a term as long as
three years, which was barred by the previous claim of some English
family. On the whole, the latter supposition seems to me the more
feasible; but one is surprised to think that Byron had any—even
remote—idea of remaining near Geneva for any such great length of
time. This sets one's mind speculating about Miss Clairmont, with
whom (as is well known) Byron's amour had begun before he left
London, and who had now just arrived to join him at Sécheron; had
he at this time any notion of settling down with her in the
neighbourhood for three years, more or less? It is a curious point to
consider for us who know how rapidly he discarded her, and how
harshly he treated her ever afterwards. Miss Clairmont, we see, was
now already on the spot, along with Percy and Mary Shelley; in fact,
as we learn from other sources, they had arrived at Sécheron,
Dejean's Hôtel de l'Angleterre, as far back as May 18, or perhaps
May 15—and Byron now for the first time encountered the three. It
appears that he must have met Mary Godwin in London, probably
only once—not to speak of Clare. Shelley, to the best of our
information, he had never till now seen at all. Polidori here terms
Clare Clairmont the "sister" of "M. Wollstonecraft Godwin"; and in
the entry for May 29 he even applies the name Wollstonecraft
Godwin to Clare; and it will be found as we proceed that for some
little while he really supposed the two ladies to be sisters in the right
sense of the term, both of them bearing the surname of Godwin. In
point of fact, there was no blood-relationship—Mary being the
daughter of Mr. and the first Mrs. Godwin, and Clare the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Clairmont. It may be as well to add that the letters
addressed by Miss Clairmont to Byron, before they actually met in
London, have now (1904) been published in The Works of Lord
Byron, Letters and Journals, vol. iii, pp. 429-437; and they certainly
exhibit a degree of forwardness and importunity which accounts in
some measure for his eventual antipathy to her.]
Found letter from De Roche inviting me to breakfast to-morrow;
curious with regard to L[ord] B[yron]. Dined; P[ercy] S[helley], the
author of Queen Mab, came; bashful, shy, consumptive; twenty-six;
separated from his wife; keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who
practise his theories; one L[ord] B[yron]'s.
[This is a very noticeable jotting. Shelley appears to have come in
alone on this occasion, and we may infer that some very confidential
talk ensued between him and Byron, in the presence of Polidori. He
was not at this date really twenty-six years of age, but only twenty-
three. "Bashful, shy," is an amusingly simple description of him. As
to "consumptive," we know that Shelley left England under the
impression that consumption had him in its grip, but this hardly
appears to have been truly the case. Polidori, as a medical man,
might have been expected to express some doubt on the subject,
unless the poet's outward appearance looked consumptive. Next we
hear that Shelley "keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who practise
his theories"—i.e. set the marriage-laws at defiance, or act upon the
principle of free love. One might suppose, from this phrase, that
Polidori believed Shelley to be the accepted lover of Miss Clairmont
as well as of Mary Godwin; but the addition of those very significant
words—"One, Lord Byron's"—tells in the opposite direction. These
words can only mean (what was the fact) that one of these ladies,
viz. Miss Clairmont, was Lord Byron's mistress. Therefore Polidori, in
saying that Shelley "kept the two daughters of Godwin," may
presumably have meant that he housed and maintained Clare, while
he was the quasi-husband of Mary. Whether Polidori now for the first
time learned, from the conversation of Byron and Shelley, what was
the relation subsisting between Clare and Byron, or whether Byron
had at some earlier date imparted the facts to him, is a question
which must remain unsolved. The latter appears to me extremely
probable; for Byron had certainly arranged to meet Clare near
Geneva, and he may very likely have given the requisite notice
beforehand to his travelling physician and daily associate. My aunt
Charlotte Polidori was not an adept in Shelleian detail: if she had
been, I fear that these sentences would have shocked her sense of
propriety, and they would have been left uncopied. They form the
only passage in her transcript which bears in any way upon the
amour between Lord Byron and Miss Clairmont; to the best of my
recollection and belief there was not in the original Diary any other
passage pointing in the same direction.—I may observe here that
there is nothing in Polidori's Journal to show that the Shelley party
were staying in the same Sécheron hotel with Lord Byron. Professor
Dowden says that they were—I suppose with some sufficient
authority; and I think other biographers in general have assumed
the same.]
Into the calèche; horloger's at Geneva; L[ord] B[yron] paid 15
nap. towards a watch; I, 13: repeater and minute-hand; foolish
watch.
 [This means (as one of Polidori's letters shows) that Byron made
him a present of £15 towards the price of the watch.]
