"But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend P * *, who objects to the quick succession of fun and gravity, as if in that case the gravity did not (in intention, at least) heighten the fun. His metaphor is, that 'we are never scorched and drenched at the same time.' Blessings on his experience! Ask him these questions about 'scorching and drenching.' Did he never play at cricket, or walk a mile in hot weather? Did he never spill a dish of tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the great shame of his nankeen breeches? Did he never swim in the sea at noonday with the sun in his eyes and on his head, which all the foam of ocean could not cool? Did he never draw his foot out of too hot water, d——ning his eyes and his valet's? Did he never tumble into a river or lake, fishing, and sit in his wet clothes in the boat, or on the bank, afterwards 'scorched and drenched,' like a true sportsman? 'Oh for breath to utter!'—but make him my compliments; he is a clever fellow for all that—a very clever fellow.

"You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny: I have no plan; I had no plan; but I had or have materials; though if, like Tony Lumpkin, 'I am to be snubbed so when I am in spirits,' the poem will be naught, and the poet turn serious again. If it don't take, I will leave it off where it is, with all due respect to the public; but if continued, it must be in my own way. You might as well make Hamlet (or Diggory) 'act mad' in a strait waistcoat as trammel my buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon; their gestures and my thoughts would only be pitiably absurd and ludicrously constrained. Why, man, the soul of such writing is its licence; at least the liberty of that licence, if one likes—not that one should abuse it. It is like Trial by Jury and Peerage and the Habeas Corpus—a very fine thing, but chiefly in the reversion; because no one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his possession of the privilege.

"But a truce with these reflections. You are too earnest and eager about a work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle and make giggle?—a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what I meant. And as to the indecency, do, pray, read in Boswell what Johnson, the sullen moralist, says of Prior and Paulo Purgante.

"Will you get a favour done for me? You can, by your government friends, Croker, Canning, or my old schoolfellow Peel, and I can't. Here it is. Will you ask them to appoint (without salary or emolument) a noble Italian (whom I will name afterwards) consul or vice-consul for Ravenna? He is a man of very large property,—noble, too; but he wishes to have a British protection, in case of changes. Ravenna is near the sea. He wants no emolument whatever. That his office might be useful, I know; as I lately sent off from Ravenna to Trieste a poor devil of an English sailor, who had remained there sick, sorry, and pennyless (having been set ashore in 1814), from the want of any accredited agent able or willing to help him homewards. Will you get this done? If you do, I will then send his name and condition, subject, of course, to rejection, if not approved when known.

"I know that in the Levant you make consuls and vice-consuls, perpetually, of foreigners. This man is a patrician, and has twelve thousand a year. His motive is a British protection in case of new invasions. Don't you think Croker would do it for us? To be sure, my interest is rare!! but, perhaps, a brother wit in the Tory line might do a good turn at the request of so harmless and long absent a Whig, particularly as there is no salary or burden of any sort to be annexed to the office.

"I can assure you, I should look upon it as a great obligation; but, alas! that very circumstance may, very probably, operate to the contrary—indeed, it ought; but I have, at least, been an honest and an open enemy. Amongst your many splendid government connections, could not you, think you, get our Bibulus made a Consul? or make me one, that I may make him my Vice. You may be assured that, in case of accidents in Italy, he would be no feeble adjunct—as you would think, if you knew his patrimony.

"What is all this about Tom Moore? but why do I ask? since the state of my own affairs would not permit me to be of use to him, though they are greatly improved since 1816, and may, with some more luck and a little prudence, become quite clear. It seems his claimants are American merchants? There goes Nemesis! Moore abused America. It is always thus in the long run:—Time, the Avenger. You have seen every trampler down, in turn, from Buonaparte to the simplest individuals. You saw how some were avenged even upon my insignificance, and how in turn * * * paid for his atrocity. It is an odd world; but the watch has its mainspring, after all.

"So the Prince has been repealing Lord Edward Fitzgerald's forfeiture? Ecco un' sonetto!

"To be the father of the fatherless, To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,— This is to be a monarch, and repress Envy into unutterable praise. Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, For who would lift a hand, except to bless? Were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet To make thyself beloved? and to be Omnipotent by Mercy's means? for thus Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete, A despot thou, and yet thy people free, And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.

"There, you dogs! there's a sonnet for you: you won't have such as that in a hurry from Mr. Fitzgerald. You may publish it with my name, an' ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good; it was a very noble piece of principality. Would you like an epigram—a translation?

"If for silver, or for gold, You could melt ten thousand pimples Into half a dozen dimples, Then your face we might behold, Looking, doubtless, much more snugly, Yet ev'n then 'twould be d——d ugly.

"This was written on some Frenchwoman, by Rulhieres, I believe. Yours."

[Footnote 42: The "Dama," in whose company he witnessed this representation, thus describes its effect upon him:—"The play was that of Mirra; the actors, and particularly the actress who performed the part of Mirra, seconded with much success the intentions of our great dramatist. Lord Byron took a strong interest in the representation, and it was evident that he was deeply affected. At length there came a point of the performance at which he could no longer restrain his emotions;—he burst into a flood of tears, and, his sobs preventing him from remaining any longer in the box, he rose and left the theatre.—I saw him similarly affected another time during a representation of Alfieri's 'Philip,' at Ravenna."—"Gli attori, e specialmente l' attrice che rappresentava Mirra secondava assai bene la mente del nostro grande tragico. L.B. prece molto interesse alla rappresentazione, e si conosceva che era molto commosso. Venne un punto poi della tragedia in cui non pote piu frenare la sua emozione,—diede in un diretto pianto e i singhiozzi gl' impedirono di piu restare nel palco; onde si levo, e parti dal teatro. In uno stato simile lo viddi un altra volta a Ravenna ad una rappresentazione del Filippo d'Alfieri."]

* * * * *

LETTER 338. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Bologna, August 23. 1819.

"I send you a letter to R * *ts, signed Wortley Clutterbuck, which you may publish in what form you please, in answer to his article. I have had many proofs of men's absurdity, but he beats all in folly. Why, the wolf in sheep's clothing has tumbled into the very trap! We'll strip him. The letter is written in great haste, and amidst a thousand vexations. Your letter only came yesterday, so that there is no time to polish: the post goes out to-morrow. The date is 'Little Piddlington.' Let * * * * correct the press: he knows and can read the handwriting. Continue to keep the anonymous about 'Juan;' it helps us to fight against overwhelming numbers. I have a thousand distractions at present; so excuse haste, and wonder I can act or write at all. Answer by post, as usual.

"Yours.

"P.S. If I had had time, and been quieter and nearer, I would have cut him to hash; but as it is, you can judge for yourselves."

* * * * *

The letter to the Reviewer, here mentioned, had its origin in rather an amusing circumstance. In the first Canto of Don Juan appeared the following passage:—

"For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish, I've bribed My Grandmother's Review,—the British!

"I sent it in a letter to the editor, Who thank'd me duly by return of post— I'm for a handsome article his creditor; Yet if my gentle Muse he please to roast, And break a promise after having made it her, Denying the receipt of what it cost, And smear his page with gall instead of honey, All I can say is—that he had the money."

On the appearance of the poem, the learned editor of the Review in question allowed himself to be decoyed into the ineffable absurdity of taking the charge as serious, and, in his succeeding number, came forth with an indignant contradiction of it. To this tempting subject the letter, written so hastily off at Bologna, related; but, though printed for Mr. Murray, in a pamphlet consisting of twenty-three pages, it was never published by him.[43] Being valuable, however, as one of the best specimens we have of Lord Byron's simple and thoroughly English prose, I shall here preserve some extracts from it.

[Footnote 43: It appeared afterwards in the Liberal.]

* * * * *

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRITISH REVIEW.

