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.

I left England early in September, made a good passage to Genoa, and
from thence proceeded by easy stages to Padua. Arriving there by the
coach on the night of October 13, I was met by my host and tutor, Dr.
Porfirio Lanfranchi, and by him taken to his lodgings on the Pra della
Valle and introduced to the charitable ministrations of his young and
beautiful wife--the fair, the too-fair Donna Aurelia, with whom, I shall