eir abode in the Casa Magni, situated near the fishing-village of San Terenzo. Tow

ea a sick wife and several children, and opened the ball by asking Byron for a loan of money to meet current expenses. Byron now discovered that Leigh Hunt had ceased to be editor of the Examiner, and, being absolutely without any source of income, had no prospect save the money he hoped to get from a journal not yet in existence. He ought, of course, to have told both Byron and Shelley that in coming to Italy with his family-a wife and six children-he would naturally expect one or both of his friends

on would have diminished the friction between Byron and his tactless guest. The amount of money spent by Byron on the Hunt family was not great, but, considering the comparative cheapness of living in Italy at that time, and the difference in the value of money, Byron's contribution was not niggardly. After paying for the furniture of their rooms in his palace, and sending ￡200 for the cost of their voyage to Italy, Byron gave Leigh Hunt ￡70 while he was at Pisa, defrayed the cost of their journey from

anfranchi after Hunt's arrival, he found Mrs. Hunt was confined

's theory and practice were that children should be unrestrained until they were of an age to be reasoned with. If they kept out of his way he was satisfied. On my entering the poet's study, I said to him, "The Hunts have effecte

iction to the sensitive Byron. His letters to friends in England at this tim

y as Hunt did not conceal that his estimate of Byron's poetry was not exalted. At that time Hunt thought highly of his own poetry and underestimated all other. Leigh Hunt thought that Shelley would ha

d Byron's palace at Pisa, they returned to Leghorn, Shelley 'in a mour

on the fulfilment of his promises with regard to Leigh Hunt. Byron, like a lion caught in a trap, could only grind his teeth and bear it. Unfortunately, it was not in Byron's nature to bear things becomingly; he could not restrain the exhibition

arcely deigned to notice her; was silent, and scarcely bowed. This conduct cut Hunt to the soul. But the way

on the Ariel for their home on the Gulf of Spezzia. The story is well known, thanks to the graphic pen of Edward Trelawny, and we need only a

lley and Williams, and showed his deep sympathy w

ay from Pisa on Augu

own open boat. You may imagine the state of their families: I never saw such a scene, nor wish to see another. You were all brutally mistaken

Thomas Moore, Byron says in

-naturedly, and ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. It will, p

written December 25

tolerant, how good he was in society; and as perfect a gentleman

en by Byron himself in a letter to Murray. The Liberal, published October 15, 1822, was fiercely attacked in the Literar

ngage in this work, and in an evil hour I consented; still, I shall not repent, if I can do them the least service. I have done all I can for Leigh Hunt since he came here; but it is almost useless. His wife is ill, his six children not very tractable

o Murray (December

m amidst the breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion between Leigh Hunt and me, there is little or none. We meet rarely, hardly ever; but I think him a good-principled and able man, and must do as I would be done by. I do not know what world

Byron. Byron's renunciation of this token of friendship is ignored by Professor

f course, I declined, and the more so that I hear that his will is admitted valid; and I state thi

ishments were quite separate. The first number of The Liberal which had been printed in London, reached Byron's hands at this time. The birth of that unlucky publication was soon followed by its death, as anyone knowing the circumstances attending its conception might have foreseen. Shelley's death may be said to have destroyed the enterprise and energy of the

ually sold by Byron to Lord Blessington for 400 guineas. Four or five years after Byron's death this excellent little sea-boat, with Captai

ust to Providence for the rest. Night came on dark and cold, for it was November, and as the sea boiled and foamed in her wake, it shone through the pitchy darkness with a phosphoric efflorescence. The last thing I heard was my companion's exclamation, "Breakers ahead!" and almost at the same instant The Bolivar struck: the crash was awful; a watery column fell upon her bodily like an avalanche, and all that I remember was,

ared that he was totally unconscious of the cause of her leaving him. He said that he left no means untried to effect a reconciliation, and added with

that she was the most faultless person he had ever known, and that she was h

d; but he is mistaken. With much that is little (which he suspects) in his character, there is much that is great that he does not give himself credit for. His first impulses are always good, but his

d liked to excite astonishment. It was difficult to know when he was serious, or when he was merely 'bamming' his aquaintances. He admitted that he liked to hoax people, in order that they might give contradictory accounts

oteworthy that, one evening, while Byron was speaking to Lady Blessington at her hotel at Genoa, he pointed out to her a boat at anchor in the harbour, and said: 'That is the boat in which my friend Shelley went down-the sight of it makes me ill. You should have known Shelley to feel how much I must regret him. He was the most gentle, most amiable, and least worldly-minded person I ever met; full of deli

friendship; but he felt that Hobhouse undervalued him, and, as Byron had a good deal of the spoiled child about him, he resented the friendly admonitions which, it seems, Hobhouse unsparingly administered whenever they were together.

n between them-he felt exasperated against her, and vented this feeling in his writings. The mystery of Lady Byron's silence piqued him and kept alive his interest in her. It was evident to those who knew Byron during the last year of his life that he anxiously desired a reconciliation with her. He seemed to think that, had his pecuniary affairs been in a less ruinous state, his temper would not have been excited as it constantly was, during the brief period of the

y portrait that resembled the other, and yet the description of each might be correct, according to individual opinion. The truth is, that the chameleon-like character or manne

thoughts by words which were carefully noted at the time. He

m I cannot give a legal right to be my companion, and who, wanting that right, is placed in a position humiliating to her and most painful to me. Were the Countess Guiccioli and I married, we should, I am sure, be cited as an example of conjugal happiness, and the domestic and retired life we lead would entitle us to respect. But our union, wanting the legal and religious part of the ceremony of marriage, draws on us both censure and blame. She is formed to make a good wife to any man to whom she attaches herself. She is fond of retirement, is of a most affectiona

t unreservedly, for it coincides in every particular with conclusions independently arrived at by the present writer, after a long and patient study of all circu

and insensibly preparing himself for a higher destiny, unconscious of the fact that the hand of Death was upon him. 'Wait,' he said, 'and you