It is not a long life as you count it over: five years with Scott and Moffatt; five in and near Oxford; twenty years in London of triumphant work; then five of honours like the pause at flood-tide, and never the ebb. Like such a great river as that he knew so well and frequented all his days, his life flowed steadily and strongly, the brimming stream augmenting always, deepening and widening, the heavier current moving, at the end, more slowly but not through slackening of power, until, at the last turn, the majestic estuary opens and broadens, as, with no hurry of fretting waves, no straining through silted sandbanks, undiminished, the mighty mass of waters mingles with the sea. NOTES OF A TOUR IN CENTRAL ITALY TO WHICH ARE APPENDED A FEW NOTES FROM A LATER TOUR II NOTES OF A TOUR IN CENTRAL ITALY (_From a notebook of 1857_) _August 20, 1857._ Left town at 8.30 P.M. by South-Eastern Railway for Folkstone. A close push for it, as I was an unwilling auditor of Lord Riverdale in the House of Lords till 7 P.M. I then had a conference with the Bishop of Oxford. I left them to settle if possible the Divorce question and rushed home just in time to pack and be off. A very quiet passage over to Boulogne was seconded by a weary hour’s waiting at the station before the train started. We reached Paris at 9.10 and drove to the _Hôtel de l’Europe_ and then wandered about for the day seeing sights. Tried for but could see no good MSS. Drove to the _Bois de Boulogne_ and went to the _Pré Catalan_, for which I cannot say much. By dint of watering the grass vigorously they get it to look very green, but it is coarse stuff, more like a water meadow in texture than an English lawn. The _Pré Catalan_ without a soul in it except the show men, etc. eating _al fresco_ dinners, is rather slow, so we came back soon. In the afternoon went to the Hippodrome. The best thing probably was the racing between three men each riding a four-in-hand and going at a great pace. Dined at Véfour’s and then off to the station, and in a rash moment, and in submission to the peremptory order of a grand railway clerk, booked ourselves through from Paris to Turin. The train was very full but I rested tolerably well and awoke in the morning just in time to get a glimpse of the cathedral at Tournus.[3] At Mâcon we changed to another train and crossing the Saône turned off toward Geneva; the country invisible in a thick fog till we reached Ambérieu, the junction with the line from Lyons, where it rose sufficiently to disclose an exceedingly picturesque situation. From this point up to Culoz, where we left the line, the country is very wild and beautiful. The railway runs up a very narrow winding valley hemmed in with grand hills, showing here and there fine bold bluffs of rock. The stream, a mountain torrent, was nowhere--but wide banks of well-worn stones show that it is powerful enough after rain or in the winter and spring. At