"My dear R——ts,

"As a believer in the Church of England—to say nothing of the State—I have been an occasional reader, and great admirer, though not a subscriber, to your Review. But I do not know that any article of its contents ever gave me much surprise till the eleventh of your late twenty-seventh number made its appearance. You have there most manfully refuted a calumnious accusation of bribery and corruption, the credence of which in the public mind might not only have damaged your reputation as a clergyman and an editor, but, what would have been still worse, have injured the circulation of your journal; which, I regret to hear, is not so extensive as the 'purity (as you well observe) of its, &c. &c.' and the present taste for propriety, would induce us to expect. The charge itself is of a solemn nature; and, although in verse, is couched in terms of such circumstantial gravity as to induce a belief little short of that generally accorded to the thirty-nine articles, to which you so generously subscribed on taking your degrees. It is a charge the most revolting to the heart of man from its frequent occurrence; to the mind of a statesman from its occasional truth; and to the soul of an editor from its moral impossibility. You are charged then in the last line of one octave stanza, and the whole eight lines of the next, viz. 209th and 210th of the first Canto of that 'pestilent poem,' Don Juan, with receiving, and still more foolishly acknowledging, the receipt of certain moneys to eulogise the unknown author, who by this account must be known to you, if to nobody else. An impeachment of this nature, so seriously made, there is but one way of refuting; and it is my firm persuasion, that whether you did or did not (and I believe that you did not) receive the said moneys, of which I wish that he had specified the sum, you are quite right in denying all knowledge of the transaction. If charges of this nefarious description are to go forth, sanctioned by all the solemnity of circumstance, and guaranteed by the veracity of verse (as Counsellor Phillips would say), what is to become of readers hitherto implicitly confident in the not less veracious prose of our critical journals? what is to become of the reviews; and, if the reviews fail, what is to become of the editors? It is common cause, and you have done well to sound the alarm. I myself, in my humble sphere, will be one of your echoes. In the words of the tragedian Liston, 'I love a row,' and you seem justly determined to make one.

"It is barely possible, certainly improbable, that the writer might have been in jest; but this only aggravates his crime. A joke, the proverb says, 'breaks no bones;' but it may break a bookseller, or it may be the cause of bones being broken. The jest is but a bad one at the best for the author, and might have been a still worse one for you, if your copious contradiction did not certify to all whom it may concern your own indignant innocence, and the immaculate purity of the British Review. I do not doubt your word, my dear R——ts, yet I cannot help wishing that, in a case of such vital importance, it had assumed the more substantial shape of an affidavit sworn before the Lord Mayor Atkins, who readily receives any deposition; and doubtless would have brought it in some way as evidence of the designs of the Reformers to set fire to London, at the same time that he himself meditates the same good office towards the river Thames.

"I recollect hearing, soon after the publication, this subject discussed at the tea-table of Mr. * * * the poet,—and Mrs. and the Misses * * * * * being in a corner of the room perusing the proof sheets of Mr. * * *'s poems, the male part of the conversazione were at liberty to make some observations on the poem and passage in question, and there was a difference of opinion. Some thought the allusion was to the 'British Critic;' others, that by the expression 'My Grandmother's Review,' it was intimated that 'my grandmother' was not the reader of the review, but actually the writer; thereby insinuating, my dear Mr. R——ts, that you were an old woman; because, as people often say, 'Jeffrey's Review," 'Gifford's Review,' in lieu of Edinburgh and Quarterly, so 'My Grandmother's Review' and R——ts's might be also synonymous. Now, whatever colour this insinuation might derive from the circumstance of your wearing a gown, as well as from your time of life, your general style, and various passages of your writings,—I will take upon myself to exculpate you from all suspicion of the kind, and assert, without calling Mrs. R——ts in testimony, that if ever you should be chosen Pope, you will pass through all the previous ceremonies with as much credit as any pontiff since the parturition of Joan. It is very unfair to judge of sex from writings, particularly from those of the British Review. We are all liable to be deceived, and it is an indisputable fact that many of the best articles in your journal, which were attributed to a veteran female, were actually written by you yourself, and yet to this day there are people who could never find out the difference. But let us return to the more immediate question.

"I agree with you that it is impossible Lord B. should be the author, not only because, as a British peer and a British poet, it would be impracticable for him to have recourse to such facetious fiction, but for some other reasons which you have omitted to state. In the first place, his Lordship has no grandmother. Now the author—and we may believe him in this—doth expressly state that the 'British' is his 'Grandmother's Review;' and if, as I think I have distinctly proved, this was not a mere figurative allusion to your supposed intellectual age and sex, my dear friend, it follows, whether you be she or no, that there is such an elderly lady still extant.

"Shall I give you what I think a prudent opinion? I don't mean to insinuate, God forbid! but if, by any accident, there should have been such a correspondence between you and the unknown author, whoever he may be, send him back his money; I dare say he will be very glad to have it again; it can't be much, considering the value of the article and the circulation of the journal; and you are too modest to rate your praise beyond its real worth:—don't be angry, I know you won't, at this appraisement of your powers of eulogy: for on the other hand, my dear fellow, depend upon it your abuse is worth, not its own weight, that's a feather, but your weight in gold. So don't spare it; if he has bargained for that, give it handsomely, and depend upon your doing him a friendly office.

"What the motives of this writer may have been for (as you magnificently translate his quizzing you) 'stating, with the particularity which belongs to fact, the forgery of a groundless fiction,' (do, pray, my dear R., talk a little less 'in King Cambyses' vein,') I cannot pretend to say; perhaps to laugh at you, but that is no reason for your benevolently making all the world laugh also. I approve of your being angry, I tell you I am angry too, but you should not have shown it so outrageously. Your solemn 'if somebody personating the Editor of the, &c. &c. has received from Lord B. or from any other person,' reminds me of Charley Incledon's usual exordium when people came into the tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning—'if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you? Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R——ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and what he did not succeed in doing, you have done for him and for yourself."

* * * * *

Towards the latter end of August, Count Guiccioli, accompanied by his lady, went for a short time to visit some of his Romagnese estates, while Lord Byron remained at Bologna alone. And here, with a heart softened and excited by the new feeling that had taken possession of him, he appears to have given himself up, during this interval of solitude, to a train of melancholy and impassioned thought, such as, for a time, brought back all the romance of his youthful days. That spring of natural tenderness within his soul, which neither the world's efforts nor his own had been able to chill or choke up, was now, with something of its first freshness, set flowing once more. He again knew what it was to love and be loved,—too late, it is true, for happiness, and too wrongly for peace, but with devotion enough, on the part of the woman, to satisfy even his thirst for affection, and with a sad earnestness, on his own, a foreboding fidelity, which made him cling but the more passionately to this attachment from feeling that it would be his last.

A circumstance which he himself used to mention as having occurred at this period will show how over-powering, at times, was the rush of melancholy over his heart. It was his fancy, during Madame Guiccioli's absence from Bologna, to go daily to her house at his usual hour of visiting her, and there, causing her apartments to be opened, to sit turning over her books, and writing in them.[44] He would then descend into her garden, where he passed hours in musing; and it was on an occasion of this kind, as he stood looking, in a state of unconscious reverie, into one of those fountains so common in the gardens of Italy, that there came suddenly into his mind such desolate fancies, such bodings of the misery he might bring on her he loved, by that doom which (as he has himself written) "makes it fatal to be loved[45]," that, overwhelmed with his own thoughts, he burst into an agony of tears.

During the same few days it was that he wrote in the last page of Madame Guiccioli's copy of "Corinne" the following remarkable note:—

"My dearest Teresa,—I have read this book in your garden;—my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them—which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognise the hand-writing of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love. In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours—Amor mio—is comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I fear that I shall exist hereafter,—to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, seventeen years of age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there, with all my heart,—or, at least, that I had never met you in your married state.

