mucho.'-' Adieu, you pretty fellow! you please me much.' She offered me a share of her apartment, which my virtue induced me to decline; she laughed, and said I had some English amante' (lover), and added that she was going to be married to an officer in the Spanish army."

Among the beauties of Cadiz, his imagination, dazzled by the attractions of the many, was on the point, it would appear from the following, of being fixed by one :

"Cadiz, sweet Cadiz, is the most delightful town I ever beheld, very different from our English cities in every respect except cleanliness (and it is as clean as London), but still beautiful, and full of the finest women in Spain, the Cadiz belles being the Lancashire witches of their land. Just as I was introduced and began to like the grandees, I was forced to leave it for this cursed place; but before I return to England I will visit it again.

"The night before I left it, I sat in the box at the opera with admiral Cordova's family; he is the commander whom Lord St. Vincent defeated in 1797, and has an aged wife and a fine daughter, Sennorita Cordova. The girl is very pretty, in the Spanish style; in my opinion, by no means inferior to the English in charms, and certainly superior in fascination. Long black hair, dark languishing eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman used to the drowsy, listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a Spanish beauty irresistible.

"Miss Cordova and her little brother understood a little French, and, after regretting my ignorance of the Spanish, she proposed to become my preceptress in that language. I could only reply by a low bow, and express my regret that I quitted Cadiz too soon to permit me to make the progress which would doubtless attend my studies under so charming a directress. I was standing at the back of the box, which resembles our Opera boxes, (the theatre is large and finely decorated, the music admirable,) in the manner which Englishmen generally adopt, for fear of incommoding the ladies in front, when this fair Spaniard dis

[In a letter of the same date Lord Byron says: "I beg leave to observe, that intrigue here is the business of life; when a woman marries she throws off all restraint, but I believe their conduct is chaste enough before. If you make a proposal, which in England would bring a box on the ear from the meekest of virgins, to a Spanish girl, she thanks you for the honour you intend her, and

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possessed an old woman (an aunt or a duenna) of her chair, and commanded me to be seated next herself, at a tolerable distance from her mamma. At the close of the performance I withdrew, and was lounging with a party of men in the passage, when, en passant, the lady turned round and called me, and I had the honour of attending her to the admiral's mansion. I have an invitation on my return to Cadiz, which I shall accept if I repass through the country on my return from Asia."1

To these adventures, or rather glimpses of adventures, which he met with in his hasty passage through Spain, he adverted, I recollect, briefly, in the early part of his "Memoranda;" and it was the younger, I think, of his fair hostesses at Seville, whom he there described himself as making earnest love to, with the help of a dictionary. "For some time," he said, "I went on prosperously both as a linguist and a lover 2, till at length, the lady took a fancy to a ring which I wore, and set her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my sincerity. This, however, could not be :- any thing but the ring, I declared, was at her service, and much more than its value,-but the ring itself I had made a vow never to give away." The young Spaniard grew angry as the contention went on, and it was not long before the lover became angry also; till, at length, the affair ended by their separating unsuccessful on both sides. "Soon after this," said he, "I sailed for Malta, and there parted with both my heart and ring."

In the letter from Gibraltar, just cited, he adds "I am going over to Africa tomorrow; it is only six miles from this fortress. My next stage is Cagliari in Sardinia, where I shall be presented to his majesty. I have a most superb uniform as a court-dress, indispensable in travelling." His plan of visiting Africa was, however, relinquished. After a short stay at Gibraltar, during which he dined one day with Lady Westmoreland, and another with General Castanos, he, on the 19th of August, took his departure for Malta, in the packet, having first sent Joe Murray and young Rushton back to England, -the latter being unable, from ill health, to accompany him any further.

66

Pray," he says to his mother, "show the

replies, Wait till I am married, and I shall be too happy.' This is literally and strictly true."]

2 We find an allusion to this incident in Don Juan:"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue

By female lips and eyes- that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been," &c.

lad every kindness, as he is my great favourite."

He also wrote a letter to the father of the boy, which gives so favourable an impression of his thoughtfulness and kindliness, that I have much pleasure in being enabled to introduce it here.

LETTER 39. TO MR. RUSHTON,

"Mr. Rushton,

"Gibraltar, August 15. 1809.

"I have sent Robert home with Mr. Murray, because the country which I am about to travel through is in a state which renders it unsafe, particularly for one so young. I allow you to deduct five-andtwenty pounds a year for his education for three years, provided I do not return before that time, and I desire he may be considered as in my service. Let every care be taken of him, and let him be sent to school. In case of my death I have provided enough in my will to render him independent. He has behaved extremely well, and has travelled a great deal for the time of his absence. Deduct the expense of his education from your

rent.

66

BYRON."