Went to see the house of Madame Necker, 100 a half-year; came
home, etc.
May 28.—Went to Geneva, to breakfast with Dr. De Roche; acute,
sensible, a listener to himself; good clear head. Told me that armies
on their march induce a fever (by their accumulation of animal dirt,
irregular regimen) of the most malignant typhoid kind; it is epidemic.
There was a whole feverish line from Moscow to Metz, and it spread
at Geneva the only almost epidemic typhus for many years. He is
occupied in the erection of Lancaster schools, which he says succeed
well. He is a Louis Bourbonist. He told me my fever was not an
uncommon one among travellers. He came home with me, and we
had a chat with L[ord] B[yron]; chiefly politics, where of course we
differed. He had a system well worked out, but I hope only
hypothetical, about liberty of the French being Machiavellianly not
desirable by Europe. He pointed out Dumont in the court, the
rédacteur of Bentham.
Found a letter from Necker to the hotel-master, asking 100 nap.
for three months; and another from Pictet inviting L[ord] B[yron]
and any friend to go with him at 8 to Madame Einard, a connection
of his. We then, ascending our car, went to see some other houses,
none suiting.
When we returned home, Mr. Percy Shelley came in to ask us to
dinner; declined; engaged for tomorrow. We walked with him, and
got into his boat, though the wind raised a little sea upon the lake.
Dined at four. Mr. Hentsch, the banker, came in; very polite; told
L[ord] B[yron] that, when he saw him yesterday, he had not an idea
that he was speaking to one of the most famous lords of England.
Dressed and went to Pictet's: an oldish man, about forty-six, tall,
well-looking, speaks English well. His daughter showed us a picture,
by a young female artist, of Madame Lavallière in the chapel; well
executed in pencil—good lights and a lusciously grieving expression.
 Went to Madame Einard. Introduced to a room where about 8
(afterwards 20), 2 ladies (1 more). L[ord] B[yron]'s name was alone
mentioned; mine, like a star in the halo of the moon, invisible. L[ord]
B[yron] not speaking French, M. Einard spoke bad Italian. A Signor
Rossi came in, who had joined Murat at Bologna. Manly in thought;
admired Dante as a poet more than Ariosto, and a discussion about
manliness in a language. Told me Geneva women amazingly chaste
even in thoughts. Saw the Lavallière artist. A bonny, rosy, seventy-
yeared man, called Bonstetten, the beloved of Gray and the
correspondent of Mathison.
[I find "40" in the MS.: apparently it ought to be "70," for
Bonstetten was born in 1745. He lived on till 1832. Charles Victor de
Bonstetten was a Bernese nobleman who had gone through various
vicissitudes of opinion and adventure, travelling in England and
elsewhere. To Englishmen (as indicated in Polidori's remark) he is
best known as a friend of the poet Thomas Gray, whom he met in
1769. He said: "Jamais je n'ai vu personne qui donnât autant que
Gray l'idée d'un gentleman accompli." Among the chief writings of
Bonstetten are Recherches sur la Nature et les Lois de l'Imagination;
Etudes d'Hommes; L'Homme du Midi et l'Homme du Nord.]
Madame Einard made tea, and left all to take sugar with the
fingers. Madame Einard showed some historical pieces of her doing
in acquerella, really good, a little too French-gracish. Obliged to
leave before ten for the gates shut. Came home, went to bed.
Was introduced by Shelley to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, called
here Mrs. Shelley. Saw picture by Madame Einard of a cave in the
Jura where in winter there is no ice, in summer plenty. No names
announced, no ceremony—each speaks to whom he pleases. Saw
the bust of Jean Jacques erected upon the spot where the Geneva
magistrates were shot. L[ord] B[yron] said it was probably built of
some of the stones with which they pelted him.[8] The walk is
deserted. They are now mending their roads. Formerly they could
not, because the municipal money always went to the public box.
May 29.—Went with Mr. Hentsch to see some houses along the
valley in which runs the Rhone: nothing. Dined with Mr. and Mrs.
Percy Shelley and Wollstonecraft Godwin. Hentsch told us that the
English last year exported corn to Italy to a great amount.
