64 formed between her and Byron. The countess is twenty-three years of age, though she appears no more than seventeen or eighteen. Unlike most of the Italian women, her complexion is delicately fair. Her eyes, large, dark, and languishing, are shaded by the longest eye-lashes in the world; and her hair, which is ungathered on her head, plays over her falling shoulders in a profusion of natural ringlets of the darkest auburn. Her figure is, perhaps, too much embonpoint for her height; but her bust is perfect. Her features want little of possessing a Grecian regularity of outline; and she has the most beautiful mouth and teeth imaginable. It is impossible to see without admiring—to hear the Guiccioli speak without being fascinated. Her amiability and gentleness show themselves in every intonation of her voice, which, and the music of her perfect Italian, give a peculiar charm to every thing she utters. Grace and elegance seem component parts of her nature. Notwithstanding that she adores Lord Byron, it is evident that the exile and poverty of her aged father sometimes affect her spirits, and throw a shade of melancholy on her countenance, which adds to the deep interest this lovely woman creates. Her conversation is lively, without being learned; she has read all the best authors of her own and the French language. She often conceals what she knows, from the fear of being thought to know too much, possibly from being aware that Lord Byron was not fond of blues. He is certainly very much attached to her, without being actually in love. His description of the Georgioni in the Manfrini Palace at Venice is meant for the countess. The beautiful sonnet perfixed to the 'Prophecy of Dante' was addressed to her." The annexed lines, written by Byron when he was about to quit Venice to join the countess at Ravenna, will show the state of his feelings at that time: River that rollest by the ancient walls Where dwells the lady of my love, when she Walks by the brink, and there perchance recals A faint and fleeting memory of me: What if thy deep and ample stream should be What do I say a mirror of my heart? Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? Such as my feelings were and are, thon art; And such as thou art, were my passions long. Time may have somewhat tamed them; not for ever But left long wrecks behind them, and again The current I behold will beneath sweep Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's beat. She will look on thee; I have look'd on thee Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream; That happy wave repass me in its flow. The wave that bears my tears returns no more: But that which keepeth us apart is not As various as the climates of our birth. A stranger loves a lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fann'd By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood. My blood is all meridian; were it not, I had not left my clime-I shall not be, 'Tis vain to struggle-let me perish young- And then at least my heart can ne'er be moved. It is impossible to conceive a more unvaried life than Lord Byron led at this period in the society of a few select friends. Billiards, conversation, or reading, filled up the intervals till it was time to take the evening-drive, ride, and pistol-practice. He dined at half an hour after sun-set, then drove to Count Gamba's, the Countess Guiccioli's father, passed several hours in her society, returned to his palace, and either read or wrote till two or three in the morning; occasionally drinking spirits diluted with water as a medicine, from a dread of a nephritic complaint, to which he was, or fancied himself, subject. While Lord Byron resided at Pisa, a serious affray occurred, in which he was personally concerned. Taking his usual ride, with some friends, one of them was violently jostled by a serjeantmajor of hussars, who dashed, at full speed, through the midst of the party. They pursued and overtook him near the Piaggia gate; but their remonstrances were answered only by abuse ¡ and menace, and an attempt on the part of the guard at the gate to arrest them. This occasioned a severe scuffle, in which several of Lord Byron's party were wounded, as was also the hussar. The consequence was, that all Lord Byron's servants (who were warmly attached to him, and had shown great ardour in his defence) were banished from Pisa; and with them the Counts Gamba, father and son. Lord Byron was himself advised to leave it; and as the countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at Leghorn, and passed six weeks at Monte Nero. His return to Pisa was occasioned by a new persecution of the Counts Gamba. An order was issued for them to leave the Tuscan states in four days; and after their embarkation for Genoa, the countess and Lord Byron openly lived together at the Lanfranchi Palace. It was at Pisa that Byron wrote « Werner, a tragedy; the « Deformed Transformed,» and continued his ⚫ Don Juan to the end of the sixteenth canto. Lord Byron's acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, the late editor of the Examiner, originated in his grateful feeling for the manner in which Mr Hunt stood forward in his justification, at a time when the current of public opinion ran strongly against him. This feeling induced him to invite Mr Hunt to the Lanfranchi Palace, where a suite of apart ments were fitted up for him. On his arrival in the spring of 1822, a periodical publication was projected, under the title of The Liberal, of which Hunt was to be the editor, and to which Lord Byron and Percy Shelley (who was on terms of great intimacy with his lordship) were to contribute. Three numbers of the Liberal were published in London, when, in consequence of the unhappy fate of Mr Shelley (who perished in the Mediterranean by the upsetting of a boat), and of other discouraging circumstances, it was discontinued. Byron attended the funeral of his poet-friend, the following description of which, by a person who was present, is not without interest:— 18th August, 1822.