it down from the box, charging me with a
thousand last loving and dutiful messages to his dear
patron, and finally looking in at the bottle as it
reposed inside, with an admiration of its
honourable way of travelling that was beyond
measure delightful.

And now, what disquiet of mind this dearly-
beloved and highly-treasured Bottle began to
cost me, no man knows. It was my precious
charge through a long tour, and, for hundreds
of miles, I never had it off my mind by day or
by night. Over bad roads—and they were
many—I clung to it with affectionate desperation.
Up mountains, I looked in at it and saw
it helplessly tilting over on its back, with terror.
At innumerable inn doors when the weather was
bad, I was obliged to be put into my vehicle
before the Bottle could be got in, and was obliged
to have the Bottle lifted out before human aid
could come near me. The Imp of the same
name, except that his associations were all evil
and these associations were all good, would have
been a less troublesome travelling companion.
I might have served Mr. Cruikshank as a subject
for a new illustration of the miseries of the
Bottle. The National Temperance Society might
have made a powerful Tract of me.

The suspicions that attached to this innocent
Bottle, greatly aggravated my difficulties. It
was like the apple-pie in the child's book. Parma
pouted at it, Modena mocked it, Tuscany tackled
it, Naples nibbled it, Rome refused it, Austria
accused it, Soldiers suspected it, Jesuits jobbed
it. I composed a neat Oration, developing my
inoffensive intentions in connexion with this Bottle,
and delivered it in an infinity of guard-houses, at a
multitude of town gates, and on every draw-
bridge, angle, and rampart, of a complete system
of fortifications. Fifty times a day, I got down
to harangue an infuriated soldiery about the
Bottle. Through the filthy degradation of the
abject and vile Roman States, I had as much
difficulty in working my way with the Bottle, as if
it had bottled up a complete system of heretical
theology. In the Neapolitan country, where
everybody was a spy, a soldier, a priest, or a
lazzarone, the shameless beggars of all four
denominations incessantly pounced on the Bottle
and made it a pretext for extorting money from
me. Quires—quires do I say? Reams—of forms
illegibly printed on whity-brown paper were
filled up about the Bottle, and it was the subject
of more stamping and sanding than I had ever
seen before. In consequence of which haze of
sand, perhaps, it was always irregular, and
always latent with dismal penalties of going
back, or not going forward, which were only to
be abated by the silver crossing of a base hand,
poked shirtless out of a ragged uniform sleeve.
Under all discouragements, however, I stuck to
my Bottle, and held firm to my resolution that
every drop of its contents should reach the
Bottle's destination.

The latter refinement cost me a separate heap
of troubles on its own separate account. What
corkscrews did I see the military power bring
out against that Bottle: what gimlets, spikes,
divining rods, gauges, and unknown tests and
instruments! At some places, they persisted in
declaring that the wine must not be passed,
without being opened and tasted; I, pleading
to the contrary, used then to argue the question
seated on the Bottle lest they should open it in
spite of me. In the southern parts of Italy,
more violent shrieking, face-making, and
gesticulating, greater vehemence of speech and
countenance and action, went on about that Bottle
than would attend fifty murders in a northern
latitude. It raised important functionaries out
of their beds, in the dead of night. I have
known half a dozen military lanterns to disperse
themselves at all points of a great sleeping
Piazza, each lantern summoning some official
creature to get up, put on his cocked-hat
instantly, and come and stop the Bottle. It was
characteristic that while this innocent Bottle
had such immense difficulty in getting from
little town to town, Signor Mazzini and the
fiery cross were traversing Italy from end to
end.

Still, I stuck to my Bottle, like any fine old
English gentleman all of the olden time. The
more the Bottle was interfered with, the
stauncher I became (if possible) in my first
determination that my countryman should have it
delivered to him intact, as the man whom he had
so nobly restored to life and liberty had delivered
it to me. If ever I have been obstinate in my
days—and I may have been, say, once or twice—
I was obstinate about the Bottle. But, I made
it a rule always to keep a pocket full of small
coin at its service, and never to be out of temper
in its cause. Thus I and the Bottle made our
way. Once, we had a break-down; rather a bad
break-down, on a steep high place with the sea
below us, on a tempestuous evening when it
blew great guns. We were driving four wild
horses abreast, Southern fashion, and there was
some little difficulty in stopping them. I was
outside, and not thrown off; but no words can
describe my feelings when I saw the Bottle—
travelling inside, as usual—burst the door open,
and roll obesely out into the road. A blessed
Bottle with a charmed existence, he took no
hurt, and we repaired damage, and went on
triumphant.

A thousand representations were made to
me that the Bottle must be left at this
place, or that, and called for again. I never
yielded to one of them, and never parted from
the Bottle, on any pretence, consideration,
threat, or entreaty. I had no faith in any
official receipt for the Bottle, and nothing would
induce me to accept one. These unmanageable
politics at last brought me and the Bottle, still
triumphant, to Genoa. There, I took a tender
and reluctant leave of him for a few weeks, and
consigned him to a trusty English captain, to be
conveyed to the Port of London by sea.

While the Bottle was on his voyage to
England, I read the Shipping Intelligence as
anxiously as if I had been an underwriter. There
was some stormy weather after I myself had got
to England by way of Switzerland and France,