May 30.—Got up late. Went to Mr. and Mrs. Shelley; breakfasted
with them; rowed out to see a house together. S[helley] went from
Lucerne with the two, with merely £26, to England along the Rhine
in bateaux. Gone through much misery, thinking he was dying;
married a girl for the mere sake of letting her have the jointure that
would accrue to her; recovered; found he could not agree;
separated; paid Godwin's debts, and seduced his daughter; then
wondered that he would not see him. The sister left the father to go
with the other. Got a child. All clever, and no meretricious
appearance. He is very clever; the more I read his Queen Mab, the
more beauties I find. Published at fourteen a novel; got £30 for it;
by his second work £100. Mab not published.—Went in calèche with
L[ord] B[yron] to see a house; again after dinner to leave cards;
then on lake with L[ord] B[yron]. I, Mrs. S[helley], and Miss
G[odwin], on to the lake till nine. Drank tea, and came away at 11
after confabbing. The batelier went to Shelley, and asked him as a
favour not to tell L[ord] B[yron] what he gave for his boat, as he
thought it quite fit that Milord's payment be double; we sent Berger
to say we did not wish for the boat.
[The statement that "Shelley went from Lucerne with the two,
with merely £26, to England, along the Rhine in bateaux," refers of
course to what had taken place in 1814, on the occasion of Shelley's
elopement with Mary Godwin, and has no bearing on the
transactions of 1816; it must be cited by Polidori as showing how
inexpensively three persons could, if so minded, travel from
Switzerland to England. The other references to Shelley's domestic
affairs etc. are very curious. Except as to his own personal
admiration for Queen Mab, Polidori is here evidently putting down
(but not in the words of Shelley himself, who would assuredly not
have said that he had "seduced" Mary Godwin) such details as the
poet imparted to him. They are far from accurate. To some extent,
Polidori may have remembered imperfectly what Shelley told him,
but I think the latter must have been responsible for most of the
fables; and generally it would appear that Shelley gave free rein to
his inclination for romancing or for over-stating matters, possibly
perceiving that Polidori was credulous, and capable of swallowing
whatever he was told, the more eccentric the better. To say that
Shelley, before he, at the age of barely 19, married Harriet
Westbrook in 1811, thought that he was dying, and that his only
practical motive for marrying her was that she might come in for a
jointure after his decease, is no doubt highly fallacious, and even
absurd. We have other sources of information as to these
occurrences, especially the letters of Shelley addressed at the time
to Jefferson Hogg, and they tell a very different tale. As to his
reason for separating from Harriet, Shelley, we perceive, simply told
Polidori that he "found he could not agree" with her; he said nothing
as to his knowing or supposing that she had been unfaithful to him.
Again, Shelley was not so boyish as 14 when he published a novel—
his first novel, the egregious Zastrozzi; the publication took place in
1810, when he was eighteen, or at lowest seventeen. The statement
that he got £100 by "his second work" is worth considering. If "his
second work" means, as one might naturally suppose in this
connexion, the romance of St. Irvyne, the suggestion that he got
anything at all by it, except a state of indebtedness, is a novelty. But
our mind recurs to that rumoured and apparently really published
though wholly untraced work of his, A Poetical Essay on the Existing
State of Things. This poem was published, we are told, for the
benefit of an Irish agitator or patriot, Peter Finnerty, and it has been
elsewhere averred that the publication produced a sum of nearly
£100. The mention by Polidori of £100 may be surmised to refer to
the same matter, and it tends so far to confirm the idea that the
book really existed, and even secured a fair measure of success.—
Berger (who is named in connexion with Byron and the hire for the
boat) was, as already noted, the Swiss servant of Byron, brought
from London.]
May 31.—Breakfasted with Shelley; read Italian with Mrs.
S[helley]; dined; went into a boat with Mrs. S[helley], and rowed all
night till 9; tea'd together; chatted, etc.
 June 1.—Breakfasted with S[helley]; entered a calèche; took
Necker's house for 100 louis for 8 or 365 days. Saw several houses
for Shelley; one good. Dined; went in the boat; all tea'd together.
[Necker's house, here mentioned, would apparently be the same
as the Villa Diodati, or Villa Belle Rive—for that is the house which
Byron did in fact rent. "Necker" may be understood as meaning
(rather than the famous Minister of Finance in France) his widow,
since Necker himself had died a dozen years before. The sum of 100
louis seems to be specified here as the rent for a year, and the
phrase about 8 days must indicate that the house could be tenanted
for that short space of time—or let us say a week—at a
proportionate payment. This rate of rental appears low, and it differs
both from what was said under the date of May 26, and from what
we shall find noted shortly afterwards, June 6. Thus I feel a little
doubt whether "Necker's house" is not in reality something quite
different from the Villa Diodati. Byron's proposed tenancy of the
former might possibly have been cancelled.]
Rogers the subject: L[or]d B[yron] thinks good poet; malicious.