It was the fate of Lord Byron, throughout life, to meet, wherever he went, with persons who, by some tinge of the extraordinary in their own fates or characters, were prepared to enter, at once, into full sympathy with his; and to this attraction, by which he drew towards him all strange and eccentric spirits, he owed some of the most agreeable connections of his life, as well as some of the most troublesome. Of the former description was an intimacy which he now cultivated during his short sojourn at Malta. The lady with whom he formed this acquaintance was the same addressed by him under the name of Florence" in Childe Harold; and in a letter to his mother from Malta, he thus describes her in prose :"This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. S* S* [Spencer Smith], of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. She has since been shipwrecked,

1 The postscript to this letter is as follows:-" P.S. So Lord G. is married to a rustic! Well done! If I wed, I will bring you home a sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile you to an Ottoman daughterin-law with a bushel of pearls, not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts." [Henry-Edward, nineteenth Baron Grey de Ruthyn, married, 21 June, 1809, Anna-Maria, daughter of Mr. William Kellam, of Rytonupon-Dunsmore, Warwick. His lordship died in Oct. 1810.]

and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron H✶ [Herbert] was Austrian ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Buonaparte by a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet twenty-five. She is here on her way to England, to join her husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French, and embarks soon in a ship of war. Since my arrival here, I have had scarcely any other companion.

I have found her very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric. Buonaparte is even now so incensed against her, that her life would be in some danger if she were taken prisoner a second time."

The tone in which he addresses this fair

heroine in Childe Harold is (consistently with the above dispassionate account of her) that of the purest admiration and interest, unwarmed by any more ardent sentiment :

"Sweet Florence! could another ever share

This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine:
But, check'd by every tie, I may not dare
To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine.
Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.
Thus Harold deem'd as on that lady's eye
He look'd, and met its beam without a thought,
Save admiration, glancing harmless by," &c. &c.

In one so imaginative as Lord Byron, who, while he infused so much of his life into his poetry, mingled also not a little of poetry with his life, it is difficult, in unravelling the texture of his feelings, to distinguish at all times between the fanciful and the real. His description here, for instance, of the unmoved and "loveless heart," with which he contemplated even the charms of this attractive person, is wholly at variance, not only with the anecdote from his "Memoranda" which I have recalled, but with the statements in many of his subsequent letters, and, above all, with one of the most graceful of his lesser poems, purporting to be addressed to this same lady during a thunder-storm, on his road to Zitza.3

England, through the Tyrol, &c.; containing an account of the liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith from the French Police." 12mo. 1807.]

3 The following stanzas from this little poem have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting:

"And since I now remember thee
In darkness and in dread,

As in those hours of revelry,

Which mirth and music sped;

Er. 21.

Notwithstanding, however, these counter evidences, I am much disposed to believe that the representation of the state of heart in the foregoing extract from Childe Harold may be regarded as the true one; and that the notion of his being in love was but a dream that sprung up afterwards, when the image of the fair Florence had become idealised in his fancy, and every remembrance of their pleasant hours among "Calypso's isles" came invested by his imagination with the warm aspect of love. It will be recollected that to the chilled and sated feelings which early indulgence, and almost as early disenchantment, had left behind, he attributes in these verses the calm and passionless regard with which even attractions like those of Florence were viewed by him. That such was actually his distaste, at this period, to all real objects of love or passion (however his fancy could call up creatures of its own to worship) there is every reason to believe; and the same morbid indifference to those pleasures he had once so ardently pursued still continued to be professed by him on his return to England. No anchoret, indeed, could claim for himself much more apathy towards all such allurements than he did at that period. But to be thus saved from temptation was a dear-bought safety, and, at the age of three-and-twenty, satiety and disgust are but melancholy substitutes for virtue.

The brig of war, in which they sailed, having been ordered to convoy a fleet of small merchant-men to Patras and Prevesa, they remained, for two or three days, at anchor off the former place. From thence, proceeding to their ultimate destination, and catching a sunset view of Missolonghi in their way, they landed, on the 29th of September, at Prevesa.

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abled, however, by the letters of the noble poet to his mother, as well as by other, still more curious, which are now, for the first time published, to give his own rapid and lively sketches of his wanderings, I shall content myself, after this general reference to the volume of Mr. Hobhouse, with such occasional extracts from its pages as may throw light upon the letters of his friend.

LETTER 40. TO MRS. BYRON.

"My dear Mother,

"Prevesa, November 12. 1809.

