here, it is hardly fair ground for me, isolated and out of the way of prompt rejoinder and information as I am. But, though backed by all the corruption, and infamy, and patronage of their master rogues and slave renegadoes, if they do once rouse me up,

"They had better gall the devil, Salisbury.'

"I have that for two or three of them, which they had better not move me to put in motion; — and yet, after all, what a fool I am to disquiet myself about such fellows! It was all very well ten or twelve years ago, when I was a 'curled darling,' and minded such things. At present, I rate them at their true value; but, from natural temper and bile, am not able to keep quiet.

'Let me hear from you on your return from Ireland, which ought to be ashamed to see you, after her Brunswick blarney. I am of Longman's opinion, that you should allow your friends to liquidate the Bermuda claim. Why should you throw away the two thousand pounds (of the non-guinea Murray) upon that cursed piece of treacherous inveiglement? I think you carry the matter a little too far and scrupulously. When we see patriots begging publicly, and know that Grattan received a fortune from his country, I really do not see why a man, in no whit inferior to any or all of them, should shrink from accepting that assistance from his private friends which every tradesman receives from his connections upon much less occasions. For, after all, it was not your debt it was a piece of swindling against you. As to ****, and the 'what noble creatures!! &c. &c.' it is all very fine and very well, but, till you can persuade me that there is no credit, and no self-applause to be obtained by being of use to a celebrated man, I must retain the same opinion of the human species, which I do of our friend Ms. Specie.

"Yours ever, &c.

"BYRON."

1 I had mentioned to him, with all the praise and gratitude such friendship deserved, some generous offers of aid which, from more than one quarter, I had received at this period, and which, though declined, have been not the less warmly treasured in my recollection.

2" Egli era partico con molto riverescimento da Ravenna, e col pressentimento che la sua partenza da Ravenna ci sarebbe cagione di molti mali. In ogni lettera che egli mi scriveva allora egli mi esprimeva il suo dispiacere di lasciare Ravenna. 'Se papà è richiamato (mi scriveva egli) io torno in quel istante a Ravenna, e se è richiamato

CHAPTER XLVII.

1821.

OF

DEPARTURE FROM RAVENNA.-MODE LIFE THERE SKETCHED BY MADAME GUICCIOLI. ROGERS'S POETICAL RECORD OF HIS MEETING WITH LORD BYRON AT BOLOGNA. INTERVIEW WITH LORD CLARE. LORD BYRON CROSSES THE APENNINES WITH ROGERS. — VISIT TO THE FLORENCE GALLERY. TITIAN'S VENUS. THE PITTI PALACE. - ARRIVAL AT PISA.—LETTERS TO MURRAY AND MOORE. OUTCRY AGAINST CAIN.-FIRST PART OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, A MYSTERY, COMPLETED. —MR. TAAFFE AND HIS COMMENTARY ON DANTE. COMMCNICATION FROM MR. SHEPHERD. LORD BYRON'S ANSWER. -THE LANFRANCHI PALACE. -ORIGIN OF THE GIAOUR STORY.

In the month of August, Madame Guiccioli had joined her father at Pisa, and was now superintending the preparations at the Casa Lanfranchi, - one of the most ancient and spacious palaces of that city, for the re"He left Raception of her noble friend. and with a presentiment that his departure venna," says this lady, "with great regret, would be the forerunner of a thousand evils to us. In every letter he then wrote to me, If your father should be recalled,' he said, || he expressed his displeasure at this step. is recalled previous to my departure, I remain.' • I immediately return to Ravenna; and if he In this hope he delayed his journey for seve ral months; but, at last, no longer having any expectation of our immediate return, he wrote to me, saying I set out most unwillingly, foreseeing the most evil results for all of you, and principally for yourself. I say no more, but you will see.' And in another letter he says, 'I leave Ravenna so unwillingly, and with such a persuasion on my mind that my departure will lead from one misery to another, each greater than the for

prima della mia partenza, io non parto.' In questa speranza egli differì varii mesi a partire. Ma, finalmente, non potendo più sperare il nostro ritorno prossimo, egli mi scriveva lo parto molto mal volontieri prevedendo dei mali assai grandi per voi altri e massime per voi ; altro non dico, lo vedrete.' E in un altra lettera, * Is lascio Ravenna così mal volontieri, e così persuaso che la mia partenza non può che condurre da un male ad un altro più grande che non ho cuore di scrivere altro in questo punto.' Egli mi scriveva allora sempre in Italiano e trascrivo le sue precise parole-ma come quei suoi pressentimenti si verificarono poi in appresso!