Marquis of Lansdowne being praised by a whole company as a
happy man, having all good, R[ogers] said, "But how horridly he
carves turbot!" Ward having reviewed his poems in the Quarterly,
having a bad heart and being accused of learning his speeches,
L[ord] B[yron], upon malignantly hinting to him [Rogers] how he
had been carved, heard him say: "I stopped his speaking though by
my epigram, which is—
"'Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it;
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.'"

[This must be the Honourable John William Ward, who was

created Earl of Dudley in 1827, and died in 1833. Miss Berry, the
quasi-adopted daughter of Horace Walpole, told Madame de Staël in
1813 that the latter had "undertaken two miracles—to make Ward
poli envers les femmes et pieux envers Dieu."]
On L[ord] B[yron's] writing a poem to his sister wherein he says,
"And when friends e'en paused and love," etc., Rogers, going to
some one, said: "I don't know what L[ord] B[yron] means by
pausing; I called upon him every day." He did this regularly, telling
L[ord] B[yron] all the bad news with a malignant grin. When L[ord]
B[yron] wrote "Weep, daughter of a royal line," Rogers came to him
one day, and, taking up the Courier, said: "I am sure now you're
attacked there; now don't mind them"; and began reading, looking
every now and then at L[ord] B[yron] with an anxious searching eye,
till he came to "that little poet and disagreeable person, Mr. Samuel
—" when he tore the paper, and said: "Now this must be that fellow
Croker," and wished L[ord] B[yron] to challenge him. He talked of
going to Cumberland with L[ord] B[yron], and, asking him how he
meant to travel, L[ord] B[yron] said "With four horses." Rogers went
to company, and said: "It is strange to hear a man talking of four
horses who seals his letters with a tallow candle."
Shelley is another instance of wealth inducing relations to confine
for madness, and was only saved by his physician being honest. He
was betrothed from a boy to his cousin, for age; another came who
had as much as he would have, and she left him "because he was
an atheist." When starving, a friend to whom he had given £2000,
though he knew it, would not come near him. Heard Mrs. Shelley
repeat Coleridge on Pitt, which persuades me he is a poet.
[Here we see that Shelley must have repeated to Polidori that
famous story of his about the attempt of his father to consign him,
when he was an Eton student, to a madhouse, and about the
zealous and ultimately successful effort of Dr. Lind, the Eton
physicist, to save him from that disastrous fate. Next comes the
statement that Shelley was betrothed from boyhood to his beautiful
cousin Miss Harriet Grove—the marriage to take effect when he
should attain his majority; an account which we know to be
substantially true. The conduct of Miss Grove—or perhaps we should
rather say of her parents as dictating her action—is placed in an
unfavourable light; for it is plainly suggested that she abandoned
Shelley for another bridegroom on the ground of a more immediate
advantage in worldly position—the allegation of Percy's atheism
being more a pretext than a genuine motive. The passage about a
friend to whom Shelley had given £2000 must (I suppose beyond a
doubt) refer to Godwin; but it is evident that Shelley, in speaking to
Polidori, a comparative stranger, and this in the presence of Mary,
had the delicacy to suppress the name. The charge thus alleged
against Godwin is not, I conceive, accurate, although it
approximated towards accuracy. I am not clear that Shelley, up to
the time when he thus spoke in June 1816, had given Godwin
money amounting to quite so large a total as £2000; but at any rate
he cannot have done so up to the time when he was himself
"starving"—or, in milder terms, when he was in very great and
harassing straits for money and daily subsistence. That time was late
in 1814, and in the first days of 1815. It is true that, even before
this date, he had done something to relieve Godwin; but it was only,
I think, in April 1816 that he gave the philosopher a really very
considerable sum—£1000 in a lump. I say all this for the sake of
biographical truth, and not with a view to vindicating Godwin—
whose policy of bleeding Shelley in purse while he cut him in person
has in some recent years been denounced with increasing
vehemence, and it was indeed wholly indefensible. But human
nature—and especially the human nature of an abstract speculator
like Godwin—is capable of very odd self-deceptions; and I dare say
Godwin thought he was equally and strictly right in both his
proceedings—right in getting large sums of money out of Shelley, for
a reforming sage ought to be subsidized by his neophytes—and right
in repudiating and abusing Shelley, for the latter had applied
Godwin's own anti-matrimonial theories to that one instance of
practice which the philosopher did not at all relish.—To proceed to
another point. The lines of Coleridge on Pitt which Polidori heard
recited by Mrs. Shelley are to be sought for in his early poem
entitled Fire, Famine, and Slaughter. In that poem (need I say it?)
those three Infernal Deities are represented as meeting in "a
desolated tract in La Vendée"; and on mutual enquiry they learn that
one and the same person has sent them thither all three.
