kept them in constant activity. It is satisfactory too, at least it is some consolation, to reflect, that the last energies of his nature were consumed in the cause of liberty, and for the benefit of mankind. How I became acquainted with so many particulars of bis history, so many incidents of his life, so many of his opinions, is easily explained. They were communicated during a period of many months' familiar intercourse, without any injunctions to secrecy, and committed to paper for the sake of reference only. They have not been shewn to any one individual, and but for the fate of his MS. would never have appeared before the public. I despise mere writing for the sake of bookmaking, and have disdained to swell out my materials into volumes. I have given Lord Byron's ideas as I noted them down at the time, in his own words, as far as my recollection served. They are however, in many cases, the substance without the form. The brilliancy of his wit, the flow of his eloquence, the sallies of his imagination, who could do justice to ? His voice, his manner, which gave a charm to the whole, who could forget ? “ His subtle talk would cheer the winter night, And make me know myself; and the fire-light Shelley's Julian and Maddalo. Geneva, 1st August, 1824. CONTENTS. Page The Writer's arrival at Pisa. Lord Byron's live stock and impedimenta. The Lanfranchi palace ; Ugolino; Lanfranchi's ghost. English Cerberus. Lord B.'s Leporello; bas reliefs and Introduction to Lord Byron. His cordiality of manner. Description of his person; his bust by Bertolini ; the cloven foot; his temperate 11-16 Residence at Geneva. Malicious intruders. Madame de Staël. Din- ner disaster. Excursions on the lake; Shelley and Hobhouse; St. Preux and Julia; classical drowning. Lord Byron's horseman- ship; pistol-firing; remarks on duelling; his own duels. Anecdote 16-20 Sunset at Venice and Pisa. Routine of Lord Byron's life. The Countess Guiccioli : Lord B.'s attachment to her; beautiful Sonnet Italian females ; its consequences. Italian propensity to love. 20-29 England compared. The Constitutionalists; their proscription. 29-34 The Byron Memoirs : Mr. Moore, Lady Burghersh, and Lady Byron. Lord B.'s opinion of his own Memoirs; his marriage and separation. Mrs. Williams, the English Sybil. An omen. Lord B.'s introduction to Miss Millbank ; his courtship and marriage 34-38 The wedding-ring. An uneasy ride. The honey-moon. Lord and Lady B.'s fashionable dissipation; consequent embarrassment ; final ing up . Page separation. Lord B.'s prejudices respecting women. Family jars ; Mrs. Charlement. Domestic felony. Mrs. Mardyn. Statute of lunacy. Lady Noel's hatred : anecdote. Lady Byron's abilities. Lord B.'s various counter-parts. “The Examiner” and Lady Jersey. Sale of Newstead Abbey ; departure Madame de Staël and Goëthe. Lord B.'s partiality for America; curious specimen of American criticism. The Sketches of Italy.' Lord B.'s life at Venice ; further remarks on his Memoirs . 49–53 Anecdotes of himself and companions; Lord Falkland. Lord B.'s presentiments; early horror of matrimony; anti-matrimonial wager. set; Lords Clare and Calthorpe ; school rebellion . The · Hours of Idleness.' The skull goblet ; a new order established at Newstead. Julia Alpinula. Skulls from the field of Morat. Lord B.'s contempt for academic honours; his bear; the ourang- outang. A lady in masquerade. Mrs. L. G.'s depravity. Singular occurrence. Comparison of English and Italian profligacy 62-68 Fashionable pastimes; Hell in St. James's Street; chicken-hazard. Scroope Davies, and Lord B.'s pistols; the deodand. Lord B. commences his travels. His opinion of Venice. His own and Napoleon's opinion of women. The new Fornarina ; Harlowe the painter. Gallantry sometimes dangerous at Venice 68-74 Lord Byron's religious opinions ; his scepticism only occasional. English Cathedral Service. Religion of Tasso and Milton. Mis- sionary Societies, and missions to the East. Tentazione di Sant Antonio. Tacitus; Priestley and Wesley. Dying moments of Johnson, Cowper, Hume, Voltaire, and Creech. Sale. Anything- arians; Gibbon ; Plato's three principles. Lord B.'s correspond- ents; ecstatic epistolary extract. Prayer for Lord B.'s con- version ; his avowal of being a Christian . 74-83 Ali Pacha’s barbarity. Affecting tale. Real incident in "The Giaour.' Albanian guards. The Doctor in alarm. Lord Byron's ghost. the Drury Lane Committee. Theatricals. Obstacles to writing for the stage. Kemble; Mrs. Siddons; Munden; Shakspeare; Alfieri; Maturin; Miss Baillie. Modern sensitiveness. Marino Ada. Singular coincidence. Ideas on education. Ada's birth-day. Lord Byron's melancholy and superstition. Birth-day fatalities. Death of Polidori. "The Vampyre'-foundation of the story Lord Byron's; Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.' Query to Sir Lord Byron's epigrams. His hospitality. Advances towards a Swimming across the Hellespont. Adventures at Brighton and Ve- nice. Marino Faliero' and 'The Two Foscari.' Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd's prediction. Failure of Marino Faliero :' Lord Byron's epigram on the occasion. Louis Dix-huit's translation: Jeffrey's critique. Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews. Subjects for tragedies 114–124 Barry Cornwall. Cain.' Gessner's Death of Abel.' Hobhouse's opinion of Cain.' Lord B.'s defence of that poem. Goëthe's 'Faust.' Letter to Murray respecting 'Cain.' Bacchanalian song. 83-97 97-104 104-114 Merits of actors. Dowton and Kean. Kean's Richard the " 142-147 |