her having _stilettoed_ one
of her favourite lovers. In the intervals between the singing he pointed
out to me different persons among the audience, to whom celebrity of
various sorts, but, for the most part, disreputable, attached; and of
one lady who sat near us, he related an anecdote, which, whether new or
old, may, as creditable to Venetian facetiousness, be worth, perhaps,
repeating. This lady had, it seems, been pronounced by Napoleon the
finest woman in Venice; but the Venetians, not quite agreeing with this
opinion of the great man, contented themselves with calling her "La
Bella _per Decreto_,"--adding (as the Decrees always begin with the word
"Considerando"), "Ma _senza_ il Considerando."

From the opera, in pursuance of our agreement to "make a night of it,"
we betook ourselves to a sort of _cabaret_ in the Place of St. Mark, and
there, within a few yards of the Palace of the Doges, sat drinking hot
brandy punch, and laughing over old times, till the clock of St. Mark
struck the second hour of the morning. Lord Byron then took me in his
gondola, and, the moon being in its fullest splendour, he made the
gondoliers row us to such points of view as might enable me to see
Venice, at that hour, to advantage. Nothing could be more solemnly
beautiful than the whole scene around, and I had, for the first time,
the Venice of my dreams before me. All those meaner details which so
offend the eye by day were now softened down by the moonlight into a
sort of visionary indistinctness; and the effect of that silent city of
palaces, sleeping, as it were, upon the waters, in the bright stillness
of the night, was such as could not but affect deeply even the least
susceptible imagination. My companion saw that I was moved by it, and
though familiar with the scene himself, seemed to give way, for the
moment, to the same strain of feeling; and, as we exchanged a few
remarks suggested by that wreck of human glory before us, his voice,
habitually so cheerful, sunk into a tone of mournful sweetness, such as
I had rarely before heard from him, and shall not easily forget. This
mood, however, was but of the moment; some quick turn of ridicule soon
carried him off into a totally different vein, and at about three
o'clock in the morning, at the door of his own palazzo, we parted,
laughing, as we had met;--an agreement having been first made that I
should take an early dinner with him next day at his villa, on my road
to Ferrara.

H