But now Shelley, Williams, Medwin, and Taafe are dismounting in the pine forest, and the men-servants setting up the target. Pistol-practice is Byron's forte; when he hits a half-crown at twelve yards he is as delighted as a boy, and quite glum and disconcerted if he should happen to miss. This very rarely happens, as he is a crack shot, easily distancing the other competitors. His hand trembles violently, but he calculates on this vibration, and, depending entirely on his eye, hardly ever fails. After about an hour's shooting, the light begins to wane towards sunset: and the friends ride back to the city, Byron in exuberant good humour with himself and everybody else. Arrived at the Palazzo Lanfranchi, he finds two guests awaiting him,—Count Pietro Gamba, brother of the lovely Contessa Guiccioli, and Trelawny, that handsome, picturesque, piratical-looking "Younger Son," who has not yet published to an astonished world his remarkable and almost incredible "Adventures." Trelawny is at present in command of Byron's yacht the Bolivar, lying in the harbour of Genoa.

The poet welcomes these new additions to his company: for, since his arrival in Pisa, he has begun to entertain men at dinner-parties, for the first time since leaving England. A very cheerful company sits down with him to dinner: their host displays himself to great advantage, "being at once," to quote Shelley, "polite and cordial, full of social hilarity and the most perfect good humour, never diverging into ungraceful merriment, and yet keeping up the spirit of liveliness throughout the evening." Byron, according to his own declaration, has never passed two hours in mixed society without wishing himself out of it again. Nobody, however, could guess at this fact from his bright, frank, and spontaneous gaiety. Always an abstemious eater—"I have fed at times for over two months together," he assures his friends, "on sheer biscuit and water,"—very little food suffices him: and besides, bien entendu, he is anxious to retain that "happy slenderness" on which he prides himself,—the slenderness which is a characteristic of his family, and which he has recently endangered by a lazy life in Venice. The guests sit fascinated by his enthralling personality: they recognize that he wears a natural greatness which "his errors can only half obscure:" and they rivet their gaze upon that pale and splendid face, the only one, as Scott says, that ever came up to an artist's notion of what the lineaments of a poet should be. He looks around him upon the ethereal and feminine countenance of Shelley, the visionary,—the kind, pleasant, honest English faces of Medwin and Williams,—the good-looking Italian Gamba, the quaint little Irishman Taafe,—last, not least, the dark mustachios and wildly-flashing Celtic eyes of the Cornish adventurer Trelawny. This latter might well have served for a model of Conrad the Corsair: and so he is assured by his companions.

"Sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale
The sable curls in wild profusion veil….
His features' deepening lines and varying hue
At times attracted, yet perplex'd the view."
Click to [ENLARGE]
CONRAD AND GULNARE.
"Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,
The worst of crimes had left her woman still!
This Conrad mark'd, and felt—ah! could he less?—
Hate of that deed, but grief for her distress."
(The Corsair.)

But where, they ask, shall the original of Gulnare be found,—Gulnare, who stains her hand with the blood of her lord the Pasha, to save the Corsair from a dreadful death? Byron refuses to reveal his source of inspiration: but Shelley quotes with sincere approval the lines which most emphatically delineate that lovely, desperate woman.

Embark'd, the sail unfurl'd, the light breeze blew—
How much had Conrad's memory to review!…
He thought on her afar, his lovely bride:
He turned and saw—Gulnare, the homicide!
She watch'd his features till she could not bear
Their freezing aspect and averted air;
And that strange fierceness, foreign to her eye,
Fell quench'd in tears, too late to shed or dry.
"But for that deed of darkness what wert thou?
Reproach me—but not yet—O! spare me now!
I am not what I seem—this fearful night
My brain bewilder'd—do not madden quite!
If I had never loved, though less my guilt,
Thou hadst not lived to—hate me—if thou wilt."
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,
The worst of crimes had left her woman still!
This Conrad mark'd, and felt—ah! could he less?
Hate of that deed, but grief for her distress;
What she has done no tears could wash away,
And Heaven must punish on its angry day:
But—it was done: he knew, whate'er her guilt,
For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt;
And he was free! and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven!
(The Corsair.)

But—"Heavens, Shelley!" cries his host, "what infinite nonsense are you quoting?" and he hastily turns the current of conversation towards more impersonal subjects.