Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/22

10 Journal goes on up to June 30, 1816. It was then dropped, as Polidori notes "through neglect and dissipation," for he saw a great deal of company. On September 5 he wrote up some summarized reminiscences; and from September 16, the day when he parted company with Byron at Cologny, near Geneva, and proceeded to journey through Italy on his own account, he continued with some regularity up to December 30, when he was sojourning in Pisa. That is the latest day of which any record remains; but it is known from other evidence that Dr. Polidori continued in Italy up to April 14, 1817: he then left Venice in company with the new Earl of Guilford and his mother—being their travelling physician. Whether the Journal is in any fair degree interesting or brightly written is a question which the reader will settle for himself; as a document relevant to the life of two illustrious poets, it certainly merits some degree of attention.

My own first acquaintance with the Diary of Dr. Polidori dates back to 1869, when I was preparing the Memoir of Shelley which preludes my edition of his poems, published in 1870; I then availed myself of the Shelleian information contained in the Diary, and even gave two or three verbatim extracts from it. The MS. book was at that time the property of a sister of his, Miss Charlotte Lydia Polidori, a lady of