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Even Virgilian quotation has seldom been put to nobler use. Like all the great men of the eighteenth century, Paoli was an enthusiast for the ancients. "A young man who would form his mind to glory," he told Boswell, "must not read modern memoirs; ma Plutarcho, ma Tito Livio." His own mind was formed not only to glory, but also to what so often fails to go with glory, to justice and moderation.
The claim was made near a century later by Livio Sanuto in his Geographia, published at Venice, in 1588, that Sebastian Cabot had been the first to observe this variation, and had explained it to Edward VI., and that he had on a chart placed the line of no variation at a point one hundred and ten miles west of the island of Flores in the Azores.
Then he put Thomas away in his warm corner of the cart, and Livio joined him, and they had supper together at a trattoria, and then climbed the road between vineyards and lemon gardens up to the new white hotel. Livio, as they walked, practised his repertory of songs, singing melodious snatches in the lemon-scented dusk.
Livio joined them there next morning at breakfast. He said, "You were foolish to leave the hotel so soon. I got a good sum of money. There was an English family, that gave me a good reward. My music pleased them. The English are always generous and extravagant. Oh, Dio, I forgot; one of them sent you this note by me. He explained nothing; he said, 'Is he that was with you your friend?
They came into Castoleto, which is a small place where the sea washes a shingly shore just below the town, and the narrow streets smell of fish and other things. Livio waved his hand towards a large new hotel that stood imposingly on the hill just behind the town. "There we will go this evening, I with my music, you with your embroideries." That seemed a good plan.
Peter said he supposed so. Livio added, resuming his own tongue, "Santa Caterina da Siena visited Castoleto. Are you a Christian?" "Oh, well," said Peter, who found the subject difficult, and was not good at thinking out difficult things. Livio nodded. "One doesn't want much church, of course; that's best for the women. But so many English aren't Christians at all, but heretics."
"He followed me to the garden door as I went away," continued Livio, "and gave it me secretly. I fancy he did not mean his companions to know. You will go?" Peter smiled, and Livio looked momentarily embarrassed. "Oh, you know, it came open in my hand; and understanding the language so well, it leaped to my eyes. I knew you would not mind. You will go and see this milord?
"Fu rinchiuso in una torre grossa e larga; avea libri assai, suo Tito Livio, sue storie di Roma, la Bibbia." &c. "Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. c. 13. "He was immured in a high and spacious tower; he had books enough, his Titus Livius, his histories of Rome, the Bible," &c. The Stranger Beauty.
Livio, close to him, was twanging his mandolin and singing some absurd melody: "Ah, Signor!" "Scusi, Signora?" "È forae il mio marito, Da molti anni smarrito?..." Peter broke in softly, "Livio, I go. I have had enough." Livio's eyebrows rose; he shrugged his shoulders, but continued his singing. He, anyhow, had not yet had enough of such a good-natured audience.
I gave my daughter a very fine wedding outfit and some jewellery, including a bracelet, mounted with some large diamonds, on which was her father's likeness. Her marriage portion, the product of the portraits I had painted at St. Petersburg, I deposited with the banker Livio. The day after my daughter's wedding I went to see her. I found her placid and unelated over her bliss.
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