liaison with the beautiful Countess Guiccioli, accomplished some of his finest poetical work, espoused the cause of the Italian "Carbonari," and became celebrated for his aquatic achievements. Such epithets as "the English fish" and "water-spaniel" were bestowed upon him by the amazed gondoliers. On one occasion the great poet-swimmer is said to have remained four hours and twenty minutes in the Grand Canal-one of the most remarkable aquatic feats on record. In 1820 he followed the countess to Ravenna, where he became somewhat engaged in Italian politics. Soon after he removed to Pisa, where he was joined by Mr. and Mrs. Shelley and Leigh Hunt, with whom was attempted the unsuccessful journal, The Liberal. This Italian period of his life was his most brilliant poetical period. Here he wrote, and sent to England for publication, the works which have rendered his name immortal. His romantic history and personal peculiarities, as well as the many adventures and stories which had been fabricated concerning him, rendered him an object of curiosity to the world; when, in addition to this, his great literary fame be taken into consideration, it is not surprising that Lord Byron while in Italy constituted one of the chief attractions to travellers in that most attractive country. To Americans he was especially courteous, and always evinced much interest in the western Republic. Expedition to Greece. Lord Byron's love of liberty was intense. "Give me a republic," he wrote. "Look in the history of the earth - Rome, Greece, Venice, Holland, France, America, our too short Commonwealth-and compare it with what they did under masters." He adored Napoleon, whose character so much resembled his own, but lamented his abuse of power. His sympathies for struggling Italy were soon aroused, and he took part in the insurrection of 1820. "It is no great matter," he wrote, "supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object-the very poetry of politics; only think! a free Italy!" The failure of his political projects in Italy did not dishearten him. In 1822 he writes: "If I live ten years longer, you will see that it is not all over with me. I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing-and I do not think it was my vocation; but I shall do something." This something was not long in defining itself. In the autumn of 1822 he left Pisa for Genoa, where he began to interest himself in the struggles of the Greeks to throw off the Mohammedan yoke. England had sympathized with the movement, and the London committee, in seeking the aid of some person who should give to the cause an illustrious name, turned to Byron. Communications were made to him, and he was soon decided to lend them his person, fortune, and influence. In August, 1823, he sailed with several friends for Greece. He was received there with every mark of respect and honor, and his brief career in that country was marked by bravery, patience, and generosity, But the damp climate was prejudicial to his health, and he was advised by the physicians to leave Greece. This he refused to do. "I cannot quit Greece," he wrote to a friend, "while there is a chance of my being even of (supposed) utility. There is a stake worth millions; such as I am, and while I can stand at all, I must stand by the cause." On the 9th of April he was exposed in a heavy storm, and a violent fever came on from which he never recovered. Death and Burial.-Lord Byron died April 19, 1824, at Mesolonghi. His last words were, "Now I will go to sleep." All Greece lamented his death, and desired to place his remains in the Temple of Theseus, at Athens. But after a solemn funeral ceremony his embalmed body was conveyed to England, and being refused a burial in Westminster Abbey, was placed in the family vault in the small village church of Hucknell. The news of his death spread rapidly over the civilized world, and tributes to his memory were offered in nearly every European language. But of all these memorials, none exceeded in beauty the poem by Wilhelm Müller, in which was commemorated "the seven-and-thirty funeral shots" which the government of Greece ordered to be fired from the grand battery: Seven-and-thirty years it is those thundering cannon say, Lays of Greece. Descendants. After her husband's death, Lady Byron devoted herself almost entirely to mission work. In 1854 she established a Reformatory for young girls at Bristol. Her death took place in 1860. Lord Byron's sister, Augusta, afterwards Mrs. Leigh, whom he repeatedly characterized as his best and truest friend through life, was heir to the bulk of his property. She was a woman of remarkable character, as proved by the testimonies of her contemporaries, even Lady Byron herself. Lord Byron's only daughter, Ada, was married to Earl Lovelace in 1835. Of her three children, the two youngest, Mrs. Blunt and Lord Wentworth, are now living. Lady Lovelace died in 1852. The education she had received in youth pitifully displayed her mother's dogmatism. Not only was