mer, that I have not the heart to utter another word on the subject. He always wrote to me at that time in Italian, and I transcribe his exact words. How entirely were these presentiments verified by the event!"

After describing his mode of life while at Ravenna, the lady thus proceeds:

"This sort of simple life he led until the fatal day of his departure for Greece, and the few variations he made from it may be said to have arisen solely from the greater or smaller number of occasions which were offered him of doing good, and from the generous actions he was continually performing. Many families (in Ravenna principally) owed to him the few prosperous days they ever enjoyed. His arrival in that town was spoken of as a piece of public good fortune, and his departure as a public calamity; and this is the life which many attempted to asperse as that of a libertine. But the world must at last learn how, with so good and generous a heart, Lord Byron, susceptible, it is true, of the most energetic passions, yet, at the same time, of the sublimest and most pure, and rendering homage in his acts to every virtue-how he, I say, could afford such scope to malice and to calumny. Circumstances, and also, probably, an eccentricity of disposition, (which, nevertheless, had its origin in a virtuous feeling, an excessive abhorrence for hypocrisy and affectation,) contributed, perhaps, to cloud the splendour of his exalted nature in the opinion of many. But you will well know how to analyse these contradictions in a manner worthy of your noble friend and of yourself, and you will prove that the goodness of his heart was not inferior to the grandeur of his genius." 1

At Bologna, according to the appointment made between them, Lord Byron and Mr. Rogers met; and the record which this latter gentleman has, in his Poem on Italy, preserved of their meeting, conveys so vivid a picture of the poet at this period, with, at the same time, so just and feeling a tribute to his memory, that, narrowed as my limits are now becoming, cannot refrain from giving the sketch entire.

"BOLOGNA.

"'Twas night; the noise and bustle of the day Were o'er. The mountebank no longer wrought Miraculous cures - he and his stage were gone; And he who, when the crisis of his tale

The leaf that contains the original of this extract I have unluckily mislaid.

2" See the Cries of Bologna, as drawn by Annibal Caracci. He was of very humble origin; and, to correct his brother's vanity, once sent him a portrait of their father, the tailor, threading his needle."

Came, and all stood breathless with hope and fear,
Sent round his cap; and he who thrumm'd his wire
And sang, with pleading look and plaintive strain
Melting the passenger. Thy thousand cries, 2
So well portray'd and by a son of thine,
Whose voice had swell'd the hubbub in his youth,
Were hush'd, BOLOGNA — silence in the streets,
The squares; when hark, the clattering of fleet hoofs;
And soon a courier, posting as from far,
Housing and holster, boot and belted coat
And doublet, stain'd with many a various soil,
Stopt and alighted. "Twas where hangs aloft
That ancient sign, the Pilgrim, welcoming
All who arrive there, all perhaps save those
Clad like himself, with staff and scallop-shell,
Those on a pilgrimage. And now approach'd
Wheels, through the lofty porticoes resounding,
Arch beyond arch, a shelter or a shade
As the sky changes. To the gate they came;
And, ere the man had half his story done,
Mine host received the Master - one long used
To sojourn among strangers, every where
(Go where he would, along the wildest track)
Flinging a charm that shall not soon be lost,
And leaving footsteps to be traced by those
Who love the haunts of Genius; one who saw,
Observed, nor shunn'd the busy scenes of life,
But mingled not; and mid the din, the stir,
Lived as a separate Spirit.