His son, Vely

"I have now been some time in Turkey: this place is on the coast, but I have traversed the interior of the province of Albania on a visit to the Pacha. I left Malta in the Spider, a brig of war, on the 21st of September, and arrived in eight days at Prevesa. I thence have been about 150 miles, as far as Tepaleen, his Highness's country palace, where I stayed three days. The name of the Pacha is Ali, and he is considered a man of the first abilities: he governs the whole of Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and part of Macedonia. Pacha, to whom he has given me letters, governs the Morea, and has great influence in Egypt; in short, he is one of the most powerful men in the Ottoman empire. When I reached Yanina, the capital, after a journey of three days over the mountains, through a country of the most picturesque beauty, I found that Ali Pacha was with his army in Illyricum, besieging Ibrahim Pacha in the castle of Berat. He had heard that an Englishman of rank was in his dominions, and had left orders in Yanina with the commandant to provide a house, and supply me with every kind of necessary gratis; and, though I have been allowed to make presents to the slaves, &c., I have not been permitted to pay for a single article of household consumption.

"Do thou, amidst the fair white walls, If Cadiz yet be free,

At times, from out her latticed halls, Look o'er the dark blue sea;

"Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endear'd by days gone by;
To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh," &c. &c.

never forget the singular scene' on entering Tepaleen at five in the afternoon, as the sun was going down. It brought to my mind (with some change of dress, however) Scott's description of Branksome Castle in his Lay, and the feudal system. 2 The Albanians, in their dresses, (the most magnificent in the world, consisting of a long white kilt, gold worked cloak, crimson velvet gold-laced jacket and waistcoat, silver-mounted pistols and daggers,) the Tartars with their high | caps, the Turks in their vast pelisses and turbans, the soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former in groups in an immense large open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed in a kind of cloister below it, two hundred steeds ready caparisoned to move in a moment, couriers entering or passing out with the despatches, the kettle-drums beating, boys calling the hour from the minaret of the mosque,

1 The following is Mr. Hobhouse's less embellished description of this scene:-" The court at Tepellene, which was enclosed on two sides by the palace, and on the other two sides by a high wall, presented us, at our first entrance, with a sight something like what we might have, perhaps, beheld some hundred years ago in the castle-yard of a great feudal lord. Soldiers, with their arms piled against the wall near them, were assembled in different parts of the square; some of them pacing slowly backwards and forwards, and others sitting on the ground in groups. Several horses, completely caparisoned, were leading about, whilst others were neighing under the hands of the grooms. In the part farthest from the dwelling, preparations were making for the feast of the night; and several kids and sheep were being dressed by cooks who were themselves half armed. Every thing wore a most martial look, though not exactly in the style of the head-quarters of a Christian general; for many of the soldiers were in the most common dress, without shoes, and having more wildness in their air and manner than the Albanians we had before seen."

On comparing this description, which is itself sufficiently striking, with those which Lord Byron has given of the same scene, both in the letter to his mother, and in the second canto of Childe Harold, we gain some insight into the process by which imagination elevates, without falsifying, reality, and facts become brightened and refined into poetry. Ascending from the representation drawn faithfully on the spot by the traveller, to the more fanciful arrangement of the same materials in the letter of the poet, we at length, by one step more, arrive at that consummate, idealised picture, the result of both memory and invention combined, which in the following splendid stanzas is presented to us :

"Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,
While busy preparations shook the court,
Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait;
Within a palace, and without a fort:

Here men of every clime appear to make resort.

altogether, with the singular appearance of the building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a stranger. 3 I was conducted to a very handsome apartment, and my health inquired after by the vizir's secretary, 'à-la-mode Turque!'

"The next day I was introduced to Ali Pacha. I was dressed in a full suit of staff uniform, with a very magnificent sabre, &c. The vizier received me in a large room paved with marble; a fountain was playing in the centre; the apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. He received me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Mussulman, and made me sit down on his right hand. have a Greek interpreter for general use, but a physician of Ali's named Femlario, who understands Latin, acted for me on this occasion. His first question was, why, at so early an age, I left my country? - (the Turks have no idea of travelling for amuse

I

And oft-times through the area's echoing door Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away? The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, Here mingled in their many-hued array, [of day. While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close

"The wild Albanian, kirtled to his knee,

With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,
And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see;
The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;
The Delhi, with his cap of terror on,
And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek;
And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son;
The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak,
Master of all around -too potent to be meek,
"Are mix'd, conspicuous: some recline in groups,
Scanning the motley scene that varies round;

There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,
And some that smoke, and some that play, are found;
Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;
Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;
Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,
The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret,
"There is no god but God!-to prayer-lo! God is
great!'"
Childe Harold, Canto IL

2 [See Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto i, Scott's Poetical Works, vol. vi. p. 49. ed. 1833.]

3[" In the second canto of Childe Harold, Lord Byron has admirably characterised this scene as he saw it in the seraglio of the Virgin at Tepaleni. His pictures are as minutely accurate in their descriptive details, as they are splendid and imposing in the poetry which conveys them to the eye of the reader."- DR. HOLLAND.]

