ch took place with the
former, the following is related:--When a bold and enterprising young
man, he won the affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered
the amour, and murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night
found dead in the street, and there was no one on whom any suspicion
could be attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits
haunted him all his life after.

"This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable
allusions to it in his poems. As, for instance, when turning his sad
contemplations inwards, he applies to himself the fatal history of the
king of Sparta. It is as follows:--Pausanias, a Lacedemonian general,
acquires glory by the important victory at Plataea, but afterwards
forfeits the confidence of his countrymen through his arrogance,
obstinacy, and secret intrigues with the enemies of his country. This
man draws upon himself the heavy guilt of innocent blood, which attends
him to his end; for, while commanding the fleet of the allied Greeks, in
the Black Sea, he is inflamed with a violent passion for a Byzantine
maiden. After long resistance, he at length obtains her from her
parents, and she is to be delivered up to him at night. She modestly
desires the servant to put out the lamp, and, while groping her way in
the dark, she overturns it. Pausanias is awakened from his
sleep--apprehensive of an attack from murderers, he seizes his sword,
and destroys his mistress. The horrid sight never leaves him. Her shade
pursues him unceasingly, and he implores for aid in vain from the gods
and the exorcising priests.

"That poet must have a lacerated heart who selects such a scene from
antiquity, appropriates it to himself, and burdens his tragic image with
it. The following soliloquy, which is overladen with gloom and a
weariness of life, is, by this remark, rendered intelligible. We
recommend it as an exercise to all friends of declamation. Hamlet's
soliloquy appears improved upon here."[76]

[Footnote 76: The critic here subjoins the soliloquy from Manfred,
beginning "We are the fools of time and terror," in which the allusion
to Pausanias occurs.]

* * * * *

LETTER 378. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, June 9. 1820.

"Galignani has just sent me the Paris edition of your works (which
I wrote to order), and I am glad to see my old friends with a
French face. I have been skimming and dipping, in and over