Page:Hamel Telegraph history England 1859.pdf/50

46 Berne, in Switzerland.In November of the same year he was appointed Consul-General at Venice and the Austrian territories in the Adriatic.

Lord Byron, when at Venice, in 1817, became a great friend of his, as may be seen from his letters, out of which not less than eighteen are printed by Thomas Moore in his "Letters and Journals of Lord Byron." In several of them he alludes to Hoppner's, then " little, son."

On examining at Heidelberg the books in which the names of the students at the University are entered, I found that this John "William (the name Rizzo is not mentioned) Hoppner became a student there in 1834. He applied himself particularly to those branches that would enable him to become a civil engineer; indeed, he was subsequently for a time employed by Mr. Robert Stephenson, on the making of the railroad from Florence to Leghorn. With his subsequent history we have here nothing to do.

During the winter of 1835–36, he was lodged at Heidelberg in Engelman's house.

I now have to speak of the gentleman, who, through John William Rizzo Hoppner, was induced to transfer Baron Schilling's mode of telegraphing to England.

William Fothergill Cooke, who, as a young man, had