m wounds of heart, provided his conscience were at rest. When the
stupid persecution raised against him on the appearance of "Cain" took
place, he wrote to Murray from Pisa, on the 8th of February:--

"All the _row_ about _me_ has no otherwise affected me than by the
attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in Church and State.... I can
only say, 'Me, me; en adeum qui feci;'--that any proceedings directed
against you, I beg may be transferred to me, who am willing, and
_ought_, to endure them all."

And then he ends his letter, saying, "I write to you about all this row
of bad passions and absurdities, with the _summer_ moon (for here our
winter is clearer than your dog-days), lighting the winding Arno, with
all her buildings and bridges,--so quiet and still!--_What nothings are
we before the least of these stars!_"

Soon after, and while still suffering under the same persecution from
his enemies and weak fools, he wrote to Moore from Montenero, recalling
in his usual vein of pleasantry, their mutual adventures in fashionable
London life, and saying, that he should have done better while listening
to Moore as he tuned his harp and sang, _to have thrown himself out of
the window, ere marrying a Miss Milbank_.

"I speak merely of my marriage, and its consequences, distresses, and
calumnies; for I have been much more happy, on the whole, _since_, than
I ever could have been with her."

And some time after, conversing with Madame G----, examining and
analyzing all he might have done as an orator and a politician, if he
had remained in England, he added:--

"That then he would not have known her, and that no other advantages
could have given him the happiness which he found in real affection."

This conversation, interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Mr.
Hobhouse, and which, but for the inexplicable sadness arising from
presentiments, would have made earth a paradise for the person to whom
it was addressed, took place at Pisa, in Lord Byron's garden, a few days
before his departure for Genoa. At Genoa he continued to lead the same
retired, studious, simple kind of life; and, although the winter was
this year again extremely rigorous, and although his health had been
slightly affected since the day of Shelley's funeral, and his stay at
Genoa made unpleasant by the ennui proceeding from Mr. Hunt's presence
there,[193] still he had no fit of what can be called melancholy until
he decided on leaving for Greece. Then