get divorces; but to the scandal of all Romagna, the
matter was at last referred to the Pope, who ordered her a separate
maintenance on condition that she should reside under her father's
roof. All this was not agreeable, and at length I was forced to
smuggle her out of Ravenna, having discovered a plot laid with the
sanction of the legate, for shutting her up in a convent for life."

The Countess Guiccioli was at this time about twenty, but she
appeared younger; her complexion was fair, with large, dark,
languishing eyes; and her auburn hair fell in great profusion of
natural ringlets over her shapely shoulders. Her features were not
so regular as in their expression pleasing, and there was an amiable
gentleness in her voice which was peculiarly interesting. Leigh
Hunt's account of her is not essentially dissimilar from any other
that I have either heard of or met with. He differs, however, in one
respect, from every other, in saying that her hair was YELLOW; but
considering the curiosity which this young lady has excited, perhaps
it may be as well to transcribe his description at length, especially
as he appears to have taken some pains on it, and more particularly
as her destiny seems at present to promise that the interest for her
is likely to be revived by another unhappy English connection.

"Her appearance," says Mr Hunt, "might have reminded an English
spectator of Chaucer's heroine:

Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise,
Her yellow hair was braided in a tress
Behind her back, a yarde long I guess,
And in the garden (as the same uprist)
She walketh up and down, where as her list.

And then, as Dryden has it:

At every turn she made a little stand,
And thrust among the thorns her lily hand.

Madame Guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was handsome and
lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too
much of the Italian fervour to be gentle. She had just enough of it
to give her speaking a grace--none of her graces appeared entirely
free from art; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it
to give you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour . . . Her
hair was what the poet has described, or rather BLOND, with an
inclination to yellow; a very fair and delicate yellow, at all
events, and within the limits of the poetical. She had regular
features of the order properly called handsome, in distinction to
prettiness or piquancy; being well proportion