is 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."

[Illustration]

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 Co