"Letters four do form his name"—
the name Pitt. Famine and Slaughter finally agree that the multitude,
exasperated by their sufferings, shall turn upon Pitt and rend him—
"They shall tear him limb from limb!"
Fire, who has just come from doing Pitt's errands in Ireland, thinks
this ungrateful: she concludes the poem with the memorable words
—
"Ninety months he, by my troth,
Hath richly catered for you both:
And in an hour would you repay
An eight years' work?—Away, away!
I alone am faithful—I
Cling to him everlastingly."

The poem would be well worth quoting here in full, but is

somewhat too long for such a purpose.]
A young girl of eighteen, handsome, died within half-an-hour
yesterday: buried to-day. Geneva is fortified—legumes growing in
the fosses.—Went about linen and plate.
June 2.—Breakfasted with Shelley. Read Tasso with Mrs. Shelley.
Took child for vaccination.
[The child in question must seemingly have been the beloved
infant William Shelley, born in January of this same year. Polidori
does not appear to have vaccinated the boy with his own hand; for I
find in a letter of his written to his family towards June 20: "Got a
gold chain and a seal as a fee from an Englishman here for having
his child inoculated." As Polidori speaks only of "an Englishman
here," not naming Shelley, it looks as if he purposely withheld from
his family the knowledge that he had come into contact with that
wicked and dangerous character. I wish I knew what has become of
the "gold chain and seal," the gift of Shelley: but I could not on
enquiry find that anything whatever was known about them by my
then surviving relatives. I possess a letter on the subject, November
4, 1890, from my sister Christina.]
Found gates shut because of church-service. Went in search of
Rossi. Saw a village where lads and lasses, soubrettes and soldiers,
were dancing, to a tabor and drum, waltzes, cotillions, etc. Dr.
R[ossi] not at home.
Dined with S[helley]; went to the lake with them and L[ord]
B[yron]. Saw their house; fine. Coming back, the sunset, the
mountains on one side, a dark mass of outline on the other, trees,
houses hardly visible, just distinguishable; a white light mist, resting
on the hills around, formed the blue into a circular dome bespangled
with stars only and lighted by the moon which gilt the lake. The
dome of heaven seemed oval. At 10 landed and drank tea. Madness,
Grattan, Curran, etc., subjects.
[The "house" of Shelley and his party which is here mentioned is
the Campagne Chapuis, or Campagne Mont Alègre, near Cologny—
distant from the Villa Diodati only about 8 minutes' walk. Shelley and
the two ladies had entered this house towards the end of May, prior
to the actual settlement of Lord Byron in the Villa Diodati. The
Shelleys, as we have more than once heard from this Diary, kept up
the practice of drinking tea—a beverage always cherished by Percy
Bysshe. The topics of conversation, we observe, were madness—
probably following on from what Shelley had on the previous day
said about his own supposed madness while at Eton; also Curran,
whom Shelley had seen a little, but without any sympathy, in Dublin
—and Grattan, who, so far as I am aware was not personally known
to the poet.]
June 3.—Went to Pictet's on English day.
June 4.—Went about Diodati's house. Then to see Shelley, who,
with Mrs. Shelley, came over. Went in the evening to a musical
society of about ten members at M. Odier's; who read a very
interesting memoir upon the subject of whether a physician should
in any case tell a lover the health [of the lady of his affections], or
anything that, from being her physician, comes to his knowledge.
Afterwards had tea and politics. Saw there a Dr. Gardner, whom I
carried home in the calèche. Odier invited me for every Wednesday.
Came home. Went on the lake with Shelley and Lord Byron, who
quarrelled with me.
 [This might seem to be the matter to which Professor Dowden in
his Life of Shelley (following Moore's Life of Byron and some other
authorities) thus briefly refers. "Towards Shelley the Doctor's feeling
was a constantly self-vexing jealousy [I cannot say that the Diary of
Polidori has up to this point borne the least trace of any such
soreness]; and on one occasion, suffering from the cruel wrong of
having been a loser in a sailing-match, he went so far as to send
Shelley a challenge, which was received with a fit of becoming
laughter. 'Recollect,' said Byron, 'that, though Shelley has some
scruples about duelling, I have none and shall be at all times ready
to take his place.'" Professor Dowden does not define the date when
this squabble occurred; but the context in which he sets it suggests
a date anterior to June 22, when Byron and Shelley started off on
their week's excursion upon the Lake of Geneva. The very curt
narrative of Polidori does not however indicate any sailing-match,
nor any challenge, whether "sent" or verbally delivered at the
moment; and perhaps it may be more reasonable to suppose that
this present quarrel with Byron was a different affair altogether—an
instance when Polidori happened to strike Byron's knee with an oar. I
shall recur to the duelling matter farther on.]
