(vol. ii. pp. 290, 291), speaks, in 1820, with an artist's enthusiasm, of the beauty of the three daughters of Theodora Macri. He quotes from the "Visitors' Book," to which Hobhouse alludes, four lines written by Byron in answer to an anonymous versifier —
"This modest bard, like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,
His name would bring more credit than his verse."
Theresa and Mariana Macri were dark; Katinka was fair. The latter name Byron uses as that of the fair Georgian in
Don Juan
(Canto VI. stanza xli.).
"It was," says Moore, "if I recollect right, in making love to one of these girls that he had recourse to an act of courtship often practised in that country; — namely, giving himself a wound across the breast with his dagger. The young Athenian, by his own account, looked on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree moved to gratitude."
Theresa, sometimes called Thyrza, Macri married an Englishman named Black, employed in H.M.'s Consular service at Missolonghi. She survived her husband, and fell into great poverty. Finlay, the historian of Greece, made an appeal on her behalf, which obtained the support of the leading members of Athenian society, including M. Charilaus Tricoupi, for some time Prime Minister at Athens, the son of Spiridion Tricoupi — Byron's intimate friend. In the
New York Times
for October 22, 1875, Mr. Anthony Martelaus, United States Consular Agent at Athens, describes Mrs. Black, whom he visited in August, 1875, as "a tall old lady, with features inspiring reverence, and showing that at a time past she was a beautiful woman." Theresa Black died October 15, 1875, aged 80 years. (See letters to the
Times