"Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust,"
till that in which he concludes with his sublime apostrophe to the Ocean, he advances from Alp to Alp in the regions of genius. Every one that traces the banks of the Rhine is made to feel what additional charms he has scattered along them; and how infinitely inferior are all, even the most enthusiastic and elaborate descriptions of its scenery from other pens.
"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wild and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Beneath the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose fair white walls along them shine.
"And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray,
And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay,
Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers."
Volumes of description could not give you so vivid a feeling of the characteristic features of the Valley of the Rhine as these lines. And thus through the Alps, "The palaces of Nature," Byron advanced into Italy, the land of ancient art, heroic deeds, and elysian nature. At Geneva he fell in with Shelley for the first time, and henceforth these two great poets became friends. At Diodati, on the Lake of Geneva, he spent the autumn, then advanced to Italy, and took up his abode in Venice, where, in the Palace Mocenigo, on the Canal Grande, he lived till December, 1819, i. e., about three years. His next remove was to Ravenna, where he had splendid apartments in the Guiccioli Palace. In the autumn of 1821 he quitted Ravenna, having resided there not two years, and took up his residence in the Lanfranchi Palace on the Arno, which he describes as large enough for a garrison. In the autumn of 1822 he quitted Pisa for Genoa, having resided at Pisa a year. At Genoa he inhabited the Villa Saluzzo at Albaro, one of the suburbs of that city, where he continued to live till the July of 1823, not quite a year, when he set sail for Greece, where in a few months his existence terminated.
Of Lord Byron's abodes and modes of life we have some graphic glimpses in Moore's life, in Shelley's and Captain Medwin's notices. Every where he remained true to his schoolboy habits of riding on horseback, swimming, firing with pistols; to his love of bull and Newfoundland dogs. Moore describes his house in Venice as a damp-looking mansion, on a dismal canal. "As we groped our way after him," he says, "through the dark hall, he cried out, 'Keep clear of the dog;' and before we had proceeded many paces further, 'Take care, or that monkey will fly at you:' a curious proof of his fidelity to all the tastes of his youth, out of the sort of menagerie which visitors at Newstead had to encounter in their progress through his hall." Soon after he adds, "The door burst open, and at once we entered an apartment not only spacious and elegant, but wearing an aspect of comfort and habitableness which, to a traveler's eye, is as welcome as rare." Captain Medwin somewhere mentions meeting Lord Byron, traveling from one of his places of abode to another, with a train of carriages, monkeys, and whiskered servants, a strange procession; and Shelley, visiting him at Ravenna, says, "Lord Byron has here splendid apartments in the palace of his mistress's husband, who is one of the richest men in Italy. There are two monkeys, five cats, eight dogs, and ten horses, all of whom, except the horses, walk about the house like the masters of it. Tita, the Venetian, is here, and operates as my valet—a fine fellow, with a prodigious black beard, who has stabbed two or three people, and is the most good-natured fellow I ever saw."
Of his house at Pisa, Byron himself says: "I have got here a famous old feudal palazzo, on the Arno, large enough for a garrison, with dungeons below and cells in the walls; and so full of ghosts, that the learned Fletcher, my valet, has begged leave to change his room, and then refused to occupy his new room because there were more ghosts there than in the other. It is quite true that there are most extraordinary noises, as in all old buildings, which have terrified the servants so as to incommode me extremely. There is one place where people were evidently walled up; for there is but one possible passage, broken through the wall, and then meant to be closed again upon the inmate. The house once belonged to the Lanfranchi family, the same mentioned by Ugolina in his dream, as his persecutor with Sismondi, and has had a fierce owner or two in its time."
The mode of spending his time appears by all accounts to have been pretty much the same every where. Rising about one o'clock at noon, taking a hasty breakfast, often standing. "At three or four," says the Guiccioli, "at Ravenna and Pisa, those who used to ride out with him agreed to call, and after a game at billiards they mounted and rode out." At the two latter places his resort was generally the forests adjoining the towns. At Ravenna, that forest rendered so famous by Dante and Boccaccio, especially for the story of the specter huntsman in the Decamerone; and at Pisa the old pine forest stretching down to the sea. Latterly he used to proceed to the outside of the city, to avoid the staring of the people, especially English people, then mounted his horse, and rode on at a great rate. In the forest they used to fire with pistols at a mark. The forest rides of Byron near Pisa and Ravenna will always be scenes visited with deep interest by Englishmen, and Shelley's description of themselves, the two great poets, in Julian and Maddalo, as they rode