AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


Salmonia was written during the time of a partial recovery from a long
and dangerous illness. The present work was composed immediately after,
under the same unfavourable and painful circumstances, and at a period
when the constitution of the Author suffered from new attacks. He has
derived some pleasure and some consolation, when most other sources of
consolation and pleasure were closed to him, from this exercise of his
mind; and he ventures to hope that these hours of sickness may be not
altogether unprofitable to persons in perfect health.

_Rome_,
_February_ 21, 1829.




DIALOGUE THE FIRST. THE VISION.


I passed the autumn and the early winter of the years 18-- and 18-- at
Rome. The society was, as is usual in that metropolis of the old
Christian world, numerous and diversified. In it there were found many
intellectual foreigners and amongst them some distinguished Britons, who
had a higher object in making this city their residence than mere
idleness or vague curiosity. Amongst these my countrymen, there were two