"But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me,—at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you.

"Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and the ocean divide us,—but they never will, unless you wish it. BYRON.

"Bologna, August 25. 1819."

[Footnote 44: One of these notes, written at the end of the 5th chapter, 18th book of Corinne ("Fragmens des Pensees de Corinne") is as follows:—

"I knew Madame de Stael well,—better than she knew Italy,—but I little thought that, one day, I should think with her thoughts, in the country where she has laid the scene of her most attractive productions. She is sometimes right, and often wrong, about Italy and England; but almost always true in delineating the heart, which is of but one nation, and of no country,—or, rather, of all.

"BYRON.

"Bologna, August 23. 1819." ]

[Footnote 45:

"Oh Love! what is it, in this world of ours, Which makes it fatal to be loved? ah! why With cypress branches hast thou wreath'd thy bowers, And made thy best interpreter a sigh? As those who dote on odours pluck the flowers, And place them on their breasts—but place to die.— Thus the frail beings we would fondly cherish Are laid within our bosoms but to perish." ]

* * * * *

LETTER 339. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Bologna, August 24. 1819.

"I wrote to you by last post, enclosing a buffooning letter for publication, addressed to the buffoon R——ts, who has thought proper to tie a canister to his own tail. It was written off-hand, and in the midst of circumstances not very favourable to facetiousness, so that there may, perhaps, be more bitterness than enough for that sort of small acid punch:—you will tell me.

"Keep the anonymous, in any case: it helps what fun there may be. But if the matter grow serious about Don Juan, and you feel yourself in a scrape, or me either, own that I am the author. I will never shrink; and if you do, I can always answer you in the question of Guatimozin to his minister—each being on his own coals.[46]

"I wish that I had been in better spirits; but I am out of sorts, out of nerves, and now and then (I begin to fear) out of my senses. All this Italy has done for me, and not England: I defy all you, and your climate to boot, to make me mad. But if ever I do really become a bedlamite, and wear a strait waistcoat, let me be brought back among you; your people will then be proper company.

"I assure you what I here say and feel has nothing to do with England, either in a literary or personal point of view. All my present pleasures or plagues are as Italian as the opera. And after all, they are but trifles; for all this arises from my 'Dama's' being in the country for three days (at Capo-fiume). But as I could never live but for one human being at a time, (and, I assure you, that one has never been myself, as you may know by the consequences, for the selfish are successful in life,) I feel alone and unhappy.

"I have sent for my daughter from Venice, and I ride daily, and walk in a garden, under a purple canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's, and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisit the Campo Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two—but one the prettiest daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull dated 1766, which was once covered (the tradition goes) by the most lovely features of Bologna—noble and rich. When I look at these, and at this girl—when I think of what they were, and what she must be—why, then, my dear Murray, I won't shock you by saying what I think. It is little matter what becomes of us 'bearded men,' but I don't like the notion of a beautiful woman's lasting less than a beautiful tree—than her own picture—her own shadow, which won't change so to the sun as her face to the mirror. I must leave off, for my head aches consumedly. I have never been quite well since the night of the representation of Alfieri's Mirra, a fortnight ago. Yours ever."

[Footnote 46:

"Am I now reposing on a bed of flowers?"

See ROBERTSON.]

* * * * *

LETTER 340. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Bologna, August 29. 1819.

"I have been in a rage these two days, and am still bilious therefrom. You shall hear. A captain of dragoons, * *, Hanoverian by birth, in the Papal troops at present, whom I had obliged by a loan when nobody would lend him a paul, recommended a horse to me, on sale by a Lieutenant * *, an officer who unites the sale of cattle to the purchase of men. I bought it. The next day, on shoeing the horse, we discovered the thrush,—the animal being warranted sound. I sent to reclaim the contract and the money. The lieutenant desired to speak with me in person. I consented. He came. It was his own particular request. He began a story. I asked him if he would return the money. He said no—but he would exchange. He asked an exorbitant price for his other horses. I told him that he was a thief. He said he was an officer and a man of honour, and pulled out a Parmesan passport signed by General Count Neifperg. I answered, that as he was an officer, I would treat him as such; and that as to his being a gentleman, he might prove it by returning the money: as for his Parmesan passport, I should have valued it more if it had been a Parmesan cheese. He answered in high terms, and said that if it were the morning (it was about eight o'clock in the evening) he would have satisfaction. I then lost my temper: 'As for THAT,' I replied, 'you shall have it directly,—it will be mutual satisfaction, I can assure you. You are a thief, and, as you say, an officer; my pistols are in the next room loaded; take one of the candles, examine, and make your choice of weapons.' He replied, that pistols were English weapons; he always fought with the sword. I told him that I was able to accommodate him, having three regimental swords in a drawer near us: and he might take the longest and put himself on guard.

"All this passed in presence of a third person. He then said No; but to-morrow morning he would give me the meeting at any time or place. I answered that it was not usual to appoint meetings in the presence of witnesses, and that we had best speak man to man, and appoint time and instruments. But as the man present was leaving the room, the Lieutenant * *, before he could shut the door after him, ran out roaring 'Help and murder' most lustily, and fell into a sort of hysteric in the arms of about fifty people, who all saw that I had no weapon of any sort or kind about me, and followed him, asking him what the devil was the matter with him. Nothing would do: he ran away without his hat, and went to bed, ill of the fright. He then tried his complaint at the police, which dismissed it as frivolous. He is, I believe, gone away, or going.

"The horse was warranted, but, I believe, so worded that the villain will not be obliged to refund, according to law. He endeavoured to raise up an indictment of assault and battery, but as it was in a public inn, in a frequented street, there were too many witnesses to the contrary; and, as a military man, he has not cut a martial figure, even in the opinion of the priests. He ran off in such a hurry that he left his hat, and never missed it till he got to his hostel or inn. The facts are as I tell you, I can assure you. He began by 'coming Captain Grand over me,' or I should never have thought of trying his 'cunning in fence.' But what could I do? He talked of 'honour, and satisfaction, and his commission;' he produced a military passport; there are severe punishments for regular duels on the Continent, and trifling ones for rencontres, so that it is best to fight it out directly; he had robbed, and then wanted to insult me;—what could I do? My patience was gone, and the weapons at hand, fair and equal. Besides, it was just after dinner, when my digestion was bad, and I don't like to be disturbed. His friend * * is at Forli; we shall meet on my way back to Ravenna. The Hanoverian seems the greater rogue of the two; and if my valour does not ooze away like Acres's—'Odds flints and triggers!' if it should be a rainy morning, and my stomach in disorder, there may be something for the obituary.

"Now pray, 'Sir Lucius, do not you look upon me as a very ill-used gentleman?' I send my Lieutenant to match Mr. Hobhouse's Major Cartwright: and so 'good morrow to you, good master Lieutenant.' With regard to other things I will write soon, but I have been quarrelling and fooling till I can scribble no more."

