[33] It is difficult to trace his movements during his last week in Italy. He reached Leghorn on Saturday, June 7. Thence he made his way to Florence and returned to Pisa on a Thursday, probably Thursday, June 19, the date of this letter. On Sunday, June 22, he was still at Pisa, but, I take it, on the eve of setting sail for England. Fifty-five days later, August 17, he leaped on shore at Stangate Creek. His account of Pisa is highly characteristic. "Of the hanging Tower," he writes, "the Duomo, the Cemetery, the Baptistery, I shall say nothing, except that being all together they form a wild mass, especially by moonlight, when the hanging Tower has something of a supernatural look; but what interested me with a deeper interest were the two hospitals, one for men, one for women," etc., and these he proceeds to describe. Nevertheless he must have paid more attention to the treasures of Pisan art than his note implies, for many years after in a Lecture on the History of Philosophy, delivered January 19, 1819, he describes minutely and vividly the "Triumph of Death," the great fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa, which was formerly assigned to Oreagna, but is now, I believe, attributed to Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti. _MS. Journal_; _MS. Report of Lecture_.
[34] Mr. Russell was an artist, an Exeter man, whom Coleridge met in Rome. They were fellow-travellers in Italy, and returned together to England.
[35] William Smith, M. P. for Norwich, who lived at Parndon House, near Harlow, in Essex. It was in a great measure through his advice and interest that Coleridge obtained his Lectureship at the Royal Institution. Ten years later (1817), on the occasion of the surreptitious publication of _Wat Tyler_, Mr. Smith, who was a staunch liberal, denounced the Laureate as a "renegade," and Coleridge with something of his old vigour gave battle on behalf of his brother-in-law in the pages of _The Courier_. _Essays on His Own Times_, iii. 939-950.
[36] Charles James Fox died on September 13, 1806.
[37] An unpublished letter from Sir Alexander Ball to His Excellency H. Elliot, Esq. (Minister at the Court of Naples), strongly recommends Coleridge to his favourable notice and consideration. Nothing that Coleridge ever said in favour of "Ball" exceeds what Sir Alexander says of Coleridge, but the Minister, whose hands must have been pretty full at the time, failed to be impressed, and withheld his patronage.