4 ["In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
ALI reclined, &c. - Childe Harold, c. ii. st. 62.]

5 ["We told him the desire of seeing so great a man as himself. Aye,' returned he, did you ever hear of me in England?' We, of course, assured him that he was a very common subject of conversation in our country; and he seemed by no means inaccessible to the flattery." HOBHOUSE.]

ment). He then said, the English minister, Captain Leake', had told him I was of a great family, and desired his respects to my mother; which I now, in the name of Ali Pacha, present to you. He said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white hands, and expressed himself pleased with my appearance and garb. He told me to consider him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as his son. Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day. He begged me to visit him often, and at night, when he was at leisure. I then, after coffee and pipes, retired for the first time. I saw him thrice afterwards. It is singular, that the Turks, who have no hereditary dignities, and few great families, except the Sultans, pay so much respect to birth; for I found my pedigree more regarded than my title.

To-day I saw the remains of the town of Actium, near which Antony lost the world, in a small bay, where two frigates could hardly manœuvre : a broken wall is the sole remnant. On another part of the gulf stands the ruins of Nicopolis, built by Augustus in honour of his victory. Last night I was at a Greek marriage; but this and a thousands things more I have neither time nor space to describe.

"I am going to-morrow, with a guard of

1 Lieutenant-Colonel Leake, F.R.S., author of "The

Topography of Athens," "Researches in Greece,"

"Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor," &c.

2 In the shape of the hands, as a mark of high birth, Lord Byron himself had as implicit faith as the Pacha : see his note on the line," Though on more thorough-bred or fairer fingers," in Don Juan.

3 A few sentences are here and elsewhere omitted, as having no reference to Lord Byron himself, but merely containing some particulars relating to Ali and his grandsons, which may be found in various books of travels. Ali had not forgotten his noble guest when Dr. Holland, a few years after, visited Albania:-"I mentioned to him, generally (says this intelligent traveller), Lord Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in the same country. He seemed pleased with these circumstances, and stated his recollections of Lord Byron."

4 ["The captain wrung his hands, and wept. Being asked what he could do, he said he could do nothing. Could he get back to the main land?' If God chooses,' was his answer. Could he make Corfu ?'-If God chooses.' In short, there was nothing left but to request he would give up the management of the vessel to the Greeks. He said he would give it to any body."- HOBHOUSE.]

5 I have heard the poet's fellow-traveller describe this remarkable instance of his coolness and courage even still more strikingly than it is here stated by himself.

fifty men, to Patras in the Morea, and thence to Athens, where I shall winter. Two days ago I was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war, owing to the ignorance of the captain and crew, though the storm was not violent. Fletcher yelled after his wife, the Greeks called on all the saints, the Mussulmans on Alla; the captain burst into tears and ran below deck, telling us to call on God; the sails were split, the main-yard shivered, the wind blowing fresh, the night setting in, and all our chance was to make Corfu, which is in possession of the French, or (as Fletcher pathetically termed it) a watery grave.' I'did what I could to console Fletcher, but finding him incorrigible, wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait the worst.5 I have learnt to philosophise in my travels; and if I had not, complaint was useless. Luckily the wind abated, and only drove us on the coast of Suli, on the main land, where we landed, and proceeded, by the help of the natives, to Prevesa again; but I shall not trust Turkish sailors in future, though the Pacha had ordered one of his own galliots to take me to Patras. I am therefore going as far as Missolonghi by land, and there have only to cross a small gulf to get to Patras.

"Fletcher's next epistle will be full of marvels. We were one night lost for nine hours in the mountains in a thunder-storm 6,

Finding that, from his lameness, he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which their very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner here mentioned, but, when their difficulties were surmounted, was found fast asleep,

6 In the route from Ioannina to Zitza, Mr. Hobhouse and the secretary of Ali, accompanied by one of the servants, had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at the village just as the evening set in. After describing the sort of hovel in which they were to take up their quarters for the night, Mr. Hobhouse thus continues: "Vasilly was despatched into the village to procure eggs and fowls, that would be ready, as we thought, by the arrival of the second party. But an hour passed away and no one appeared. It was seven o'clock, and the storm had increased to a fury I had never before, and, indeed, have never since, seen equalled. The roof of our hovel shook under the clattering torrents and gusts of wind. The thunder roared, as it seemed, without any intermission; for the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills (visible through the cracks of the cabin) appeared in a perpetual blaze. The tempest was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove; and the peasants, no less religious than their ancestors, confessed their alarm. The women wept, and the men, calling on the name of God, crossed themselves at every repeated peal.

"We were very uneasy that the party did not arrive; but the secretary assured me that the guides knew every H