Albaro, a pleasant village on a hill, in
the vicinity of the city; it was the Casa Saluzzi, and I have been
told, that during the time he resided there, he seemed to enjoy a
more uniform and temperate gaiety than in any former period of his
life. There might have been less of sentiment in his felicity, than
when he lived at Ravenna, as he seldom wrote poetry, but he appeared
to some of his occasional visitors, who knew him in London, to have
become more agreeable and manly. I may add, at the risk of sarcasm
for the vanity, that in proof of his mellowed temper towards me,
besides the kind frankness with which he received my friend, as
already mentioned, he sent me word, by the Earl of Blesinton, that he
had read my novel of The Entail three times, and thought the old
Leddy Grippy one of the most living-like heroines he had ever met
with. This was the more agreeable, as I had heard within the same
week, that Sir Walter Scott had done and said nearly the same thing.
Half the compliment from two such men would be something to be proud
of.

Lord Byron's residence at Albaro was separate from that of Mr Hunt,
and, in consequence, they were more rarely together than when
domiciled under the same roof as at Pisa. Indeed, by this time, if
one may take Mr Hunt's own account of the matter, they appear to have
become pretty well tired of each other. He had found out that a peer
is, as a friend, but as a plebeian, and a great poet not always a
high-minded man. His Lordship had, on his part, discovered that
something more than smartness or ingenuity is necessary to protect
patronage from familiarity. Perhaps intimate acquaintance had also
tended to enable him to appreciate, with greater accuracy, the
meretricious genius and artificial tastes of his copartner in The
Liberal. It is certain that he laughed at his affected admiration of
landscapes, and considered his descriptions of scenery as drawn from
pictures.

One day, as a friend of mine was conversing with his Lordship at the
Casa Saluzzi, on the moral impressions of magnificent scenery, he
happened to remark that he thought the view of the Alps in the
evening, from Turin, the sublimest scene he had ever beheld. "It is
impossible," said he, "at such a time, when all the west is golden
and glowing behind them, to contemplate such vast masses of the Deity
without being awed into rest, and forgetting such things as man and
his follies."--"Hunt," said his Lordship, smiling,