This is an age of "Reminiscences," and although I have never played any
part in the world's affairs, I have witnessed so many notable things and
met so many notable people during the three-score years which I have
lately completed, that it is perhaps allowable for me to add yet another
volume of personal recollections to the many which have already poured
from the press. On starting on an undertaking of this kind it is usual, I
perceive by the many examples around me, to say something about one's
family and upbringing. There is less reason for me to depart from this
practice, as in the course of the present volume it will often be
necessary for me to refer to some of my near relations. A few years ago a
distinguished Italian philosopher and author, Angelo de Gubernatis, was
good enough to include me in a dictionary of writers belonging to the
Latin races, and stated, in doing so, that the Vizetellys were of French
origin. That was a rather curious mistake on the part of an Italian
writer, the truth being that the family originated at Ravenna, where some
members of it held various offices in the Middle Ages. Subsequently, after
dabbling in a conspiracy, some of the Vizzetelli fled to Venice and took
to glass-making there, until at last Jacopo, from whom I am descended,
came to England in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth. From that time
until my own the men of my family invariably married English women, so
that very little Italian blood can flow in my veins.

Matrimonial alliances are sometimes of more than personal interest. One
point has particularly struck me in regard to those contracted by members
of my own family, this being the diversity of English counties from which
the men have derived their wives and the women their husbands. References
to Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire,
Leicestershire, Berkshire, Bucks, Suffolk, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and
Devonshire, in addition to Middlesex, otherwise London, appear in my
family papers. We have become connected with Johnstons, Burslems,