le impulse. The
house of a shoemaker, near his Lordship's residence, in St Samuel,
was burned to the ground, with all it contained, by which the
proprietor was reduced to indigence. Byron not only caused a new but
a superior house to be erected, and also presented the sufferer with
a sum of money equal in value to the whole of his stock in trade and
furniture. I should endanger my reputation for impartiality if I did
not, as a fair set-off to this, also mention that it is said he
bought for five hundred crowns a baker's wife. There might be
charity in this, too.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Removes to Ravenna--The Countess Guiccioli

Although Lord Byron resided between two and three years at Venice, he
was never much attached to it. "To see a city die daily, as she
does," said he, "is a sad contemplation. I sought to distract my
mind from a sense of her desolation and my own solitude, by plunging
into a vortex that was anything but pleasure. When one gets into a
mill-stream, it is difficult to swim against it, and keep out of the
wheels." He became tired and disgusted with the life he led at
Venice, and was glad to turn his back on it. About the close of the
year 1819 he accordingly removed to Ravenna; but before I proceed to
speak of the works which he composed at Ravenna, it is necessary to
explain some particulars respecting a personal affair, the influence
of which on at least one of his productions is as striking as any of
the many instances already described upon others. I allude to the
intimacy which he formed with the young Countess Guiccioli.

This lady, at the age of sixteen, was married to the Count, one of
the richest noblemen in Romagna, but far advanced in life. "From the
first," said Lord Byron, in his account of her, "they had separate
apartments, and she always called him, Sir! What could be expected
from such a preposterous connection. For some time she was an
Angiolina and he a Marino Faliero, a good old man; but young Italian
women are not satisfied with good old men, and the venerable Count
did not object to her availing herself of the privileges of her
country in selecting a cicisbeo; an Italian would have made it quite
agreeable: indeed, for some time he winked at our intimacy, but at
length made an exception against me, as a foreigner, a heretic, an
Englishman, and, what was worse than all, a Liberal.

"He insisted--Teresa was as obstinate--her family took her part.
Catholics cannot