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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 nore."

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 In the month of September, Count Guiccioli, being and myself, the details of a late act of seduction of related, with much feeling, to my fellow-traveller alled away by business to Ravenna, left his young which Lord Byron had, he said, been guilty, and Countess and her lover to the free enjoyment of each which was made to comprise within itself all the ther's society at Bologna. The lady's ill health, worst features of such unmanly frauds upon innocence; which had been the cause of her thus remaining be--the victim, a young unmarried lady, of one of the ind, was thought soon after to require the still furher advantage of a removal to Venice, and the Count, er husband, being written to on the subject, conented, with the most complaisant readiness, that she hould proceed thither in company with Lord Byron. Some business," (says the lady's own Memoir) having called Count Guiccioli to Ravenna, I was bliged by the state of my health, instead of accomanying him, to return to Venice, and he consented at Lord Byron should be the companion of my urney. We left Bologna on the fifteenth of Sep¿mber; we visited the Euganean Hills and Arquà, ad wrote our names in the book which is presented those who make this pilgrimage. But I cannot ager over these recollections of happiness;-the conast with the present is too dreadful. If a blessed pirit, while in the full enjoyment of heavenly hapiness, were sent down to this earth to suffer all its iseries, the contrast could not be more dreadful beween the past and the present, than what I have adured from the moment when that terrible word ached my ears, and I for ever lost the hope of again eholding him, one look from whom I valued beyond I earth's happiness. When I arrived at Venice, e physicians ordered that I should try the country, ir, and Lord Byron having a villa at La Mira, gave up to me, and came to reside there with me. At is place we passed the autumn, and there I had the leasure of forming your acquaintance."*

It was my good fortune, at this period, in the course f a short and hasty tour through the north of Italy,

" II Conte Guiccioli doveva per affari ritornare a Raenna; lo stato della mia salute esiggeva che io ritornassi ivece a Venezia. Egli acconsenti dunque che Lord Byron, i fosse compagno di viaggio. Partimmo da Bologna alli di Sre-visitammo insieme i Colli Euganei ed Arquà; rivemmo i nostri nomi nel libro che si presenta a quelli e fanno quel pellegrinaggio. Ma sopra tali rimembranze i felicità non posso fermarmi, caro Signor Moore; l'oppozione col presente è troppo forte, e se un anima benedetta el pieno godimento di tutte le felicità celesti fosse manata quaggiù e condannata a sopportare tutte le miserie ella nostra terra non potrebbe sentire più terribile conrasto fra il passato ed il presente di quello che io sento acchè quella terribile parola è giunta alle mie orecchie, acche ho perduto la speranza di più vedere quello di cui no sguardo valeva per me più di tutte le felicità della erra. Giunti a Venezia i medici mi ordinarono di respirare aria della campagna. Egli aveva una villa alla Mira,-la edette a me, e veune meco. Là passammo l'autunno, e A ebbi il bene di fare la vostra conoscenza."-MS.

first families of Venice, whom the noble seducer had lured from her father's house to his own, and, after In vain, said the relater, did she entreat to become a few weeks, most inhumanly turned her out of doors. his servant, his slave;—in vain did she ask to remain in some dark corner of his mansion, from which she passed. Her betrayer was obdurate, and the might be able to catch a glimpse of his form as he 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 be considerable exaggeration in this story, it was a mad-house. Though convinced that there must 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.

whom I had accompanied from England, and whom I Having parted, at Milan, with Lord John Russell, 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 spiritualized 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 confirmi.

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 inustachios, 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.

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I stood in V ice on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each band:

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 sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

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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 asso ciations; and our course was, I am almost ashame to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter. till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's pa lazzo on the Grand Canal. All that had ever hap pened, of gay or ridiculous, during our Londor bir together, his scrapes and my lecturings, -our jou adventures with the Bores and Blues, the great enemies, as he always called them, of Looda happiness, our joyous nights together at Water's Kinnaird's, &c. and " that d-d supper of Randi which ought to have been a dinner,"—all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a flow det mour and hilarity, on his side, of which it have been difficult, even for persons far I can pretend to be, not to have caught the ma He had all along expressed his determinat I should not go to any hotel, but fix my quary 14, his house during the period of my stay; and, b been residing there himself, such an arrange would have been all that I most desired. Be not being the case, a common hotel was, I though." a far readier resource; and I therefore entreek that he would allow me to order an apartment at t Gran Bretagna, which had the reputation, I stood, of being a comfortable hotel. This, how: he would not hear of; and, as an inducement for to agree to his plan, said that, as long as I chose stay, though he should be obliged to return le Mira in the evenings, he would make it a pr come to Venice every day and dine with me. At now turned into the dismal canal, and stopped b his damp-looking mansion, my predilection fe Gran Bretagna returned in full force; and l ventured to hint that it would save an abundance trouble to let me proceed thither. But "No he answered, "I see you think you'll be very comfortable here; but you'll find that it is nat so bad as you expect."