"Much had pass'd

Since last we parted; and those five short years —
Much had they told! His clustering locks were turn'd
Grey; nor did aught recall the youth that swam
From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice,
Still it was sweet; still from his eye the thought
Flash'd lightning-like, nor lingered on the way,
Waiting for words. Far, far into the night
We sat, conversing - -no unwelcome hour,
The hour we met; and, when Aurora rose,
Rising, we climb'd the rugged Apennine.

"Well I remember how the golden sun
Fill'd with its beams the unfathomable gulfs
As on we travell'd, and along the ridge,
'Mid groves of cork, and cistus, and wild fig,
His motley household came. Not last nor least,
Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea
Of Venice had so ably, zealously

Served, and at parting thrown his oar away
To follow through the world; who without stain
Had worn so long that honourable badge, 3
The gondolier's, in a Patrician House
Arguing unlimited trust. — Not last nor least,
Thou, though declining in thy beauty and strength,
Faithful Moretto, to the latest hour
Guarding his chamber-door, and now along
The silent, sullen strand of MISSOLONGHI
Howling in grief.

"He had just left that Place
Of old renown, once in the ADRIAN sea, ◄
RAVENNA; where from DANTE's sacred tomb
He had so oft, as many a verse declares, 5
Drawn inspiration; where, at twilight-time,
Through the pine-forest wandering with loose rein,
Wandering and lost, he had so oft beheld,

3" The principal gondolier, il fante di poppa, was almost always in the confidence of his master, and employed on occasions that required judgment and address." 4"Adrianum mare. - CICERO."

"See the Prophecy of Dante."

6" See the tale as told by Boccaccio and Dryden."

(What is not visible to a poet's eye?)

The spectre-knight, the hell-hounds, and their prey,
The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth
Suddenly blasted. 'T was a theme he loved,
But others claim'd their turn; and many a tower,
Shatter'd, uprooted from its native rock,
Its strength the pride of some heroic age,
Appear'd and vanish'd (many a sturdy steer1
Yoked and unyoked), while, as in happier days,
He pour'd his spirit forth. The past forgot,
All was enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured
Present or future.

"He is now at rest;

And praise and blame fall on his ear alike,
Now dull in death. Yes, BYRON, thou art gone,-
Gone like a star that through the firmament
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks,
Was generous, noble -noble in its scorn
Of all things low or little; nothing there
Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,
None more than I, thy gratitude would build
On slight foundations; and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert,
Thy wish accomplish'd; dying in the land
Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire,-
Dying in GREECE, and in a cause so glorious!

"They in thy train—ah, little did they think,
As round we went, that they so soon should sit
Mourning beside thee, while a Nation mourn'd,
Changing her festal for her funeral song;
That they so soon should hear the minute-gun,
As morning gleam'd on what remain'd of thee,
Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering
Thy years of joy and sorrow.

--

"Thou art gone; And he who would assail thee in thy grave, Oh, let him pause! For who among us all, Tried as thou wert - even from thine earliest years, When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland boy Tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame; Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek, Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, Her charmed cup-ah, who among us all Could say he had not err'd as much, and more?”

On the road to Bologna he had met with his early and dearest friend, Lord Clare, and the following description of their short interview is given in his " Detached Thoughts."

"Pisa, November 5. 1821. "There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this world, Sancho, says Sterne in a letter (if I mistake not),

and so I have often found it.

"Page 128. article 91. of this collection of scattered things, I had alluded to my friend Lord Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. About a week or two afterwards I met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, after not having met for seven or

1 "They wait for the traveller's carriage at the foot of every hill."

me.

Clare, too, was much agitated-more in appearance than even myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers' ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. He told me that I should find a note from him left at Bologna. I did. We were obliged to part for our different journeys, he for Rome, I for Pisa, but with the promise to meet again in spring. We were but five minutes together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my existence which could be weighed against them. He had heard that I was coming on, and had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the people with whom he was travelling could not wait longer.

"Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of the leaven of bad passions.

"I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever heard of him from others, during absence and distance."

