any thing against an acquaintance, not only which I would not give, but which I have not given himself to understand; a principle, to which this book will have furnished no exception.* It may be judged by this, how little I have been in the habit of speaking against any body, and what a nuisance it is to me to do it now.

There was another thing that startled me in the Casa Lanfranchi. I had been led to consider the connexion between Lord Byron and Madame Guiccioli as more than warranted by Italian manners. Her husband was old enough to be her father. Every body knows how shamefully matches of this kind are permitted to take place, even in England. But in Italy, they are often accompanied, and almost always followed, by compromises of a very singular description, of which nobody thinks. ill; and in fine, I had been given to understand that

If it might appear otherwise with regard to Mr. Moore, whom I have never seen or corresponded with since his efforts against the Liberal, he has not been the less aware of the feelings entertained on the subject by myself and others.

the attachment was real; that it was rescuing Lord Byron from worse connexions; and that the lady's family (which was true) approved it. I was not prepared to find the father and brother living in the same house; but taking the national matters into consideration, and differing very considerably with the notions entertained respecting the intercourse of the sexes in more countries than one, I was prepared to treat with respect what I conceived to be founded in serious feelings; and saw, even in that arrangement, something which, though it startled my English habits at first, seemed to be a still farther warrant of innocence of intention, and exception to general rules. It is true, that when the Pope sanctioned her separation from her husband, he stipulated that she should live with her father; and as the separation took place on account of the connexion with Lord Byron, the nullification of the edict in thus adhering to the letter and violating the spirit of it, may have had an ill look in a Catholic country. But times are altered in that matter; and what enabled me the better to have a good opinion of the arrangement,

was the conclusion I came to respecting the dispositions of the old Count and his son, both very natural and amiable persons, with great simplicity of manners, and such a patriotic regard for their country, as had not only committed their reputation for wisdom in the eyes of the selfish, but got them into real trouble, and driven them into banishment. And I am of opinion to this day, that they considered their conduct in warranting the intimacy in question, not only to be justifiable but laudable; advantageous to the habits of a man, of whose acquaintance they felt proud; and perhaps even as making some amends to the lady, for the connexion which it superseded. The family came from Ravenna. The people in that quarter are more simple and unsophisticate than in the more frequented parts of Italy; worse perhaps where they are bad, that is to say, more gross and violent; but better (at least in the northern sense of the word) where they are good;--something more allied to the northern character and to the Germans. The women are apt to be fair, and to have fair tresses, as the lady in question had. The

men also are of lighter complexions than is usual in Italy. The old Count.. had the look of an English country gentleman, with a paternal gossiping manner, and apparently no sort of pride. The young one, who has since been known and esteemed in England, and is an enthusiast and active partizan in the cause of Greece, was equally pleasing in his manners, and evinced great interest in all that regarded the progress of freedom and knowledge. He would ask, with all the zest of an Englishman, what was doing by Lord Castlereagh and the House of Commons; and when I apologized to him for running on in my bad Italian; would reassure me with the best grace in the world, and say it was delightful to him to converse with me, for I gave him "hope." The Italians are very kind to bad speakers of their language, and ought to shame us in that matter. I confess, I can never hear a foreigner speak bad English without such a tendency to laugh as puts me to the torture; whereas I have never known an Italian's gravity disturbed by the most ludicrous mistakes, but in one instance, and then

it was the idea and not the word that discommoded him. I have known them even repeat your mistakes with an unconscious look, as if they were proper expressions. I remember

walking once with my young acquaintance, Luigi Gianetti, of Pisa, all the way from Florence to Maiano, and holding a long ethical discourse on the superiority of the "good clever man" to the "bad clever man," in the course of which I must have uttered a thousand malapropisms, not one of which did he give me a sense of by a smile.

But to return to the Gambas. The way in which the connexion between the young Countess and Lord Byron had originated, and was sanctioned, was, I thought, clear enough; but unfortunately it soon became equally clear, that there was no real love on either side. The lady, I believe, was not unsusceptible of a real attachment, and most undoubtedly she was desirous that Lord Byron should cultivate it, and make her as proud and as affectionate as she was anxious to be. But to hear her talk of him, she must have pretty soon discerned, that this was impossible: and the manner of her