As I groped my way after him through the hall, he cried out, "Keep clear of the dog;" fore we had proceeded many paces farther, care, or that monkey will fly at you;" proof, among many others, of his fidelity to t tastes of his youth, as it agrees perfectly w description of his life at Newstead, in 1809, 1.44 the sort of menagerie which his visitors had the encounter in their progress through his ball E escaped these dangers, I followed him up the case to the apartment destined for me. Ali th he had been despatching servants in various a

tions,-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-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."

tastes, 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 that any I had yet seen among the chefs-d'œuvre 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 will

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 lay-light was quite gone, I might have some glimpses of the scene which the Canal presented. Happening o remark, in looking up at the clouds, which were till bright in the west, that "what had struck me in Italian sunsets was that peculiar rosy hue" I ad hardly pronounced the word "rosy," when Lordingly accepted the offer of Mr Scott to introduce me Byron, clapping his hand on my mouth, said, with a augh, “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 sate two gentlenen, who had the appearance of being English; and, >bserving them to look our way, Lord Byron, putting is arms a-kimbo, said with a sort of comic swagger, Ah, if you, John Bulls, knew who the two fellows re, now standing up here, I think you would stare!" -I risk mentioning these things, though aware how hey may be turned against myself, for the sake of he otherwise indescribable traits of manner and character which they convey. After a very agreeable dinner, through which the jest, the story, and he 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 nuch in the same manner,-my mornings being deoted, under the kind superintendence of Mr Scott, o a hasty and, I fear, unprofitable view of the treaures of art with which Venice abounds. On the ubjects of painting and sculpture Lord Byron has, n several of his letters, expressed strongly and, as to nost persons will appear, heretically his opinions. in his want, however, of a due appreciation of these irts, he but resembled some of his great precursors In the field of poetry;-both Tasso and Milton, for xample, having evinced so little tendency to such

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

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 raisonnée of Canova's works, and was anxious for in

* That this was the case with Milton is acknowledged by Richardson, who admired both Milton and the Arts too warinly 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.

formation 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!

tion 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, and 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 inquire the cause. Indeed it was scarcely perceptible, the clothes be wore were so long.

"He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brest, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, except

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 hi illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely.

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 Staël of Italy," had written a book called “Portraits,” containing sketches of the charac-ing from a window, the wonders of the 'Piazza di ters 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 Por

trait:

Tol, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai nom,
Esprit mystérieux, Mortel, Ange, ou Démon,
Qui que tu sois, Byron, bon ou fatal génie,
J'anne de tes concerts 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 imita

"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 par i sion, (a passion did I say?) a thought, a word, occurred to disturb his mind. His eyes then lost their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them. So rapid a change would n 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 difference, not to say contempt, in which he held them all whatever they might be, they were no 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 sympa thy; but his imagination carried him away, and spoiled every thing. He believed in presages, and delighted in the recollection that he held this bef in common with Napoleon. It appeared that. proportion as his intellectual education was cutr vated, 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 wo men, 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 anding on the nearest terra firma, to fatigue at least wo horses with riding.

No one ever heard him utter a word of French, Ithough he was perfectly conversant with that lanuage. He hated the nation and its modern literature; a 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 erm ridiculous, or false and injurious. His voice was sufficiently sweet and flexible. He spoke with nuch suavity, if not contradicted, but rather addressed himself to his neighbour than to the entire com

any.

"Very little food sufficed him; and he preferred ish to flesh for this extraordinary reason, that the Matter, 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 Cæsar must not even be suspected? What vanity in that saying of Cæsar! 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."

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

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