After remaining a day at Bologna, Lord Byron crossed the Apennines with Mr. Rogers; and I find the following note of their visit together to the Gallery at Florence:

"I revisited the Florence Gallery, &c. My former impressions were confirmed; but there were too many visitors there to allow one to feel any thing properly. When we were (about thirty or forty) all stuffed into the cabinet of gems and knick-knackeries, in a corner of one of the galleries, I told Rogers that it felt like being in the watchhouse.' I left him to make his obeisances to some of his acquaintances, and strolled on alone — the only four minutes I could snatch of any feeling for the works around me. I do not mean to apply this to a tête-à-tête scrutiny and deep feeling for the arts, (indeed much with Rogers, who has an excellent taste, more of both than I can possess, for of the FORMER I have not much,) but to the crowd of jostling starers and travelling talkers around

"There is here Mr. Taaffe, an Irish genius, with whom we are acquainted. He hath written a really excellent Commentary on Dante, full of new and true information, and much ingenuity. But his verse is such as it hath pleased God to endue him withal. Nevertheless, he is so firmly persuaded of its equal excellence, that he won't divorce the Commentary from the traduction, as I ventured delicately to hint,—not having the fear of Ireland before my eyes, and upon the presumption of having shotten very well in his presence (with common pistols too, not with my Manton's) the day before.

"But he is eager to publish all, and must be gratified, though the Reviewers will make him suffer more tortures than there are in his original. Indeed, the Notes are well worth publication; but he insists upon the translation for company, so that they will come out together, like Lady C**t chaperoning Miss ** I read a letter of yours to him yesterday, and he begs me to write to you about his Poeshie. He is really a good fellow, apparently, and I dare say that his verse is very good Irish.

Now, what shall we do for him? He says that he will risk part of the expense with the publisher. He will never rest till he is published and abused for he has a high opinion of himself- and I see nothing left but to gratify him, so as to have him abused as little as possible; for I think it would kill him. You must write, then, to Jeffrey to beg him not to review him, and I will do the same to Gifford, through Murray. Perhaps they might notice the Comment

1 [Mr. Taaffe's "Comment on the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri," Vol. i., was published by Mr. Murray in 1823.]

* Having discovered that, while I was abroad, a kind friend had, without any communication with myself, placed at the disposal of the person who acted for me a large sum for the discharge of this claim, I thought it right to allow the money thus generously destined, to be employed as was intended, and then immediately repaid my friend out of the sum given by Mr. Murray for the manuscript. It may seem obstrusive, I fear, to enter into this sort of personal details; but, without some few

without touching the text. But I doubt the dogs-the text is too tempting.

66

I have to thank you again, as I believe I did before, for your opinion of Cain,' &c. "You are right to allow to settle the

claim; but I do not see why you should repay him out of your legacy—at least, not yet. If you feel about it (as you are ticklish on such points), pay him the interest now, and the principal when you are strong in cash; or pay him by instalments; or pay him as I do my creditors—that is, not till they make me.

sire.

"I address this to you at Paris, as you de Reply soon, and believe me ever, &c. P. S.-What I wrote to you about low spirits is, however, very true. At present, owing to the climate, &c. (I can walk down into my garden, and pluck my own oranges, - and, by the way, have got a diarrhoea in consequence of indulging in this meridian luxury of proprietorship,) my spirits are much better. You seem to think that I could not have written the Vision,' &c. under the influence of low spirits; but I think there you err. 3 A man's poetry is a distinct faculty, or soul, and has no more to do with the every-day individual than the Inspiration with the Pythoness when removed from her tripod."

The correspondence which I am now about to insert, though long since published by the gentleman with whom it originated, will, I have no doubt, even by those already acquainted with all the circumstances, be reperused with pleasure; as, among the many strange and affecting incidents with which these pages abound, there is not one, perhaps, so touching and singular as that to which the following letters refer.

words of explanation, such passages as the above would be unintelligible.

3 My remark had been hasty and inconsiderate, and Lord Byron's is the view borne out by all experience. Almost all the tragic and gloomy writers have been, in social life, mirthful persons. The author of the Night Thoughts was a "fellow of infinite jest ;" and of the pathetic Rowe, Pope says "He! why, he would laugh all day long he would do nothing else but laugh." 4 See " Sheppard.

Thoughts on Private Devotion," by Mr.