for a time by this event. But no one, we suppose, imagines that he rendered, or was capable of rendering, any important services to the cause of that country. If the Greeks are, as we hope, to recover their freedom, it may be well for their posterity, that he had not the power. The examples of those distinguished in the history of a nation, as its benefactors, are likely to have much influence upon the national character. Our own country has, in that respect, been peculiarly fortunate. It would have been unhappy for Greece, if Lord Byron had been her Lafayette.

There is a passage in Medwin's work, which is striking, both from the scene described, and from the view which it gives of Lord Byron's desertion during his residence in Italy; and still more from the light, which

OF LORD BYRON.

139

it throws upon the state of his feelings and character. The writer himself is apparently unconscious of what he has thus contributed to bring before us. Shelley, who seems to have been almost domesticated with Lord Byron, was drowned by the upsetting of an open boat. His body was found fifteen days afterwards. The following is the relation of Medwin.

"18th August, 1822.-On the occasion of Shelley's melancholy fate, I revisited Pisa, and on the day of my arrival learnt that Lord Byron was gone to the seashore, to assist in performing the last offices to his friend. We came to a spot marked by an old and withered trunk of a fir tree; and near it, on the beach, stood a solitary hut covered with reeds. The situation was well calculated for a poet's grave. A few weeks

before, I had ridden with him and Lord

Byron to this very spot, which I afterwards visited more than once. In front was

a

magnificent extent of the blue and windless Mediterranean, with the Isles of Elba and Gorgona, Lord Byron's yacht at anchor in the offing; on the other side, an almost boundless extent of sandy wilderness, uncultivated and uninhabited, here and there interspersed in tufts with underwood curved by the sea breeze, and stunted by the barren and dry nature of the soil in which it grew. At equal distances along the coast stood high square towers, for the double purpose of guarding the coast from smuggling, and enforcing the quarantine laws. This view was bounded by an immense extent of the Italian Alps, which are here particularly picturesque from their volcanic and manifold

appearances, and which being composed of white marble, give their summits the resemblance of snow.

"As a foreground to this picture appeared as extraordinary a group. Lord Byron and Trelawney were seen standing over the burning pile, with some of the soldiers of the guard; and Leigh Hunt, whose feelings and nerves could not carry him through the scene of horror, lying back in the carriage, the four post horses ready to drop with the intensity of the noonday sun. The stillness of all around was yet more felt by the shrill scream of a solitary curlew, which, perhaps, attracted by the body, wheeled in such narrow circles round the pile, that it might have been struck with the hand, and was so fearless that it could not be driven away. Looking at the corpse, Lord Byron said,

'Why that old black silk handkerchief

retains its form better than that human body!'

Scarcely was the ceremony concluded, when Lord Byron, agitated by the spectacle he had witnessed, tried to dissipate, in some degree, the impression of it by his favourite recreation. He took off his clothes therefore, and swam off to his yacht, which was riding a few miles distant."

*

"The next morning he was perfectly recovered. When I called, I found him sitting in the garden under the shade of some orange trees, with the Countess. They are now always together, and he is become quite domestic. He calls her Piccinina, and bestows on her all the pretty diminutive epithets that are so sweet in Italian. His kindness and attention to the Guiccioli have been invariable."*

pp. 178-186.