racticed by a mere domestic, I am compelled to suspect the
inhospitality of some individual of higher station,--most gratuitously
exercised certainly, since, after what I have here said, no one will
probably choose to boast of possessing this literary curiosity."

Their mutual sympathy increased upon improved acquaintance with one
another. When at Venice Byron was informed that Scott was ill, he said
that he would not for all the world have him ill. "I suppose it is from
sympathy that I have suffered from fever at the same time." At Ravenna a
little later, on the 12th of January, 1821, he wrote down in his
memoranda:--

"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are
a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any, if not
better (only on an erroneous system), and only ceased to be so popular,
because the vulgar learned were tired of hearing Aristides called the
Just, and Scott the Best, and ostracized them.

"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme
pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature toward myself
personally. May he prosper! for he deserves it.

"I know no reading to which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W.
Scott's. I shall give the seal with his bust on it to Mlle. la Comtesse
Guiccioli this evening, who will be curious to have the effigies of a
man so celebrated."

He did take the seal to the Countess Guiccioli, and she said that
Byron's expressions about Scott were always most affectionate. "How I
wish you knew him!" he often repeated.

He used to say that it was not the poetry of "Child Harold," but Scott's
own superior prose that had done his poetry harm, and that if ever the
public could by chance get tired of his novels, Scott might write in
verse with equal success. He insisted that Scott had a dramatic talent,
"talent," he said, "which people are loth to grant me." He said that the
success of Scott's novels was not in the least due to the anonymous
character he had adopted, and that he could not understand why he would
not sign his name to works of such merit. He likewise asserted that of
all the authors of his period, Scott was the least jealous. "He is too
sure of his fame to fear any rivals, nor does he think of good works as
Tuscans do of fever; that there is only a certain amount of it in the
world, and that in communicating it to others, one gets rid of it."

"I never travel without taking Scott's novels with m