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RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
Englishman was wont to ask the painter to his house ; he rode and
went out with the German in order to entice him; all to no avail.
He could not win over the artist. One day, at a luncheon in his
palace, to which “our friend” had been invited, he introduced the
latter in his customary boorish manner, making fun of the Ger-
man’s homeland by rhyming “Prussiano” with “ruffiano.” The
painter, deeply hurt, left the palace. On reaching his home, the
artist wrote a letter to the lord (which Seume quotes in full), in
which he paid back the insult he had received in like manner. The
noble lord laughed loudly on reading it, for he may have been
used to similar flatteries. But he ceased laughing when a cartoon,
depicting a pig surrounded by empty and broken wine bottles, and
undoubtedly drawn by the artist, began circulating in Rome.
Everyone knew who was represented: the Earl of Bristol; and
the painter’s name, Reinhart, was on everybody’s lips. Seume
concludes the anecdote by expressing his disbelief in a rumored
change in Bristol’s customary behavior. If for nothing else, the
story is interesting for betraying Seume’s obvious dislike of a
man who lived a dissolute and irresponsible life.
In his Apokryphen (written between 1806 and 1807) Seume
again quotes the Earl. He writes, this time with greater approval,
because he himself had become discouraged by conditions in Ger-
many: “The late Lord Bristol, of dissolute memory, divided all the
Germans in Rome into winedrinkers and beerdrinkers ; with the ob-
servation that the former were rogues and the latter blockheads.
Although much cynical arrogance is shown in this view, one must
indeed confess that the man could have been led to it through a
study of our public affairs. Now, to be sure, we have consider-
ably fewer winedrinkers, but a proportionate rise in beerdrinkers ;
and thus in no way have improved” (W, IV, 277-278). This con-
cludes Seume’s remarks on Bristol whom he never met in person,
but who, of course, was known to all Germans who kept abreast of
world news.
Of considerable interest are Seume’s observations on Horatio
Nelson (1758-1805), the British naval hero, Lady Emma Hamilton
(ca. 1765-1815), and Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), the Brit-
ish envoy to the court of Naples. The strange and intriguing
story of these three was, of course, well known throughout Europe,
when Seume started out on his tour through Italy. As is to be
expected, Seume, the liberal and moral critic, does not approve of
any of them. In the Spaziergang, he mentions first Sir Hamilton,
writing from Naples that he saw “the pretty bungalow of the