girl, if Lord Byron
would consent to renounce all claim to her. At first he seemed not
disinclined to enter into her views--so far, at least, as giving
permission that she should take the child with her to England and
educate it; but the entire surrender of his paternal authority he would
by no means consent to. The proposed arrangement accordingly was never
carried into effect.]

* * * * *

The impression which, I think, cannot but be entertained, from some
passages of these letters, of the real fervour and sincerity of his
attachment to Madame Guiccioli[41], would be still further confirmed by
the perusal of his letters to that lady herself, both from Venice and
during his present stay at Ravenna--all bearing, throughout, the true
marks both of affection and passion. Such effusions, however, are but
little suited to the general eye. It is the tendency of all strong
feeling, from dwelling constantly on the same idea, to be monotonous;
and those often-repeated vows and verbal endearments, which make the
charm of true love-letters to the parties concerned in them, must for
ever render even the best of them cloying to others. Those of Lord Byron
to Madame Guiccioli, which are for the most part in Italian, and written
with a degree of ease and correctness attained rarely by foreigners,
refer chiefly to the difficulties thrown in the way of their
meetings,--not so much by the husband himself, who appears to have liked
and courted Lord Byron's society, as by the watchfulness of other
relatives, and the apprehension felt by themselves lest their intimacy
should give uneasiness to the father of the lady, Count Gamba, a
gentleman to whose good nature and amiableness of character all who know
him bear testimony.

In the near approaching departure of the young Countess for Bologna,
Lord Byron foresaw a risk of their being again separated; and under the
impatience of this prospect, though through the whole of his preceding
letters the fear of committing her by any imprudence seems to have been
his ruling thought, he now, with that wilfulness of the moment which has
so often sealed the destiny of years, proposed that she should, at once,
abandon her husband and fly with him:--"c'e uno solo rimedio efficace,"
he says,--"cioe d' andar via insieme." To an Italian wife, almost every
thing but this is permissible. The same system which so indulgently
allows her a friend, as one of the regular appendage