ed to one another,
large, rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more
harmonious than interesting. Her nose was the handsomest of the kind
I ever saw; and I have known her both smile very sweetly, and look
intelligently, when Lord Byron has said something kind to her. I
should not say, however, that she was a very intelligent person.
Both her wisdom and her want of wisdom were on the side of her
feelings, in which there was doubtless mingled a good deal of the
self-love natural to a flattered beauty. . . . In a word, Madame
Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, compressing herself
artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in
the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet. When I
saw her at Monte Nero, near Leghorn, she was in a state of excitement
and exultation, and had really something of this look. At that time,
also, she looked no older than she was; in which respect, a rapid and
very singular change took place, to the surprise of everybody. In
the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years."

This is not very perspicuous portraiture, nor does it show that Mr
Hunt was a very discerning observer of character. Lord Byron himself
is represented to have said, that extraordinary pains were taken with
her education: "Her conversation is lively without being frivolous;
without being learned, she has read all the best authors of her own
and the French language. She often conceals what she knows, from the
fear of being thought to know too much; possibly because she knows I
am not fond of blues. To use an expression of Jeffrey's, 'If she has
blue stockings, she contrives that her petticoats shall hide them.'"

Lord Byron was at one time much attached to her; nor could it be
doubted that their affection was reciprocal; but in both, their union
outlived their affection, for before his departure to Greece his
attachment had perished, and he left her, as it is said,
notwithstanding the rank and opulence she had forsaken on his
account, without any provision. He had promised, it was reported, to
settle two thousand pounds on her, but he forgot the intention, or
died before it was carried into effect. {255} On her part, the
estrangement was of a different and curious kind--she had not come to
hate him, but she told a lady, the friend of a mutual acquaintance of
Lord Byron and mine, that she feared more than loved him.

CHAPTER XXXV