* * * * *

In the month of September, Count Guiccioli, being called away by business to Ravenna, left his young Countess and her lover to the free enjoyment of each other's society at Bologna. The lady's ill health, which had been the cause of her thus remaining behind, was thought, soon after, to require the still further advantage of a removal to Venice; and the Count her husband, being written to on the subject, consented, with the most complaisant readiness, that she should proceed thither in company with Lord Byron. "Some business" (says the lady's own Memoir) "having called Count Guiccioli to Ravenna, I was obliged, by the state of my health, instead of accompanying him, to return to Venice, and he consented that Lord Byron should be the companion of my journey. We left Bologna on the fifteenth of September: we visited the Euganean Hills and Arqua, and wrote our names in the book which is presented to those who make this pilgrimage. But I cannot linger over these recollections of happiness;—the contrast with the present is too dreadful. If a blessed spirit, while in the full enjoyment of heavenly happiness, were sent down to this earth to suffer all its miseries, the contrast could not be more dreadful between the past and the present, than what I have endured from the moment when that terrible word reached my ears, and I for ever lost the hope of again beholding him, one look from whom I valued beyond earth's all happiness. When I arrived at Venice, the physicians ordered that I should try the country air, and Lord Byron, having a villa at La Mira, gave it up to me, and came to reside there with me. At this place we passed the autumn, and there I had the pleasure of forming your acquaintance."[47]

It was my good fortune, at this period, in the course of a short and hasty tour through the north of Italy, to pass five or six days with Lord Byron at Venice. I had written to him on my way thither to announce my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could I tempt him to accompany me as far as Rome.

During my stay at Geneva, an opportunity had been afforded me of observing the exceeding readiness with which even persons the least disposed to be prejudiced gave an ear to any story relating to Lord Byron, in which the proper portions of odium and romance were but plausibly mingled. In the course of conversation, one day, with the late amiable and enlightened Monsieur D * *, that gentleman related, with much feeling, to my fellow-traveller and myself, the details of a late act of seduction of which Lord Byron had, he said, been guilty, and which was made to comprise within itself all the worst features of such unmanly frauds upon innocence;—the victim, a young unmarried lady, of one of the first families of Venice, whom the noble seducer had lured from her father's house to his own, and, after a few weeks, most inhumanly turned her out of doors. In vain, said the relator, did she entreat to become his servant, his slave;—in vain did she ask to remain in some dark corner of his mansion, from which she might be able to catch a glimpse of his form as he passed. Her betrayer was obdurate, and the unfortunate young lady, in despair at being thus abandoned by him, threw herself into the canal, from which she was taken out but to be consigned to a mad-house. Though convinced that there must be considerable exaggeration in this story, it was only on my arrival at Venice I ascertained that the whole was a romance; and that out of the circumstances (already laid before the reader) connected with Lord Byron's fantastic and, it must be owned, discreditable fancy for the Fornarina, this pathetic tale, so implicitly believed at Geneva, was fabricated.

Having parted at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied from England, and whom I was to rejoin, after a short visit to Rome, at Genoa, I made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy travelling carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time being limited, I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry over their respective wonders, and, leaving Padua at noon on the 8th of October, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's villa, at La Mira. He was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if I would wait till he was dressed, he would accompany me to Venice. The interval I employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, Fletcher, and in viewing, under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa.

It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance; and the delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak of cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly evident he experienced at this moment.

I was a good deal struck, however, by the alteration that had taken place in his personal appearance. He had grown fatter both in person and face, and the latter had most suffered by the change,—having lost, by the enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spiritualised look that had, in other times, distinguished it. The addition of whiskers, too, which he had not long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some one had said he had a "faccia di musico," as well as the length to which his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and cap,—all combined to produce that dissimilarity to his former self I had observed in him. He was still, however, eminently handsome: and, in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had become still more striking.

His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o'clock in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,—his habit being to eat it standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit. Before we took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at this time, as my readers already know, living under the same roof with him at La Mira; and who, with a style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since known or heard of her has but served to confirm.

We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese vehicle, for Fusina,—his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza. On our arrival at Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c.; and the good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these matters, gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in sparring, witnessed.

As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight of Venice, rising "with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while, to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly:—

"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, Where Venice sat in state, throned in her hundred isles."

But, whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,—any thing but romantic,—into which our conversation wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on the Grand Canal. All that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during our London life together,—his scrapes and my lecturings,—our joint adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two great enemies, as he always called them, of London happiness,—our joyous nights together at Watier's, Kinnaird's, &c. and "that d——d supper of Rancliffe's which ought to have been a dinner,"—all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been difficult, even for persons far graver than I can pretend to be, not to have caught the contagion.

He had all along expressed his determination that I should not go to any hotel, but fix my quarters at his house during the period of my stay; and, had he been residing there himself, such an arrangement would have been all that I most desired. But, this not being the case, a common hotel was, I thought, a far readier resource; and I therefore entreated that he would allow me to order an apartment at the Gran Bretagna, which had the reputation, I understood, of being a comfortable hotel. This, however, he would not hear of; and, as an inducement for me to agree to his plan, said that, as long as I chose to stay, though he should be obliged to return to La Mira in the evenings, he would make it a point to come to Venice every day and dine with me. As we now turned into the dismal canal, and stopped before his damp-looking mansion, my predilection for the Gran Bretagna returned in full force; and I again ventured to hint that it would save an abundance of trouble to let me proceed thither. But "No—no," he answered,—"I see you think you'll be very uncomfortable here; but you'll find that it is not quite so bad as you expect."

As I groped my way after him through the dark hall, he cried out, "Keep clear of the dog;" and before we had proceeded many paces farther, "Take care, or that monkey will fly at you;"—a curious proof, among many others, of his fidelity to all the tastes of his youth, as it agrees perfectly with the description of his life at Newstead, in 1809, and of the sort of menagerie which his visiters had then to encounter in their progress through his hall. Having escaped these dangers, I followed him up the staircase to the apartment destined for me. All this time he had been despatching servants in various directions,—one, to procure me a laquais de place; another to go in quest of Mr. Alexander Scott, to whom he wished to give me in charge; while a third was sent to order his Segretario to come to him. "So, then, you keep a Secretary?" I said. "Yes," he answered, "a fellow who can't write[48]—but such are the names these pompous people give to things."

When we had reached the door of the apartment it was discovered to be locked, and, to all appearance, had been so for some time, as the key could not be found;—a circumstance which, to my English apprehension, naturally connected itself with notions of damp and desolation, and I again sighed inwardly for the Gran Bretagna. Impatient at the delay of the key, my noble host, with one of his humorous maledictions, gave a vigorous kick to the door and burst it open; on which we at once entered into an apartment not only spacious and elegant, but wearing an aspect of comfort and habitableness which to a traveller's eye is as welcome as it is rare. "Here," he said, in a voice whose every tone spoke kindness and hospitality,—"these are the rooms I use myself, and here I mean to establish you."

He had ordered dinner from some Tratteria, and while waiting its arrival—as well as that of Mr. Alexander Scott, whom he had invited to join us—we stood out on the balcony, in order that, before the daylight was quite gone, I might have some glimpses of the scene which the Canal presented. Happening to remark, in looking up at the clouds, which were still bright in the west, that "what had struck me in Italian sunsets was that peculiar rosy hue—" I had hardly pronounced the word "rosy," when Lord Byron, clapping his hand on my mouth, said, with a laugh, "Come, d——n it, Tom, don't be poetical." Among the few gondolas passing at the time, there was one at some distance, in which sat two gentlemen, who had the appearance of being English; and, observing them to look our way, Lord Byron putting his arms a-kimbo, said with a sort of comic swagger, "Ah! if you, John Bulls, knew who the two fellows are, now standing up here, I think you would stare!"—I risk mentioning these things, though aware how they may be turned against myself, for the sake of the otherwise indescribable traits of manner and character which they convey. After a very agreeable dinner, through which the jest, the story, and the laugh were almost uninterruptedly carried on, our noble host took leave of us to return to La Mira, while Mr. Scott and I went to one of the theatres, to see the Ottavia of Alfieri.

The ensuing evenings, during my stay, were passed much in the same manner,—my mornings being devoted, under the kind superintendence of Mr. Scott, to a hasty, and, I fear, unprofitable view of the treasures of art with which Venice abounds. On the subjects of painting and sculpture Lord Byron has, in several of his letters, expressed strongly and, as to most persons will appear, heretically his opinions. In his want, however, of a due appreciation of these arts, he but resembled some of his great precursors in the field of poetry;—both Tasso and Milton, for example, having evinced so little tendency to such tastes[49], that, throughout the whole of their pages, there is not, I fear, one single allusion to any of those great masters of the pencil and chisel, whose works, nevertheless, both had seen. That Lord Byron, though despising the imposture and jargon with which the worship of the Arts is, like other worships, clogged and mystified, felt deeply, more especially in sculpture, whatever imaged forth true grace and energy, appears from passages of his poetry, which are in every body's memory, and not a line of which but thrills alive with a sense of grandeur and beauty such as it never entered into the capacity of a mere connoisseur even to conceive.

In reference to this subject, as we were conversing one day after dinner about the various collections I had visited that morning, on my saying that fearful as I was, at all times, of praising any picture, lest I should draw upon myself the connoisseur's sneer for my pains, I would yet, to him, venture to own that I had seen a picture at Milan which—"The Hagar!" he exclaimed, eagerly interrupting me; and it was in fact this very picture I was about to mention as having wakened in me, by the truth of its expression, more real emotion than any I had yet seen among the chefs-d'oeuvre of Venice. It was with no small degree of pride and pleasure I now discovered that my noble friend had felt equally with myself the affecting mixture of sorrow and reproach with which the woman's eyes tell the whole story in that picture.

On the second evening of my stay, Lord Byron having, as before, left us for La Mira, I most willingly accepted the offer of Mr. Scott to introduce me to the conversazioni of the two celebrated ladies, with whose names, as leaders of Venetian fashion, the tourists to Italy have made every body acquainted. To the Countess A * *'s parties Lord Byron had chiefly confined himself during the first winter he passed at Venice; but the tone of conversation at these small meetings being much too learned for his tastes, he was induced, the following year, to discontinue his attendance at them, and chose, in preference, the less erudite, but more easy, society of the Countess B * *. Of the sort of learning sometimes displayed by the "blue" visitants at Madame A * *'s, a circumstance mentioned by the noble poet himself may afford some idea. The conversation happening to turn, one evening, upon the statue of Washington, by Canova, which had been just shipped off for the United States, Madame A * *, who was then engaged in compiling a Description Raisonnee of Canova's works, and was anxious for information respecting the subject of this statue, requested that some of her learned guests would detail to her all they knew of him. This task a Signor * * (author of a book on Geography and Statistics) undertook to perform, and, after some other equally sage and authentic details, concluded by informing her that "Washington was killed in a duel by Burke."—"What," exclaimed Lord Byron, as he stood biting his lips with impatience during this conversation, "what, in the name of folly, are you all thinking of?"—for he now recollected the famous duel between Hamilton and Colonel Burr, whom, it was evident, this learned worthy had confounded with Washington and Burke!

In addition to the motives easily conceivable for exchanging such a society for one that offered, at least, repose from such erudite efforts, there was also another cause more immediately leading to the discontinuance of his visits to Madame A * *. This lady, who has been sometimes honoured with the title of "The De Stael of Italy," had written a book called "Portraits," containing sketches of the characters of various persons of note; and it being her intention to introduce Lord Byron into this assemblage, she had it intimated to his Lordship that an article in which his portraiture had been attempted was to appear in a new edition she was about to publish of her work. It was expected, of course, that this intimation would awaken in him some desire to see the sketch; but, on the contrary, he was provoking enough not to manifest the least symptoms of curiosity. Again and again was the same hint, with as little success, conveyed; till, at length, on finding that no impression could be produced in this manner, a direct offer was made, in Madame A * *'s own name, to submit the article to his perusal. He could now contain himself no longer. With more sincerity than politeness, he returned for answer to the lady, that he was by no means ambitious of appearing in her work; that, from the shortness, as well as the distant nature of their acquaintance, it was impossible she could have qualified herself to be his portrait-painter, and that, in short, she could not oblige him more than by committing the article to the flames.

Whether the tribute thus unceremoniously treated ever met the eyes of Lord Byron, I know not; but he could hardly, I think, had he seen it, have escaped a slight touch of remorse at having thus spurned from him a portrait drawn in no unfriendly spirit, and, though affectedly expressed, seizing some of the less obvious features of his character,—as, for instance, that diffidence so little to be expected from a career like his, with the discriminating niceness of a female hand. The following are extracts from this Portrait:—

"'Toi, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai nom, Esprit mysterieux, Mortel, Ange, ou Demon, Qui que tu sois, Byron, bon ou fatal genie, J'aime de tes conceits la sauvage harmonie.' LAMARTINE.

"It would be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous. What serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chestnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature! What varied expression in his eyes! They were of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin. His teeth, in form, in colour, in transparency, resembled pearls; but his cheeks were too delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose. His neck, which he was in the habit of keeping uncovered as much as the usages of society permitted, seemed to have been formed in a mould, and was very white. His hands were as beautiful as if they had been the works of art. His figure left nothing to be desired, particularly by those who found rather a grace than a defect in a certain light and gentle undulation of the person when he entered a room, and of which you hardly felt tempted to enquire the cause. Indeed it was scarcely perceptible,—the clothes he wore were so long.

"He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the 'Piazza di San Marco;'—so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person. I, however, believe that he has often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely.

"His face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning; but, like it, in an instant became changed into the tempestuous and terrible, if a passion, (a passion did I say?) a thought, a word, occurred to disturb his mind. His eyes then lost all their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them. So rapid a change would not have been thought possible; but it was impossible to avoid acknowledging that the natural state of his mind was the tempestuous.

"What delighted him greatly one day annoyed him the next; and whenever he appeared constant in the practice of any habits, it arose merely from the indifference, not to say contempt, in which he held them all: whatever they might be, they were not worthy that he should occupy his thoughts with them. His heart was highly sensitive, and suffered itself to be governed in an extraordinary degree by sympathy; but his imagination carried him away, and spoiled every thing. He believed in presages, and delighted in the recollection that he held this belief in common with Napoleon. It appeared that, in proportion as his intellectual education was cultivated, his moral education was neglected, and that he never suffered himself to know or observe other restraints than those imposed by his inclinations. Nevertheless, who could believe that he had a constant, and almost infantine timidity, of which the evidences were so apparent as to render its existence indisputable, notwithstanding the difficulty experienced in associating with Lord Byron a sentiment which had the appearance of modesty? Conscious as he was that, wherever he presented himself, all eyes were fixed on him, and all lips, particularly those of the women, were opened to say, 'There he is, that is Lord Byron,'—he necessarily found himself in the situation of an actor obliged to sustain a character, and to render an account, not to others (for about them he gave himself no concern), but to himself, of his every action and word. This occasioned him a feeling of uneasiness which was obvious to every one.

"He remarked on a certain subject (which in 1814 was the topic of universal discourse) that 'the world was worth neither the trouble taken in its conquest, nor the regret felt at its loss,' which saying (if the worth of an expression could ever equal that of many and great actions) would almost show the thoughts and feelings of Lord Byron to be more stupendous and unmeasured than those of him respecting whom he spoke.

"His gymnastic exercises were sometimes violent, and at others almost nothing. His body, like his spirit, readily accommodated itself to all his inclinations. During an entire winter, he went out every morning alone to row himself to the island of Armenians, (a small island situated in the midst of a tranquil lake, and distant from Venice about half a league,) to enjoy the society of those learned and hospitable monks, and to learn their difficult language; and, in the evening, entering again into his gondola, he went, but only for a couple of hours, into company. A second winter, whenever the water of the lake was violently agitated, he was observed to cross it, and landing on the nearest terra firma, to fatigue at least two horses with riding.

"No one ever heard him utter a word of French, although he was perfectly conversant with that language. He hated the nation and its modern literature; in like manner, he held the modern Italian literature in contempt, and said it possessed but one living author,—a restriction which I know not whether to term ridiculous, or false and injurious. His voice was sufficiently sweet and flexible. He spoke with much suavity, if not contradicted, but rather addressed himself to his neighbour than to the entire company.

"Very little food sufficed him; and he preferred fish to flesh for this extraordinary reason, that the latter, he said, rendered him ferocious. He disliked seeing women eat; and the cause of this extraordinary antipathy must be sought in the dread he always had, that the notion he loved to cherish of their perfection and almost divine nature might be disturbed. Having always been governed by them, it would seem that his very self-love was pleased to take refuge in the idea of their excellence,—a sentiment which he knew how (God knows how) to reconcile with the contempt in which, shortly afterwards, almost with the appearance of satisfaction, he seemed to hold them. But contradictions ought not to surprise us in characters like Lord Byron's; and then, who does not know that the slave holds in detestation his ruler?

"Lord Byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. The English, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had their wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance. Still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him, and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under voice, 'What a pity it is!' If, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and of high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it, and was greatly pleased with such association. It seemed that to the wound which remained always open in his ulcerated heart such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him.

"Speaking of his marriage,—a delicate subject, but one still agreeable to him, if it was treated in a friendly voice,—he was greatly moved, and said it had been the innocent cause of all his errors and all his griefs. Of his wife he spoke with much respect and affection. He said she was an illustrious lady, distinguished for the qualities of her heart and understanding, and that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself. Now, was such language dictated by justice or by vanity? Does it not bring to mind the saying of Julius, that the wife of Caesar must not even be suspected? What vanity in that saying of Caesar! In fact, if it had not been from vanity, Lord Byron would have admitted this to no one. Of his young daughter, his dear Ada, he spoke with great tenderness, and seemed to be pleased at the great sacrifice he had made in leaving her to comfort her mother. The intense hatred he bore his mother-in-law, and a sort of Euryclea of Lady Byron, two women to whose influence he, in a great measure, attributed her estrangement from him,—demonstrated clearly how painful the separation was to him, notwithstanding some bitter pleasantries which occasionally occur in his writings against her also, dictated rather by rancour than by indifference."

[Footnote 47: "Il Conte Guiccioli doveva per affari ritornare a Ravenna; lo stato della mia salute esiggeva che io ritornassi in vece a Venezia. Egli acconsenti dunque che Lord Byron, mi fosse compagno di viaggio. Partimmo da Bologna alli 15 di Sre.—visitammo insieme i Colli Euganei ed Arqua; scrivemmo i nostri nomi nel libro che si presenta a quelli che fanno quel pellegrinaggio. Ma sopra tali rimembranze di felicita non posso fermarmi, caro Signr. Moore; l'opposizione col presente e troppo forte, e se un anima benedetta nel pieno godimento di tutte le felicita celesti fosse mandata quaggiu e condannata a sopportare tutte le miserie della nostra terra non potrebbe sentire piu terribile contrasto fra il passato ed il presente di quello che io sento dacche quella terribile parola e giunta alle mie orecchie, dacche ho perduto la speranza di piu vedere quello di cui uno sguardo valeva per me piu di tutte le felicita della terra. Giunti a Venezia i medici mi ordinarono di respirare l'aria della campagna. Egli aveva una villa alla Mira,—la cedesse a me, e venne meco. La passammo l'autunno, e la ebbi il bene di fare la vostra conoscenza."—MS.]

[Footnote 48: The title of Segretario is sometimes given, as in this case, to a head-servant or house-steward.]

[Footnote 49: That this was the case with Milton is acknowledged by Richardson, who admired both Milton and the Arts too warmly to make such an admission upon any but valid grounds. "He does not appear," says this writer, "to have much regarded what was done with the pencil; no, not even when in Italy, in Rome, in the Vatican. Neither does it seem Sculpture was much esteemed by him." After an authority like this, the theories of Hayley and others, with respect to the impressions left upon Milton's mind by the works of art he had seen in Italy, are hardly worth a thought. Though it may be conceded that Dante was an admirer of the Arts, his recommendation of the Apocalypse to Giotto, as a source of subjects for the pencil, shows, at least, what indifferent judges poets are, in general, of the sort of fancies fittest to be embodied by the painter.]

* * * * *

From the time of his misunderstanding with Madame A * * *, the visits of the noble poet were transferred to the house of the other great rallying point of Venetian society, Madame B * * *,—a lady in whose manners, though she had long ceased to be young, there still lingered much of that attaching charm, which a youth passed in successful efforts to please seldom fails to leave behind. That those powers of pleasing, too, were not yet gone, the fidelity of, at least, one devoted admirer testified; nor is she supposed to have thought it impossible that Lord Byron himself might yet be linked on at the end of that long chain of lovers, which had, through so many years, graced the triumphs of her beauty. If, however, there could have been, in any case, the slightest chance of such a conquest, she had herself completely frustrated it by introducing her distinguished visitor to Madame Guiccioli,—a step by which she at last lost, too, even the ornament of his presence at her parties, as in consequence of some slighting conduct, on her part, towards his "Dama," he discontinued his attendance at her evening assemblies, and at the time of my visit to Venice had given up society altogether.

I could soon collect, from the tone held respecting his conduct at Madame B * * *'s, how subversive of all the morality of intrigue they considered the late step of which he had been guilty in withdrawing his acknowledged "Amica" from the protection of her husband, and placing her, at once, under the same roof with himself. "You must really (said the hostess herself to me) scold your friend;—till this unfortunate affair, he conducted himself so well!"—a eulogy on his previous moral conduct which, when I reported it the following day to my noble host, provoked at once a smile and sigh from his lips.

The chief subject of our conversation, when alone, was his marriage, and the load of obloquy which it had brought upon him. He was most anxious to know the worst that had been alleged of his conduct; and as this was our first opportunity of speaking together on the subject, I did not hesitate to put his candour most searchingly to the proof, not only by enumerating the various charges I had heard brought against him by others, but by specifying such portions of these charges as I had been inclined to think not incredible myself. To all this he listened with patience, and answered with the most unhesitating frankness, laughing to scorn the tales of unmanly outrage related of him, but, at the same time, acknowledging that there had been in his conduct but too much to blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions, during his domestic life, when he had been irritated into letting "the breath of bitter words" escape him,—words, rather those of the unquiet spirit that possessed him than his own, and which he now evidently remembered with a degree of remorse and pain which might well have entitled them to be forgotten by others.

It was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admissions he might be inclined to make respecting his own delinquencies, the inordinate measure of the punishment dealt out to him had sunk deeply into his mind, and, with the usual effect of such injustice, drove him also to be unjust himself;—so much so, indeed, as to impute to the quarter, to which he now traced all his ill fate, a feeling of fixed hostility to himself, which would not rest, he thought, even at his grave, but continue to persecute his memory as it was now embittering his life. So strong was this impression upon him, that during one of our few intervals of seriousness, he conjured me, by our friendship, if, as he both felt and hoped, I should survive him, not to let unmerited censure settle upon his name, but, while I surrendered him up to condemnation, where he deserved it, to vindicate him where aspersed.

How groundless and wrongful were these apprehensions, the early death which he so often predicted and sighed for has enabled us, unfortunately but too soon, to testify. So far from having to defend him against any such assailants, an unworthy voice or two, from persons more injurious as friends than as enemies, is all that I find raised in hostility to his name; while by none, I am inclined to think, would a generous amnesty over his grave be more readily and cordially concurred in than by her, among whose numerous virtues a forgiving charity towards himself was the only one to which she had not yet taught him to render justice.

I have already had occasion to remark, in another part of this work, that with persons who, like Lord Byron, live centred in their own tremulous web of sensitiveness, those friends of whom they see least, and who, therefore, least frequently come in collision with them in those every-day realities from which such natures shrink so morbidly, have proportionately a greater chance of retaining a hold on their affections. There is, however, in long absence from persons of this temperament, another description of risk hardly less, perhaps, to be dreaded. If the station a friend holds in their hearts is, in near intercourse with them, in danger from their sensitiveness, it is almost equally, perhaps, at the mercy of their too active imaginations during absence. On this very point, I recollect once expressing my apprehensions to Lord Byron, in a passage of a letter addressed to him but a short time before his death, of which the following is, as nearly as I can recall it, the substance:—"When with you, I feel sure of you; but, at a distance, one is often a little afraid of being made the victim, all of a sudden, of some of those fanciful suspicions, which, like meteoric stones, generate themselves (God knows how) in the upper regions of your imagination, and come clattering down upon our heads, some fine sunny day, when we are least expecting such an invasion."

In writing thus to him, I had more particularly in recollection a fancy of this kind respecting myself, which he had, not long before my present visit to him at Venice, taken into his head. In a ludicrous, and now, perhaps, forgotten publication of mine, giving an account of the adventures of an English family in Paris, there had occurred the following description of the chief hero of the tale:—

"A fine, sallow, sublime sort of Werter-faced man, With mustachios which gave (what we read of so oft) The dear Corsair expression, half savage, half soft,— As hyaenas in love may be fancied to look, or A something between Abelard and old Blucher."

On seeing this doggrel, my noble friend,—as I might, indeed, with a little more thought, have anticipated,—conceived the notion that I meant to throw ridicule on his whole race of poetic heroes, and accordingly, as I learned from persons then in frequent intercourse with him, flew out into one of his fits of half humorous rage against me. This he now confessed himself, and, in laughing over the circumstance with me, owned that he had even gone so far as, in his first moments of wrath, to contemplate some little retaliation for this perfidious hit at his heroes. "But when I recollected," said he, "what pleasure it would give the whole tribe of blockheads and blues to see you and me turning out against each other, I gave up the idea." He was, indeed, a striking instance of what may be almost invariably observed, that they who best know how to wield the weapon of ridicule themselves, are the most alive to its power in the hands of others. I remember, one day,—in the year 1813, I think,—as we were conversing together about critics and their influence on the public. "For my part," he exclaimed, "I don't care what they say of me, so they don't quiz me."—"Oh, you need not fear that,"—I answered, with something, perhaps, of a half suppressed smile on my features,—"nobody could quiz you"—"You could, you villain!" he replied, clenching his hand at me, and looking, at the same time, with comic earnestness into my face.

Before I proceed any farther with my own recollections, I shall here take the opportunity of extracting some curious particulars respecting the habits and mode of life of my friend while at Venice, from an account obligingly furnished me by a gentleman who long resided in that city, and who, during the greater part of Lord Byron's stay, lived on terms of the most friendly intimacy with him.

"I have often lamented that I kept no notes of his observations during our rides and aquatic excursions. Nothing could exceed the vivacity and variety of his conversation, or the cheerfulness of his manner. His remarks on the surrounding objects were always original: and most particularly striking was the quickness with which he availed himself of every circumstance, however trifling in itself, and such as would have escaped the notice of almost any other person, to carry his point in such arguments as we might chance to be engaged in. He was feelingly alive to the beauties of nature, and took great interest in any observations, which, as a dabbler in the arts, I ventured to make upon the effects of light and shadow, or the changes produced in the colour of objects by every variation in the atmosphere.

"The spot where we usually mounted our horses had been a Jewish cemetery; but the French, during their occupation of Venice, had thrown down the enclosures, and levelled all the tombstones with the ground, in order that they might not interfere with the fortifications upon the Lido, under the guns of which it was situated. To this place, as it was known to be that where he alighted from his gondola and met his horses, the curious amongst our country people, who were anxious to obtain a glimpse of him, used to resort; and it was amusing in the extreme to witness the excessive coolness with which ladies, as well as gentlemen, would advance within a very few paces of him, eyeing him, some with their glasses, as they would have done a statue in a museum, or the wild beasts at Exeter 'Change. However flattering this might be to a man's vanity, Lord Byron, though he bore it very patiently, expressed himself, as I believe he really was, excessively annoyed at it.

"I have said that our usual ride was along the sea-shore, and that the spot where we took horse, and of course dismounted, had been a cemetery. It will readily be believed, that some caution was necessary in riding over the broken tombstones, and that it was altogether an awkward place for horses to pass. As the length of our ride was not very great, scarcely more than six miles in all, we seldom rode fast, that we might at least prolong its duration; and enjoy as much as possible the refreshing air of the Adriatic. One day, as we were leisurely returning homewards, Lord Byron, all at once, and without saying any thing to me, set spurs to his horse and started off at full gallop, making the greatest haste he could to get to his gondola. I could not conceive what fit had seized him, and had some difficulty in keeping even within a reasonable distance of him, while I looked around me to discover, if I were able, what could be the cause of his unusual precipitation. At length I perceived at some distance two or three gentlemen, who were running along the opposite side of the island nearest the Lagoon, parallel with him, towards his gondola, hoping to get there in time to see him alight; and a race actually took place between them, he endeavouring to outstrip them. In this he, in fact, succeeded, and, throwing himself quickly from his horse, leapt into his gondola, of which he hastily closed the blinds, ensconcing himself in a corner so as not to be seen. For my own part, not choosing to risk my neck over the ground I have spoken of, I followed more leisurely as soon as I came amongst the gravestones, but got to the place of embarkation just at the same moment with my curious countrymen, and in time to witness their disappointment at having had their run for nothing. I found him exulting in his success in outstripping them. He expressed in strong terms his annoyance at what he called their impertinence, whilst I could not but laugh at his impatience, as well as at the mortification of the unfortunate pedestrians, whose eagerness to see him, I said, was, in my opinion, highly flattering to him. That, he replied, depended on the feeling with which they came; and he had not the vanity to believe that they were influenced by any admiration of his character or of his abilities, but that they were impelled merely by idle curiosity. Whether it was so or not, I cannot help thinking that if they had been of the other sex, he would not have been so eager to escape from their observation, as in that case he would have repaid them glance for glance.

"The curiosity that was expressed by all classes of travellers to see him, and the eagerness with which they endeavoured to pick up any anecdotes of his mode of life, were carried to a length which will hardly be credited. It formed the chief subject of their enquiries of the gondoliers who conveyed them from terra firma to the floating city; and these people, who are generally loquacious, were not at all backward in administering to the taste and humours of their passengers, relating to them the most extravagant and often unfounded stories. They took care to point out the house where he lived, and to give such hints of his movements as might afford them an opportunity of seeing him. Many of the English visiters, under pretext of seeing his house, in which there were no paintings of any consequence, nor, besides himself, any thing worthy of notice, contrived to obtain admittance through the cupidity of his servants, and with the most barefaced impudence forced their way even into his bedroom, in the hopes of seeing him. Hence arose, in a great measure, his bitterness towards them, which he has expressed in a note to one of his poems, on the occasion of some unfounded remark made upon him by an anonymous traveller in Italy; and it certainly appears well calculated to foster that cynicism which prevails in his latter works more particularly, and which, as well as the misanthropical expressions that occur in those which first raised his reputation, I do not believe to have been his natural feeling. Of this I am certain, that I never witnessed greater kindness than in Lord Byron.

"The inmates of his family were all extremely attached to him, and would have endured any thing on his account. He was indeed culpably lenient to them; for even when instances occurred of their neglecting their duty, or taking an undue advantage of his good-nature, he rather bantered than spoke seriously to them upon it, and could not bring himself to discharge them, even when he had threatened to do so. An instance occurred within my knowledge of his unwillingness to act harshly towards a tradesman whom he had materially assisted, not only by lending him money, but by forwarding his interest in every way that he could. Notwithstanding repeated acts of kindness on Lord Byron's part, this man robbed and cheated him in the most barefaced manner; and when at length Lord Byron was induced to sue him at law for the recovery of his money, the only punishment he inflicted upon him, when sentence against him was passed, was to put him in prison for one week, and then to let him out again, although his debtor had subjected him to a considerable additional expense, by dragging him into all the different courts of appeal, and that he never at last recovered one halfpenny of the money owed to him. Upon this subject he writes to me from Ravenna, 'If * * is in (prison), let him out; if out, put him in for a week, merely for a lesson, and give him a good lecture.'

"He was also ever ready to assist the distressed, and he was most unostentatious in his charities: for besides considerable sums which he gave away to applicants at his own house, he contributed largely by weekly and monthly allowances to persons whom he had never seen, and who, as the money reached them by other hands, did not even know who was their benefactor. One or two instances might be adduced where his charity certainly bore an appearance of ostentation; one particularly, when he sent fifty louis d'or to a poor printer whose house had been burnt to the ground, and all his property destroyed; but even this was not unattended with advantage; for it in a manner compelled the Austrian authorities to do something for the poor sufferer, which I have no hesitation in saying they would not have done otherwise; and I attribute it entirely to the publicity of his donation, that they allowed the man the use of an unoccupied house belonging to the government until he could rebuild his own, or re-establish his business elsewhere. Other instances might be perhaps discovered where his liberalities proceeded from selfish, and not very worthy motives[50]; but these are rare, and it would be unjust in the extreme to assume them as proofs of his character."

It has been already mentioned that, in writing to my noble friend to announce my coming, I had expressed a hope that he would be able to go on with me to Rome; and I had the gratification of finding, on my arrival, that he was fully prepared to enter into this plan. On becoming acquainted, however, with all the details of his present situation, I so far sacrificed my own wishes and pleasure as to advise strongly that he should remain at La Mira. In the first place, I saw reason to apprehend that his leaving Madame Guiccioli at this crisis might be the means of drawing upon him the suspicion of neglecting, if not actually deserting, a young person who had just sacrificed so much to her devotion for him, and whose position, at this moment, between the Count and Lord Byron, it required all the generous prudence of the latter to shield from shame or fall. There had just occurred too, as it appeared to me, a most favourable opening for the retrieval of, at least, the imprudent part of the transaction, by replacing the lady instantly under her husband's protection, and thus enabling her still to retain that station in society which, in such society, nothing but such imprudence could have endangered.

This latter hope had been suggested by a letter he one day showed me, (as we were dining together alone, at the well-known Pellegrino,) which had that morning been received by the Contessa from her husband, and the chief object of which was—not to express any censure of her conduct, but to suggest that she should prevail upon her noble admirer to transfer into his keeping a sum of 1000l., which was then lying, if I remember right, in the hands of Lord Byron's banker at Ravenna, but which the worthy Count professed to think would be more advantageously placed in his own. Security, the writer added, would be given, and five per cent. interest allowed; as to accept of the sum on any other terms he should hold to be an "avvilimento" to him. Though, as regarded the lady herself, who has since proved, by a most noble sacrifice, how perfectly disinterested were her feelings throughout[51], this trait of so wholly opposite a character in her lord must have still further increased her disgust at returning to him, yet so important did it seem, as well for her friend's sake as her own, to retrace, while there was yet time, their last imprudent step, that even the sacrifice of this sum, which I saw would materially facilitate such an arrangement, did not appear to me by any means too high a price to pay for it. On this point, however, my noble friend entirely differed with me; and nothing could be more humorous and amusing than the manner in which, in his newly assumed character of a lover of money, he dilated on the many virtues of a thousand pounds, and his determination not to part with a single one of them to Count Guiccioli. Of his confidence, too, in his own power of extricating himself from this difficulty he spoke with equal gaiety and humour; and Mr. Scott, who joined our party after dinner, having taken the same view of the subject as I did, he laid a wager of two sequins with that gentleman, that, without any such disbursement, he would yet bring all right again, and "save the lady and the money too."

It is indeed, certain, that he had at this time taken up the whim (for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant watchfulness over his expenditure; and, as most usually happens, it was with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of money came. The first symptom I saw of this new fancy of his was the exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of twenty Napoleons, which Lord K * *d, to whom he had, on some occasion, lent that sum, had intrusted me with, at Milan, to deliver into his hands. With the most joyous and diverting eagerness, he tore open the paper, and, in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on the recovery of it.

Of his household frugalities I speak but on the authority of others; but it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his, which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but a short time before, "for want," as he said, "of something craggy to break upon," had tortured itself with the study of the Armenian language, he should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls

"That climax of all earthly ills, The inflammation of our weekly bills."

In truth, his constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don Juan, and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, shows how new-fangled, as well as how far from serious, was his adoption of this "good old-gentlemanly vice." In the same spirit he had, a short time before my arrival at Venice, established a hoarding-box, with a slit in the lid, into which he occasionally put sequins, and, at stated periods, opened it to contemplate his treasures. His own ascetic style of living enabled him, as far as himself was concerned, to gratify this taste for economy in no ordinary degree,—his daily bill of fare, when the Margarita was his companion, consisting, I have been assured, of but four beccafichi, of which the Fornarina eat three, leaving even him hungry.

That his parsimony, however (if this new phasis of his ever-shifting character is to be called by such a name), was very far from being of that kind which Bacon condemns, as "withholding men from works of liberality," is apparent from all that is known of his munificence, at this very period,—some particulars of which, from a most authentic source, have just been cited, proving amply that while, for the indulgence of a whim, he kept one hand closed, he gave free course to his generous nature by dispensing lavishly from the other. It should be remembered, too, that as long as money shall continue to be one of the great sources of power, so long will they who seek influence over their fellow-men attach value to it as an instrument; and the more lowly they are inclined to estimate the disinterestedness of the human heart, the more available and precious will they consider the talisman that gives such power over it. Hence, certainly, it is not among those who have thought highest of mankind that the disposition to avarice has most generally displayed itself. In Swift the love of money was strong and avowed; and to Voltaire the same propensity was also frequently imputed,—on about as sufficient grounds, perhaps, as to Lord Byron.

On the day preceding that of my departure from Venice, my noble host, on arriving from La Mira to dinner, told me, with all the glee of a schoolboy who had been just granted a holiday, that, as this was my last evening, the Contessa had given him leave to "make a night of it," and that accordingly he would not only accompany me to the opera, but we should sup together at some cafe (as in the old times) afterwards. Observing a volume in his gondola, with a number of paper marks between the leaves, I enquired of him what it was?—"Only a book," he answered, "from which I am trying to crib, as I do wherever I can[52];—and that's the way I get the character of an original poet." On taking it up and looking into it, I exclaimed, "Ah, my old friend, Agathon!"[53]—"What!" he cried, archly, "you have been beforehand with me there, have you?"

Though in imputing to himself premeditated plagiarism, he was, of course, but jesting, it was, I am inclined to think, his practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, to excite thus his vein by the perusal of others, on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint caught by his imagination, as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgot the source. In the present instance, the inspiration he sought was of no very elevating nature,—the anti-spiritual doctrines of the Sophist in this Romance[54] being what chiefly, I suspect, attracted his attention to its pages, as not unlikely to supply him with fresh argument and sarcasm for those depreciating views of human nature and its destiny, which he was now, with all the wantonness of unbounded genius, enforcing in Don Juan.