SEUME AND THE ENGLISH
61
remains on board after all the other passengers have left (W, III,
188 and 190).
We now come to certain anecdotes concerning Englishmen which
Seume delights in narrating. Most of these show up the British
as eccentric persons, an eighteenth-century tradition on the con-
tinent by which Lord Byron later profited. While in Rome, Seume
visited his friend Johann Christian Reinhart (1761-1847) who
lived there like so many other German artists. He belonged to
the classical school of German painters, the one of Adam Friedrich
Oeser (1717-1799), Asmus Jakob Carstens (1754-1798), Angelika
Kauffmann (1741-1807), and Joseph Anton Koch (1768-1831).
The anecdote which Seume relates in the Spaziergang (W, II, ИЗ-
115) concerns Reinhart and Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th
Earl of Bristol and 5th Baron Howard de Walden, Bishop of Derry
in Ireland (1730-1803), the famous “Lord Bristol” of the ancient
family of whose members it was said, “God created men, women,
and Herveys.” He certainly was a twig off the old tree. Among
his escapades was an affair with the Countess Lichtenau, the
mistress of Frederick William II of Prussia. An inveterate traveler,
he spent most of his later years on the continent, the reason why
so many hotels in Germany and Italy are named after him. Seume
heard of him in Rome, where he lived until his death in Albano.
Previous to that he had spent eighteen months in a French prison
in Milan. Bristol was a genuine lover of the arts, cultured and
versatile, but certainly not a man who made religion his only
business. Seume is none too kind to him in his remarks, perhaps
because a friend of his was involved in the incident to be related
below.
He starts his story with the following unflattering observation :
“For some years a wealthy Briton has been living here whose
eccentric character, to say the least, is rather famous throughout
Europe. He cannot, either in his capacity as a lord be considered
the pride of his nation, or as a bishop be called an ornament of
the Anglican Church. This gentleman has the whim, natural to the
rich, to play the connoisseur and Maecenas of the arts; and he
likes to be the arbiter of taste, but in such an unhappy manner that
his opinions can occasionally damn a work among those in Italy
who support the artists” (W, II, 113). Seume continues by stating
that many promising talents who are now in his clutches by
virtue of his liberality are destined for mediocrity. This noble lord
even attempted to have “our compatriot” join his entourage, but
the latter proved to be less of a courtier than many others. The