[19] Among Lord Byron's papers, I find some verses addressed to him, about this time, by Mr. W. Rose, with the following note annexed to them:—"These verses were sent to me by W.S. Rose, from Abaro, in the spring of 1818. They are good and true; and Rose is a fine fellow, and one of the few English who understand Italy, without which Italian is nothing." The verses begin thus:
"Byron[20], while you make gay what circle fits ye,
Bandy Venetian slang with the Benzòn,
Or play at company with the Albrizzi,
The self-pleased pedant, and patrician crone,
Grimanis, Mocenigos, Balbis, Rizzi,
Compassionate our cruel case,—alone,
Our pleasure an academy of frogs,
Who nightly serenade us from the bogs," &c. &c.
[20] "I have hunted out a precedent for this unceremonious address."
[21] I had said, I think, in my letter to him, that this practice of carrying one stanza into another was "something like taking on horses another stage without baiting."
[22] I had, in first transcribing the above letter for the press, omitted the whole of this caustic, and, perhaps, over-severe character of Mr. Hunt; but the tone of that gentleman's book having, as far as himself is concerned, released me from all those scruples which prompted the suppression, I have considered myself at liberty to restore the passage.
[23] The following are extracts from a letter of Shelley's to a friend at this time.
"Venice, August, 1818.
"We came from Padua hither in a gondola; and the gondolier, among other things, without any hint on our part, began talking of Lord Byron. He said he was a 'Giovanotto Inglese,' with a 'nome stravagante,' who lived very luxuriously, and spent great sums of money.
"At three o'clock I called on Lord Byron. He was delighted to see me, and our first conversation of course consisted in the object of our visit. He took me in his gondola, across the Laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands, talking. Our conversation consisted in histories of his own wounded feelings, and questions as to my affairs, with great professions of friendship and regard for me. He said that if he had been in England, at the time of the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented such a decision. He talked of literary matters,—his fourth Canto, which he says is very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas, of great energy, to me. When we returned to his palace, which is one if the most magnificent in Venice," &c. &c.
[24] In the preface also to this poem, under the fictitious name of Count Maddalo, the following just and striking portrait of Lord Byron is drawn:—