The winter journey was rough and dreary. Paris was avoided, on account of the too great excitement which it was feared its society might induce; and the roads along which the travellers drove, bad at the best, were now in their very worst condition from the snow. The scenes through which they passed were uninteresting, the occasional roadside churches being the only noteworthy objects; and these they rarely failed to enter, the sick philosopher generally dropping on his knees for a silent prayer. So they passed on, notwithstanding the severe cold and the snow, over the Mont Cenis, into Italy, reaching Ravenna on the 27th February--Davy, strange to say, rather the better than the worse for his cold and cheerless expedition. Here he rested for some time, occupying himself chiefly in shooting, fishing, and reading Byron, whose acquaintance (with that of the accomplished Countess Guiccioli) he had previously made at this place. His note-book was kept up, and was filled with numerous acute observations on subjects connected with natural history and chemistry, interspersed with expressions of pious humility and of gratitude to 'the Great Cause of all being.' His health improved; and in March, 1827, Dr. Davy returned to Corfu, whilst Sir Humphry shortly afterwards started on a solitary expedition through the Eastern Alps and down the Rhine. But his health now declined; he frequently had to apply leeches and blisters, and he lived so abstemiously as to considerably reduce his strength and spirits. 'Valde miserabilis!' he often exclaimed in his note-book; and once he wrote, 'Dubito fortissime restaurationem meam.' It was no doubt whilst in this mood that he wrote to Mr. Davies Gilbert from Salzburg, on 30th June, 1827, announcing his retirement from the office of President of the Royal Society.[115] Whilst on one of his numerous fishing expeditions, a pursuit[116] which, as we have seen, he passionately followed all his life long, he wrote about this time, the following pensive lines, _more suo_, on contemplating a rapid river: 'E'en as I look upon thy mighty flood, Absorb'd in thought, it seems that I become A part of thee, and in thy thundering waves My thoughts are lost, and pass to future time, Seeking the infinite, and rolling on Towards the eternal and unbounded sea Of the All-Powerful, Omnipresent Mind.' This was a favourite thought of his. He amplified it in a letter which he addressed from Rome in the following year to his friend Poole: