cottage by the side of the road. We pulled up our horses, to enquire of a contadino standing at the little garden-wicket. He told us that a widow had just lost her only child, and that the sounds proceeded from the wailings of some women over the corpse. Lord Byron was much affected; and his superstition, acted upon by a sadness that seemed to be presentiment, led him to augur some disaster. “I shall not be happy," said he, “ till I "hear that my daughter is well. I have a 66 66 great horror of anniversaries: people only laugh at, who have never kept a register "of them. I always write to my sister on "Ada's birthday. I did so last year; and, "what was very remarkable, my letter "reached her on my wedding-day, and her 66 answer reached me at Ravenna on my “ birthday! Several extraordinary things "have happened to me on my birthday; so 66 they did to Napoleon; and a more wonder"ful circumstance still occurred to Marie "Antoinette." The next morning's courier brought him a letter from England. He gave it me as I entered, and said: "I was convinced something very unplea"sant hung over me last night: I expected "to hear that somebody I knew was dead; 66 -so it turns out! e! Poor Polidori is gone "When he was my physician, he was always "talking of Prussic acid, oil of amber, blow 66 66 66 ing into veins, suffocating by charcoal, and compounding poisons; but for a different purpose to what the Pontic Monarch did, "for he has prescribed a dose for himself "that would have killed fifty Mithridates,— "a dose whose effect, Murray says, was so "instantaneous that he went off without a 66 spasm or struggle. It seems that disap66 pointment was the cause of this rash act. "He had entertained too sanguine hopes of "literary fame, owing to the success of his 66 6 'Vampyre,' which, in consequence of its 66 being attributed to me, was got up as a "melodrame at Paris. The foundation of "the story was mine; but I was forced to "disown the publication, lest the world "should suppose that I had vanity enough, "or was egotist enough, to write in that "ridiculous manner about myself *. Not *He alluded to the Preface and the Postscript, containing accounts of his residence at Geneva and in the Isle of Mitylene. "withstanding which, the French editions "still persevere in including it with my "works. My real 'Vampyre' I gave at "the end of 'Mazeppa,' something in the 66 same way that I told it one night at "Diodati, when Monk Lewis, and Shelley "and his wife, were present. The latter "sketched on that occasion the outline "of her Pygmalion story, The Modern "Prometheus,' the making of a man, (which "a lady who had read it afterwards asked "Sir Humphrey Davy, to his great asto"nishment, if he could do); Lewis told a 66 Snake,' as he used sometimes to call him,) "conjured up some frightful woman of an "acquaintance of his at home, a kind of “Medusa, who was suspected of having "eyes in her breasts, "Perhaps Polidori had strictly no right "to appropriate my story to himself; but it "was hardly worth it: and when my letter, "disclaiming the narrative part, was written, ، I dismissed the matter from my memory. "It was Polidori's own fault that we did not 66 agree. I was sorry when we parted, for "I soon get attached to people; and was 66 more sorry still for the scrape he after"wards got into at Milan. He quarrelled "with one of the guards at the Scala, and 66 was ordered to leave the Lombard States 66 twenty-four - hours after: which put an ، end to all his Continental schemes, that I "had forwarded by recommending him to "Lord 66 ; and it is difficult for a young physician to get into practice at home, ،، however clever, particularly a foreigner, or 66 one with a foreigner's name. From that ، time, instead of making out prescriptions, |