-On the occasion of Shelley's melancholy fate, I revisited Pisa, and on the day of my arrival learnt that Lord Byron was gone to the sea-shore, to assist in performing the last offices to his friend. We came to a spot marked by an old and withered trunk of a firtree, and near it, on the beach, stood a solitary hut covered with reeds. The situation was weil calculated for a poet's grave. A few weeks before I had ridden with him and Lord Byron to this very spot, which I afterwards visited more than once. In front was a magnificent extent of the blue and I windless Mediterranean, with the isles of Elba and Guyana,--Lord Byron's yacht at anchor in the offing: on the other side an almost boundless extent of sandy wilderness, uncultivated and uninhabited, here and there interspersed in tufts with underwood, curved by the sea-breeze and stunted by the barren and dry nature of the soil in which it grew. At equal distances along the coast stood high square towers, for the double purpose of guarding the coast from smuggling, and enforcing the quarantine laws. This view was bounded by an immense extent of the Italian Alps, which are here particularly picturesque from their volcanic and manifold appearances, and which, being composed of white marble, give their summits the appearance of snow. As a foreground to this picture appeared as extraordinary a group: Lord Byron and Trelawney were seen standing over the burning pile, with some of the soldiers of the guard; and Leigh Hunt, whose feelings and nerves could not carry him through the scene of horror, lying back in the carriage,—the four post-horses ready to drop with the intensity of the noon-day sun. The stillness of all around was yet more felt by the shrill scream of a solitary curlew, which, perhaps attracted by the body, wheeled in such narrow circles round the pile, that it might have been struck with the hand, and was so fearless that it could not be driven away. Looking at the corpse, Lord Byron said:- Why, that old black silk handkerchief retains its form better than that human body! Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Lord Byron, agitated by the spectacle he had witnessed, tried to dissipate in some degree the impression of it by his favourite recreation. He took off his clothes, therefore, and swam to the yacht, which was riding a few miles distant. The heat of the sun and checked perspiration threw him into a fever, which he felt coming on before he left the water, and which became more violent before he reached Pisa. On his return he immediately took a warm bath, and the next morning was perfectly recovered.. The enmity between Byron and Southey, the poet-laureate, is as well known as that between Pope and Colley Cibber. Their politics were diametrically opposite, and the noble bard regarded the bard of royalty as a renegado from his early principles. It was not, however, so much on account of political principles that the enmity between Byron and Southey was kept up. The peer, in his satire, had handled the epics of the laureate too roughly, and this the latter deeply resented. Whilst travelling on the continent, Southey observed Shelley's name in the Album, at Mont Anvert, with Abeos written after it, and an indignant comment in the same lan guage written under it; also the names of some Mr Murray, the bookseller, for the sum of two of Byron's other friends. The laureate, it is said, thousand guineas. The following statement by copied the names and the comment, and, on his Mr Moore, will however show its fate. Without return to England, reported the whole circum-entering into the respective claims of Mr Murray stances, and hesitated not to conclude that Byron and myself to the property in these memoirs (a was of the same principles as his friends. In a question which now that they are destroyed can poem he subsequently wrote, called the «Vision of be but of little moment to any one), it is sufficient Judgment," he stigmatized Lord Byron as the to say that, believing the manuscript still to be father of the Satanic School of Poetry.» His mine, I placed it at the disposal of Lord Byron's lordship, in a note appended to the « Two Fos- sister, Mrs Leigh, with the sole reservation of a cari," retorted in a severe manner, and even protest against its total destruction; at least, permitted himself to ridicule Southey's wife, the without previous perusal and consultation sister of Mrs Coleridge, they having been at one the parties. The majority of the persons present among time « milliners of Bath." The laureate wrote an disagreed with this opinion, and it was the only answer to this note in the Courier newspaper, point upon which there did exist any difference which, when Byron saw it, enraged him so much between us. The manuscript was accordingly that he consulted with his friends whether or not torn and burnt before our eyes, and I immediately he ought to go to England to answer it personally. paid to Mr Murray, in the presence of the gentleIn cooler moments, however, he resolved to write men assembled, two thousand guineas, with inthe Vision of Judgment, a parody on Southey's, terest, etc., being the amount of what I owed him and it appeared in one of the numbers of the « Li- upon the security of my boud, and for which I beral," on account of which Hunt, the publisher, now stand indebted to my publishers, Messrs was prosecuted by the Constitutional Associa- Longman and Co. Since then, the family of tion, and found guilty. Lord Byron have, in a manner highly honourable to themselves, proposed an arrangement, by which the sum thus paid to Mr Murray might be reimbursed me; but from feelings and considerations, which it is unnecessary here to explain, I have respectfully, but peremptorily, declined their " As our readers may be curious to know the rate at which Lord Byron was paid for his productions, we annex the following statement, by Mr Murray, the bookseller, of the sums given by him for the copy-rights of most of his lordship's works: offer.» As is the case with many men in affluent circumstances, Byron was at times more than generous; and at other times, what might be called mean. He once borrowed 5ool. in order to give it to the widow of one who had been his friend; he frequently dined on five pauls, and once gave his bills to a lady to be examined, because he thought he was cheated. He paid 1000l. for a yacht, which he sold again for 3ool., and refused to give the sailors their jackets. It ought, however, to be observed, that generosity was natural to him, and that his avarice, if it can be so termed, was a mere whim or caprice of the moment-a character he could not long sustain. He once borrowed 100l. to give to Coleridge, the poet, the brother-in-law of Southey, when in distress. In his quarrel with the laureate he was provoked to allude to this circumstance, which certainly he ought not to have done. The following is a pleasing instance of delicacy and benevolence. A young lady of considerable talents, but who had never been able to succeed in turning them to any profitable account, was reduced to great hardships through the misfortunes of her family. The only persons from whom she could have hoped for relief were abroad, and urged on, more by the sufferings of those she held dear than by her own, she summoned up resolution to wait on Lord Byron at his apartments in the Albany, and solicit his subscription to a volume of poems: she had no previous knowledge of him except from his works, but from the boldness and feeling expressed in them, she concluded that he must be a man of kind heart and amiable disposition. She entered the apartment with faltering steps and a palpitating heart, but soon found courage to state her request, which she did in a simple and delicate manner: he heard it with marked attention and sympathy; and when she had done speaking, he, as if to divert her thoughts from a subject which could not but be painful to her, began to converse in words so fascinating and tones so gentle, that she hardly perceived he had been writing, until he put a slip of paper into her hand, saying it was his subscription, and that he most heartily wished her success. But, added he, we are both young, and the world is very censorious, and so if I were to take any active part in procuring subscribers to your poems, I fear it would do you harm rather than good. The young lady, overpowered by the prudence and delicacy of his conduct, took her leave; and upon opening the paper in the street, which in her agitation she had not previously looked at, she found it was a draft upon his banker for fifty pounds! Byron was a great admirer of the Waverley novels, and never travelled without them. They are, said he to Captain Medwin one day, library in themselves,-a perfect literary treasure. I could read them once a year with new pleasure. During that morning he had been reading one of Sir Walter's novels, and delivered, according to Medwin, the following criticism. How difficult it is to say any thing new! Who was that voluptuary of antiquity, who offered a reward for a new pleasure? Perhaps all nature and art could not supply a new idea.» . and I could not have trusted her with a son's education. I have no idea of boys being brought up by mothers. I suffered too much from that myself: and then, wandering about the world as I do, I could not take proper care of a child; otherwise I should not have left Allegra, poor little thing! at Ravenna. She has been a great resource to me, though I am not so fond of her as of Ada: and yet I mean to make their fortunes equal-there will be enough for them both. I have desired in my will that Allegra shall not marry an Englishman. The Irish and Scotch make better husbands than we do. You will think it was an odd fancy; but I was not in the best of humours with my countrymen at that moment--you know the reason. I am told that Ada is a little termagant; I hope not. I shall write to my sister to know if this is the case: perbaps I am wrong in letting Lady Byron have entirely her own way in her education. I hear that my name is not mentioned in her presence; that a green curtain is always kept over my portrait, as over something forbidden; and that she is not to know that she has a father till she comes of age. Of course she will be taught to hate me; she will be brought up to it. Lady Byron is conscious of all this, and is afraid that I shall some day carry off her daughter by stealth or force. I might claim her of the Chancellor, without having recourse to either one or the other; but I had rather be unhappy myself than make her mother so; probably I shall never see her again." Here he opened his writing-desk and showed me some hair, which he told me was his child's. In the autumn of 1822, Lord Byron quitted Pisa, and went to Genoa, where he remained throughout the winter. A letter written by his lordship, while at Genoa, is singularly honourable to him, and is the more entitled to notice, as it tends to diminish the credibility of an assertion made since his death, that he could bear no rival in fame, and that he was animated with a withdrew the public attention from himself. If there be a living being towards whom, according to that statement, Lord Byron could have entertained such a sentiment, it must have been the author of a Waverley. And yet, in a letter to Monsieur Beyle, dated May 29, 1823, the following are the just and liberal expressions used by Lord Byron. The anxious and paternal tenderness Lord Byron felt for his daughter, is expressed with un-bitter jealousy and hatred of any person who equalled beauty and pathos in the first stanza of the third canto of Childe Harold. What do you think of Ada?» said he to Medwin, looking earnestly at his daughter's miniature, that hung by the side of his writing-table. They tell me she is like me--but she has her mother's eyes. It is very odd that my mother was an only child;-1 am an only child; my wife is an only child; and Ada is an only child. It is a singular coincidence; that is the