June 5.—At 12 went to Hentsch about Diodati; thence to Shelley's.
Read Tasso. Home in calèche. Dined with them in the public room:
walked in the garden. Then dressed, and to Odier's, who talked with
me about somnambulism. Was at last seated, and conversed with
some Génevoises: so so—too fine. Quantities of English; speaking
amongst themselves, arms by their sides, mouths open and eyes
glowing; might as well make a tour of the Isle of Dogs. Odier gave
me yesterday many articles of Bibliothèque—translated and rédigés
by himself, and to-day a manuscript on somnambulism.
[After the word Bibliothèque Charlotte Polidori has put some other
word, evidently intended to imitate the look of the word written by
Dr. Polidori: it cannot be read. The subject of somnambulism was
one which had engaged Polidori's attention at an early age: he
printed in 1815 a Disputatio Medica Inauguralis de Oneirodyniâ, as a
thesis for the medical degree which he then obtained in Edinburgh.]
 June 6.—At 1 up—breakfasted. With Lord Byron in the calèche to
Hentsch, where we got the paper making us masters of Diodati for
six months to November 1 for 125 louis.
[See my remarks under June 1 as to "Necker's house," and the
rent to be paid. Up to November 1 would be barely five months, not
six.]
Thence to Shelley: back: dinner. To Shelley in boat: driven on
shore: home. Looked over inventory and Berger's accounts. Bed.
June 7.—Up at ——. Pains in my loins and languor in my bones.
Breakfasted—looked over inventory.
Saw L[ord] B[yron] at dinner; wrote to my father and Shelley;
went in the boat with L[ord] B[yron]; agreed with boatman for
English boat. Told us Napoleon had caused him to get his children.
Saw Shelley over again.
[It seems rather curious that Polidori, living so near Shelley,
should now have had occasion to write to him; ought we to infer
that the challenge was now at last sent? Perhaps so; and perhaps,
when Polidori "saw Shelley over again," the poet laughed the whole
foolish matter off.—The boatman's statement that "Napoleon had
caused him to get his children" means, I suppose, that he wanted to
rear children, to meet Napoleon's conscriptions for soldiers.]
June 8.—Up at 9; went to Geneva on horseback, and then to
Diodati to see Shelley; back; dined; into the new boat—Shelley's,—
and talked, till the ladies' brains whizzed with giddiness, about
idealism. Back; rain; puffs of wind. Mistake.
June 9.—Up by 1: breakfasted. Read Lucian. Dined. Did the same:
tea'd. Went to Hentsch: came home. Looked at the moon, and
ordered packing-up.
June 10.—Up at 9. Got things ready for going to Diodati; settled
accounts, etc. Left at 3; went to Diodati; went back to dinner, and
then returned. Shelley etc. came to tea, and we sat talking till 11.
My rooms are so:
 June 11.—Wrote home and to Pryse Gordon. Read Lucian. Went to
Shelley's; dined; Shelley in the evening with us.
June 12.—Rode to town. Subscribed to a circulating library, and
went in the evening to Madame Odier. Found no one. Miss O[dier],
to make time pass, played the Ranz des Vaches—plaintive and war-
like. People arrived. Had a confab with Dr. O. about perpanism,[9]
etc. Began dancing: waltzes, cotillons, French country-dances and
English ones: first time I shook my feet to French measure. Ladies
all waltzed except the English: they looked on frowning. Introduced
to Mrs. Slaney: invited me for next night. You ask without
introduction; the girls refuse those they dislike. Till 12. Went and
slept at the Balance.
June 13.—Rode home, and to town again. Went to Mrs. Slaney: a
ball. Danced and played at chess. Walked home in thunder and
lightning: lost my way. Went back in search of some one—fell upon
the police. Slept at the Balance.
June 14.—Rode home—rode almost all day. Dined with Rossi, who
came to us; shrewd, quick, manly-minded fellow; like him very
much. Shelley etc. fell in in the evening.
June 15.—Up late; began my letters. Went to Shelley's. After
dinner, jumping a wall my foot slipped and I strained my left ankle.
Shelley etc. came in the evening; talked of my play etc., which all
agreed was worth nothing. Afterwards Shelley and I had a
conversation about principles,—whether man was to be thought
merely an instrument.