she kept in total ignorance of her father's life and character, but even prohibited from seeing his portrait till she was of age. With his works she did not become acquainted till a short time before her death. Careful study of them inspired her with the most ardent admiration and love for him, and when she felt that death was approaching, requested to be buried by his side. The successor to Lord Byron's estate and title was his cousin, Captain George Anson Byron. LORD BYRON'S HOMES. Lord Byron's early years were passed at Aberdeen, in the Scottish Highlands, but it is the ancestral mansion of Newstead, which he took possession of at the age of ten, that is the place in Great Britain most closely connected with his name. Washington Irving's Sketch of Newstead Abbey [for Lord Byron's description, see "Don Juan," canto xii., stanzas lv.-lxxii.].-A drive of seventeen miles through a pleasant country, part of it in the storied region of Sherwood Forest, brought me to the gate of Newstead Park. The aspect of the park was by no means imposing, the fine old trees that once adorned it having been laid low by Lord Byron's wayward predecessor. Entering the gate, the post-chaise rolled heavily along a sandy road, between naked declivities, gradually descending into one of those gentle and sheltered valleys in which the sleek monks of old loved to nestle themselves. Here a sweep of the road round an angle of a garden wall brought us full in front of the venerable edifice, embosomed in the valley, with a beautiful sheet of water spreading out before it. The irregular gray pile, of motley architecture, answered to the description given by Lord Byron "An old, old monastery once, and now One end was fortified by a castellated tower, bespeaking the baronial and warlike days of the edifice; the other end maintained its primitive, monastic character. A ruined chapel, flanked by a solemn grove, still reared its front entire. It is true the threshold of the once frequented portal was grass-grown, and the great lancet window, once glorious with painted glass, was now entwined and overhung with ivy, but the old convent cross still braved both time and tempest on the pinnacle of the chapel, and, below, the blessed effigies of the Virgin and child, sculptured in gray stone, remained uninjured in their niche, giving a sanctified aspect to the pile. The chamberlain of the Abbey, a most decorous personage, dressed in black, received us at the portal. Here, too, we encountered a memento of Lord Byron a great black and white Newfoundland dog, that had accompanied his remains from Greece. He was descended from the famous Boatswain, and inherited his generous qualities. He was a cherished inmate of the Abbey, and honored and caressed by every visitor. Conducted by the chamberlain and followed by the dog, who assisted in doing the honors of the house, we passed through a long, low, vaulted hall, supported by massive Gothic arches, and not a little resembling the crypt of a cathedral, being the basement story of the Abbey. From this we ascended a stone staircase, at the head of which a pair of folding doors admitted us into a broad corridor that ran round the interior of the Abbey. The windows of the corridor looked into a quadrangular grass-grown court, forming the hollow centre of the pile. In the midst of it rose a lofty and fantastic fountain, wrought of the same gray stone as the main edifice. Around this quadrangle were low, vaulted cloisters, with Gothic arches, once the secluded walks of the monks. The corridor along which we were passing was built above these cloisters, and their hollow arches seemed to reverberate every footfall. Everything thus far had a solemn, monastic air, but on arriving at an angle of the corridor, the eye, glancing along a shadowy gallery, caught a sight of two dark figures in plate armor, with closed visors, bucklers braced, and swords drawn, standing motionless against the wall. They seemed two phantoms of the chivalrous era of the Abbey. Here the chamberlain, throwing open a folding door, ushered us at once into a spacious and lofty saloon, which offered a brilliant contrast to the quaint and sombre apartments we had traversed. It was elegantly furnished, and the walls hung with paintings, yet something of its original architecture had been preserved and blended with modern embellishments. There were the stone-shafted casements and the deep bow-window of former times. The carved and panelled wood-work of the lofty ceiling had likewise been carefully restored, and its Gothic and grotesque devices painted and gilded in their ancient style. Here, too, were emblems of the former and latter days of the Abbey in the effigies of the first and last of the Byron line that held sway over its destinies. At the upper end of the saloon, above the door, the dark, Gothic portrait of "Sir John Byron the Little with the great Beard" looked grimly down from his canvas, while at the opposite end a white marble bust of the genus loci, the noble poet, shone |