ed lady, of
one of the first families of Venice, whom the noble seducer had lured
from her father's house to his own, and, after a few weeks, most
inhumanly turned her out of doors. In vain, said the relator, did she
entreat to become his servant, his slave;--in vain did she ask to
remain in some dark corner of his mansion, from which she might be able
to catch a glimpse of his form as he passed. Her betrayer was obdurate,
and the unfortunate young lady, in despair at being thus abandoned by
him, threw herself into the canal, from which she was taken out but to
be consigned to a mad-house. Though convinced that there must be
considerable exaggeration in this story, it was only on my arrival at
Venice I ascertained that the whole was a romance; and that out of the
circumstances (already laid before the reader) connected with Lord
Byron's fantastic and, it must be owned, discreditable fancy for the
Fornarina, this pathetic tale, so implicitly believed at Geneva, was
fabricated.

Having parted at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied
from England, and whom I was to rejoin, after a short visit to Rome, at
Genoa, I made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy
travelling carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time
being limited, I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was
sufficient to hurry over their respective wonders, and, leaving Padua at
noon on the 8th of October, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the
door of my friend's villa, at La Mira. He was but just up, and in his
bath; but the servant having announced my arrival, he returned a message
that, if I would wait till he was dressed, he would accompany me to
Venice. The interval I employed in conversing with my old acquaintance,
Fletcher, and in viewing, under his guidance, some of the apartments of
the villa.

It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance; and the
delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many
years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was,
to the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the
evident rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak
of cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It
would be impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some
time or other, felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could
be when under the influence of such pleasurable exc