 [The accident to Polidori's ankle was related thus by Byron in a
letter addressed from Ouchy to John Murray. "Dr. Polidori is not here,
but at Diodati; left behind in hospital with a sprained ankle, acquired
in tumbling from a wall—he can't jump." Thomas Moore, in his Life
of Byron, supplies some details. "Mrs. Shelley was, after a shower of
rain, walking up the hill to Diodati; when Byron, who saw her from
his balcony where he was standing with Polidori, said to the latter:
'Now you who wish to be gallant ought to jump down this small
height, and offer your arm.' Polidori tried to do so; but, the ground
being wet, his foot slipped and he sprained his ankle. Byron helped
to carry him in, and, after he was laid on the sofa, went up-stairs to
fetch a pillow for him. 'Well, I did not believe you had so much
feeling,' was Polidori's ungracious remark."
The play written by Polidori, which received so little
commendation, was, I suppose, the Cajetan which is mentioned at
an early point in the Journal. There was another named Boadicea, in
prose; very poor stuff, and I suppose written at an early date. A
different drama named Ximenes was afterwards published: certainly
its merit—whether as a drama or as a specimen of poetic writing—is
slender. The conversation between Shelley and Polidori about
"principles"and "whether man was to be thought merely an
instrument" appears to have some considerable analogy with a
conversation to which Mary Shelley and Professor Dowden refer, and
which raised in her mind a train of thought conducing to her
invention of Frankenstein and his Man-monster. Mary, however,
speaks of Byron (not Polidori) as the person who conversed with
Shelley on that occasion. Professor Dowden, paraphrasing some
remarks made by Mary, says: "One night she sat listening to a
conversation between the two poets at Diodati. What was the
nature, they questioned, of the principle of life? Would it ever be
discovered, and the power of communicating life be acquired?
Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated; galvanism had given token
of such things. That night Mary lay sleepless," etc.]
June 16.—Laid up. Shelley came, and dined and slept here, with
Mrs. S[helley] and Miss Clare Clairmont. Wrote another letter.
 [This is the first instance in which the name of Miss Clairmont is
given correctly by Polidori; but it may be presumed that he had,
several days back, found out that she was not properly to be termed
"Miss Godwin."]
June 17.—Went into the town; dined with Shelley etc. here. Went
after dinner to a ball at Madame Odier's; where I was introduced to
Princess Something and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them
a long confab. Attempted to dance, but felt such horrid pain was
forced to stop. The ghost-stories are begun by all but me.
[This date serves to rectify a small point in literary history. We all
know that the party at Cologny—consisting of Byron and Polidori on
the one hand, and of Shelley and Mrs. Shelley and Miss Clairmont on
the other—undertook to write each of them an independent ghost-
story, or story of the supernatural; the result being Byron's fragment
of The Vampyre, Polidori's complete story of The Vampyre, and Mrs.
Shelley's renowned Frankenstein. Shelley and Miss Clairmont proved
defaulters. It used to be said that Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of
The Monk, had been mixed up in the same project; but this is a
mistake, for Lewis only reached the Villa Diodati towards the middle
of August. Professor Dowden states as follows: "During a few days
of ungenial weather which confined them to the house [by "them"
Shelley and the two ladies are evidently meant, and perhaps also
Byron and Polidori] some volumes of ghost-stories,
Fantasmagoriana, ou Recueil d'Histoires d'Apparitions, de Spectres,
Revenans, etc. (a collection translated into French from the German)
fell into their hands, and its perusal probably excited and
overstrained Shelley's imagination." Professor Dowden then proceeds
to narrate an incident connected with Coleridge's Christabel, of
which more anon; and he says that immediately after that incident
Byron proposed, "We will each write a ghost-story"—a suggestion to
which the others assented. It is only fair to observe that Professor
Dowden's account corresponds with that which Polidori himself
supplied in the proem to his tale of The Vampyre. But Polidori's Diary
proves that this is not absolutely correct. The ghost-stories
(prompted by the Fantasmagoriana, a poor sort of book) had already
been begun by Byron, Shelley, Mrs. Shelley, and Miss Clairmont, not
later than June 17, whereas the Christabel incident happened on
June 18. Byron's story, as I have already said, was The Vampyre, left
a fragment; Shelley's is stated to have been some tale founded on
his own early experiences—nothing farther is known of it; Mrs.
Shelley's was eventually Frankenstein, but, from the details which
have been published as to the first conception of this work, we must
assume that what she had begun by June 17 was something
different: of Miss Clairmont's story no sort of record remains.
