hese scenes, he had never
before happened to read the Heloise; and though his companion had long
been familiar with that romance, the sight of the region itself, the
"birth-place of deep Love," every spot of which seemed instinct with the
passion of the story, gave to the whole a fresh and actual existence in
his mind. Both were under the spell of the Genius of the place,--both
full of emotion; and as they walked silently through the vineyards that
were once the "bosquet de Julie," Lord Byron suddenly exclaimed, "Thank
God, Polidori is not here."

That the glowing stanzas suggested to him by this scene were written
upon the spot itself appears almost certain, from the letter addressed
to Mr. Murray on his way back to Diodati, in which he announces the
third Canto as complete, and consisting of 117 stanzas. At Ouchy, near
Lausanne,--the place from which that letter is dated--he and his friend
were detained two days, in a small inn, by the weather: and it was
there, in that short interval, that he wrote his "Prisoner of Chillon,"
adding one more deathless association to the already immortalised
localities of the Lake.

On his return from this excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded
for the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the
young physician that--he had fallen in love. On the evening of this
tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage--Lord Byron,
in the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked
about the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one
of his foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just
heard. The brow of the Doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and,
at last, he angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart. "I never,"
said he, "met with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet
had evidently brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "Call
_me_ cold-hearted--_me_ insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest
emotion--"as well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has
been cast down a precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!"

In the month of July he paid a visit to Copet, and was received by the
distinguished hostess with a cordiality the more sensibly felt by him
as, from his personal unpopularity at this time, he had hardly ventured
to count upon it.[123] In her usual frank style, she took him to task
upon his matrimonial conduct--but in a way that won upon his min