"We were on the seashore," said Trelawney; "in front of us lay the sea and its islands, behind us the Apennines, and by our side was the great blazing funeral-pyre. The flames, fanned by the wind from the sea, took a thousand fantastic shapes. The weather was very fine; the lazy waves from the Mediterranean gently kissed the shore, the sands were golden yellow and contrasted sharply with the deep blue of the sky; the mountains lifted their snowy crests up into the clouds, and the flames from the pyre steadily burnt higher and higher into the air."
From Pisa Byron went to Genoa. It was in this city—once the Queen of the Mediterranean—that he conceived the idea of going to Greece, to do for that "Niobe of the Nations," as he called her, the same offices Naples had not thought fit to accept when offered to her.
So far, Byron had devoted himself mainly to individuals; now he intended to devote himself to a people.
In the month of April 1823 he entered into communication with the Greek Committee, and towards the end of July he left Italy. His reputation had increased extraordinarily, not only in Italy, France and Germany, but in England too.
One fact will give some idea of the height to which his reputation had attained.
An insurrection had broken out in Scotland in the county where his mother's property was situated. The rebels had to cross Lady Byron's estates to reach their destination, but on the confines of the property they paused and decided to cross in single file, so as only to tread down a narrow path in the crops. They did not take the same precaution on other estates, which they completely devastated.
Byron often related this incident with pride.
"See," he said, "how the hatred of my enemies is being avenged."
Before he left Italy he wrote on the margin of a book that had been lent him—
"If all that is said of me be true, I am unworthy to see England again; if all they say of me is false, England does not deserve to see me again."