tnote 77: An Irish phrase for being in a scrape.]

[Footnote 78: The title given him by M. Lamartine, in one of his Poems.]

* * * * *

In the separation that had now taken place between Count Guiccioli and
his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future,
reside under the paternal roof:--in consequence of which, Madame
Guiccioli, on the 16th of July, left Ravenna and retired to a villa
belonging to Count Gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that city.
Here Lord Byron occasionally visited her--about once or twice, perhaps,
in a month--passing the rest of his time in perfect solitude. To a mind
like his, whose world was within itself, such a mode of life could have
been neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired,
whose acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun,
this change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. Count
Guiccioli was rich, and, as a young wife, she had gained absolute power
over him. She was proud, and his station placed her among the highest in
Ravenna. They had talked of travelling to Naples, Florence, Paris,--and
every luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal.

All this she now voluntarily and determinedly sacrificed for Byron. Her
splendid home abandoned--her relations all openly at war with her--her
kind father but tolerating, from fondness, what he could not
approve--she was now, upon a pittance of 200_l._ a year, living apart
from the world, her sole occupation the task of educating herself for
her illustrious friend, and her sole reward the few brief glimpses of
him which their now restricted intercourse allowed. Of the man who could
inspire and keep alive so devoted a feeling, it may be pronounced with
confidence that he could not have been such as, in the freaks of his own
wayward humour, he represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the
whole history of her attachment goes to prove how completely an Italian
woman, whether by nature or from her social position, is led to invert
the usual course of such frailties among ourselves, and, weak in
resisting the first impulses of passion, to reserve the whole strength
of her character for a display of constancy and devotedness afterwards.

* * * * *

LETTER 380. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, July 17. 1820.

"I have received some books, and Quarterlies, and Edinburghs, for