least that can be said of it. I can't help thinking it was destined to be so; and perhaps it is best. I was once anxious for a son; but, after our separation, was glad to have had a daughter; for it would have distressed me too much to have taken him away from Lady Byron, « There is one part of your observations in the pamphlet which I shall venture to remark upon : - it regards Walter Scott. You say that his character is little worthy of enthusiasm,' at the same time that you mention his productions in the manner they deserve. I have known Walter Scott long and well, and in occasional situations d which call forth the real character, and I can assure you that his character is worthy of admiration; that, of all men, he is the most open, the most honourable, the most amiable. With his politics I have nothing to do: they differ from mine, which renders it difficult for me to speak of them. But he is perfectly sincere in them, and sincerity may be humble, but she cannot be servile. I pray you, therefore, to correct or soften that passage. You may, perhaps, attribute this officiousness of mine to a false affectation of candour, as I happen to be a writer also. Attribute it to what motive you please, but believe the truth. I say that Walter Scott is as nearly a thorough good man as man can be, because I know it by experience to be the case. » The motives which ultimately induced Lord Byron to leave Italy, and join the Greeks, struggling for emancipation, are sufficiently obvious. It was in Greece that his high poetical faculties had been first fully developed. It was necessarily the chosen and favourite spot of a man of powerful and original intellect, of quick and sensible feelings, of varied information, and who, above all, was satiated with common enjoyments, and disgusted with what appeared to him to be the formality and sameness of daily life. Dwelling upon that country, as it is clear from all Lord Byron's writings he did, with the fondest solicitude, and being an ardent, though, perhaps, not a very systematic lover of freedom, he could be no unconcerned spectator of its revolution as soon as it seemed to him that his presence might be useful, he prepared to visit once more the shores of Greece. Lord Byron embarked at Leghorn, and arrived in Cephalonia in the early part of August, 1823, attended by a suite of six or seven friends, in an English vessel (the Hercules, Captain Scott), which he had chartered for the express purpose of taking him to Greece. His lordship had never seen any of the volcanic mountains, and for this purpose the vessel deviated from its regular course, in order to pass the island of Stromboli, and lay off that place a whole night, in the hopes of witnessing the usual phenomena, but, for the first time within the memory of man, the volcano emitted no fire. The disappointed poet was obliged to proceed, in no good humour with the fabled forge of Vulcan. Greece, though with a fair prospect of ultimate triumph, was at that time in an unsettled state. The third campaign had commenced, with several instances of distinguished success-her arms were every where victorious, but her councils were distracted. Western Greece was in a critical situation, and although the heroic Marco Botzaris had not fallen in vain, yet the glorious enterprise in which he perished only checked, but did not prevent the advance of the Turks towards Anatolica and Missolonghi. This gallant chief, worthy of the best days of Greece, hailed with transport Lord Byron's arrival in that country; and his last act, before proceeding to the attack in which he fell, was to write a warm invitation to his lordship to come to Missolonghi. In his letter, which he addressed to a friend at Missolonghi, Botzaris alludes to almost the first proceeding of Lord Byron in Greece, which was the arming and provisioning of forty Suliotes, whom he sent to join in the defence of Missolonghi. After the battle Lord Byron transmitted bandages and medicines, of which he had brought a large store from Italy, and pecuniary succour to those who had been wounded. He had already made a generous offer to the government. He says, in a letter, « I offered to advance a thousand dollars a month, for the succour of Missolonghi, and the Suliotes under Botzaris (since killed); but the government have answered me through of this island, that they wish to confer with me previously, which is, in fact, saying they wish me to spend my money in some other direction. I will take care that it is for the public cause, otherwise I will not advance a para. The opposition say they want to cajole me, and the party in power say the others wish to seduce me; so between the two, I have a difficult part to play: however, I will have nothing to do with the factions, unless to reconcile them, if possible.» Lord Byron established himself for some time at the small village of Metaxata, in Cephalonia, and dispatched two friends, Mr Trelawney and Mr Hamilton Browne, with a letter to the Greek government, in order to collect intelligence as to the real state of things. His lordship's generosity was almost daily exercised in his new neighbourhood. He provided for many Italian families in distress, and even indulged the people of the country in paying for the religious ceremonies which they deemed essential to their success. While at Metaxata, an embankment, near which several persons had been engaged digging, fell in, and buried some of them alive: he was at dinner when he heard of the accident; starting up from table, he ran to the spot, accompanied by his physician. The labourers employed in extricating their companions, soon became alarmed for themselves, and refused to go on, saying, they believed they had dug out all the bodies which had been covered by the rubbish. Byron endeavoured to force them to continue their exertions, but finding menaces in vain, he seized a spade and began to dig most zealously; when the peasantry joined him, and they succeeded in saving two more persons from certain death. |