At Pisa he generally received in the morning all those who wished to see him, and among others several of his countrymen, mostly acquaintances or friends of Shelley, who also went to see him every day. In the afternoon he rode out on horseback, still followed by his countrymen, and by the young Count Gamba; amusing himself with them till evening came, in shooting exercises or in long excursions. We have already said how he employed his evenings. In fact, he was so seldom alone that people could not understand how he found time for writing. He did find it, however, and without subtracting from social intercourse. Nor was it solely because he composed so rapidly, but likewise because he gave to occupation the hours that young men are wont to pass in idle, not to say vicious, amusements. When he went from Pisa to a villa situated on the hills that overlook Leghorn and the Mediterranean, in order to pass the great heats of summer there, an American painter, Mr. West, who had been commissioned by an American society, requested him to sit for his picture. Lord Byron could not give him much time, and the portrait was not successful. But Mr. West, who, if not a good artist, possessed a just and cultivated mind, drew a picture of his moral character as true as it was flattering,—his pen doing him better service than his brush:—
"I returned to Leghorn," says he, "hardly able to persuade myself that this was the proud misanthrope whose character had ever appeared shrouded in gloom and mystery. For I never remember having met with gentler, more attractive manners in my life. When I told him the idea I had previously formed, what I had thought about him, he was extremely amused, laughed a great deal, and said, 'Don't you find that I am like every body else?'"
But Mr. Rogers thought him better than every body else, for he says:—
"From all I had observed, I left him under the impression that he possessed an excellent heart, which had been completely misunderstood, perhaps on account of his mobility and apparent likeness of manner. Indeed he took a capricious pleasure in bringing out this contrast between himself and others."
On quitting Pisa he went to Genoa, and there produced the same impression on all who saw him until he left for Greece.
At this last stage of his life, the testimonies as to his amiable, genial nature are so unanimous, from the time of his arrival to the day of his death, that we can not refrain from quoting the language used by some of those who saw him then.
"When I was presented to him," writes Mr. D—— to Colonel Stanhope, "I was particularly struck with his extremely graceful and affable manners, so opposite to what I had expected from the reputation given him, and which painted him as morose, gloomy, almost cynical."[126]
"I took leave of him," writes Mr. Finlay, who was presented to Lord Byron at Cephalonia, "quite enchanted, charmed to find a great man so agreeable."[127]
Colonel Stanhope, afterward Lord Harrington, who had been sent to Greece by the committee, and who only knew Lord Byron a few months before his death, notwithstanding great discrepancies of idea and character, says frankly, that with regard to social relations, no one could ever have been so agreeable; that there was no pedantry or affectation about him, but, on the contrary, that he was like a child for simplicity and joyousness.
"In the evening all the English, who had not, like Colonel Stanhope, turned Odyssean, assembled at his house, and till late at night enjoyed the charm of his conversation. His character so much differed from what I had been induced to imagine from the relations of travellers, that either their reports must have been inaccurate, or his character must have totally changed after his departure from Genoa. It would be difficult, indeed impossible, to convey an idea of the pleasure his conversation afforded. Among his works that which may perhaps be more particularly regarded as exhibiting the mirror of his conversation, and the spirit which animated it, is 'Don Juan.' The following lines from Shakspeare seem as if prophetically written for him:—