If they could have got sufficient proof they would have arrested me."

The latter part of this declaration bears, in my opinion, indubitable
marks of being genuine. It has that magnifying mysticism about it
which more than any other quality characterized Lord Byron's
intimations concerning himself and his own affairs; but it is a
little clearer than I should have expected in the acknowledgment of
the part he was preparing to take in the insurrection. He does not
seem HERE to be sensible, that in confessing so much, he has
justified the jealousy with which he was regarded.

"Shortly after the plot was discovered," he proceeds to say, "I
received several anonymous letters, advising me to discontinue my
forest rides; but I entertained no apprehensions of treachery, and
was more on horseback than ever. I never stir out without being well
armed, nor sleep without pistols. They knew that I never missed my
aim; perhaps this saved me."

An event occurred at this time at Ravenna that made a deep impression
on Lord Byron. The commandant of the place, who, though suspected of
being secretly a Carbonaro, was too powerful a man to be arrested,
was assassinated opposite to his residence. The measures adopted to
screen the murderer proved, in the opinion of his Lordship, that the
assassination had taken place by order of the police, and that the
spot where it was perpetrated had been selected by choice. Byron at
the moment had his foot in the stirrup, and his horse started at the
report of the shot. On looking round he saw a man throw down a
carbine and run away, and another stretched on the pavement near him.
On hastening to the spot, he found it was the commandant; a crowd
collected, but no one offered any assistance. His Lordship directed
his servant to lift the bleeding body into the palace--he assisted
himself in the act, though it was represented to him that he might
incur the displeasure of the government--and the gentleman was
already dead. His adjutant followed the body into the house. "I
remember," says his Lordship, "his lamentation over him--'Poor devil
he would not have harmed a dog.'"

It was from the murder of this commandant that the poet sketched the
scene of the assassination in the fifth canto of Don Juan.

The other evening ('twas on Friday last),
This is a fact, and no poetic fable--
Just as my great coat was about me cast,
My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
I hear