The Countess Potocka, whom Polidori mentions, was a lady
belonging to the highest Polish nobility, grand-niece of Stanislaus
Augustus Poniatowski, who had been King of Poland up to 1798. She
was daughter of Count Tyszkiewicz, and married Count Potocki, and
afterwards Count Wonsowicz. Born in 1776, she lived on to 1867,
when she died in Paris, a leader of society under the Second Empire.
Thus she was forty years old when Polidori saw her. She wrote
memoirs of her life, going up to 1820: a rather entertaining book,
dealing with many important transactions, especially of the period of
Napoleon I: she gives one to understand that this supreme
potentate was rather susceptible to her charms, but a rival
compatriot, the Countess Walewska, was then in the ascendant. I
have seen reproductions from two portraits of the Countess Potocka,
both of them ascribed to Angelica Kauffman: one of these shows a
strikingly handsome young woman, with dark eyes of singular
brilliancy and sentiment. Its date cannot be later than 1807, when
the painter died, and may probably be as early as 1800.]
June 18.—My leg much worse. Shelley and party here. Mrs.
S[helley] called me her brother (younger). Began my ghost-story[10]
after tea. Twelve o'clock, really began to talk ghostly. L[ord] B[yron]
repeated some verses of Coleridge's Christabel, of the witch's breast;
when silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his
hands to his head, ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water
in his face, and after gave him ether. He was looking at Mrs.
S[helley], and suddenly thought of a woman he had heard of who
had eyes instead of nipples, which, taking hold of his mind, horrified
him.—He married; and, a friend of his liking his wife, he tried all he
could to induce her to love him in turn. He is surrounded by friends
who feed upon him, and draw upon him as their banker. Once,
having hired a house, a man wanted to make him pay more, and
came trying to bully him, and at last challenged him. Shelley
refused, and was knocked down; coolly said that would not gain him
his object, and was knocked down again.—Slaney called.
[Some of these statements are passing strange, and most of them
call for a little comment. First we hear that Mrs. Shelley called
Polidori her younger brother—a designation which may have been
endearing but was not accurate; for, whereas the doctor was aged
20 at this date, Mrs. Shelley was aged only 18. Next, Polidori, after
tea, began his ghost-story. This, according to Mrs. Shelley, was a
tale about "a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping
through a keyhole—what to see, I forget; something very shocking
and wrong, of course." So says Mrs. Shelley: but Polidori's own
statement is that the tale which he at first began was the one
published under the title of Ernestus Berchtold, which contains
nothing about a skull-headed lady: some details are given in my
Introduction. Afterwards he took up the notion of a vampyre, when
relinquished by Byron. The original story, Ernestus Berchtold, may
possibly have been completed in 1816: at any rate it was completed
at some time, and published in 1819, soon after The Vampyre. Then
comes the incident (first published in my edition of Shelley's poems
in 1870) of Byron repeating some lines from Christabel, and Shelley,
who mixed them up with some fantastic idea already present to his
mind, decamping with a shriek. The lines from Christabel are these—
 "Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe and inner vest
Dropped to her feet, and full in view
Behold! her bosom and half her side,
Hideous, deformed, and pale of hue—
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
And she is to sleep by Christabel!"

From this incident Polidori proceeds to three statements regarding

occurrences in Shelley's life; it may be presumed that he had heard
them from the poet in the course of this same evening. "A friend of
his liking his wife, he tried all he could to induce her to love him in
turn." Nothing of this sort appears in the authenticated facts of
Shelley's life. It is certain that, very soon after he had married
Harriet Westbrook in 1811, he saw reason for thinking that his friend
Hogg "liked his wife," both of them being then in York; but, so far
from "trying all he could to induce her to love him in turn," he at
once took her away from York to Keswick, and he addressed letters
of grave remonstrance and sad reproach to Hogg, and then for a
time broke off all intercourse with him. The only other matter one
knows of at all relevant to this issue is that Shelley alleged that
afterwards a certain Major Ryan carried on an intrigue with Harriet.
He blamed and resented her imputed frailty, and put it forward as a
principal motive for his separating from her. It is certainly possible
that, after the separation, he told Harriet that she might as well
"make the best of a bad job," and adhere to Ryan, since she would
not adhere to her wedded husband: but no indication of any such
advice on his part appears anywhere else. Be it understood that I do
not at all affirm that this suspicion or statement of Shelley's about
Harriet and Ryan was correct. I doubt it extremely, though not
venturing summarily to reject it. The next point is that Shelley was
"surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon him as
their banker." This probably glances at Godwin, and perhaps also at
Charles Clairmont, the brother of Clare. Thomas Love Peacock may
likewise be in question: not Leigh Hunt, for, though the cap might
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