such revolutionary or such brave poets were, in all probability, never before nor since in a storm in a boat together.  During this period Byron complains of being still persecuted.  “I was in a wretched state of health and worse spirits when I was in Geneva; but quiet and the lake—­better physicians than Polidori—­soon set me up.  I never led so moral a life as during my residence in that country, but I gained no credit by it.  On the contrary, there is no story so absurd that they did not invent at my cost.  I was watched by glasses on the opposite side of the lake, and by glasses, too, that must have had very distorted optics.  I was waylaid in my evening drives.  I believe they looked upon me as a man-monster.”  Shortly after his arrival in Switzerland he contracted an intimacy with Miss Clairmont, a daughter of Godwin’s second wife, and consequently a connexion by marriage of the Shelleys, with whom she was living, which resulted in the birth of a daughter, Allegra, at Great Marlow, in February, 1817.  The noticeable events of the following two months are a joint excursion to Chamouni, and a visit in July to Madame de Stael at Coppet, in the course of which he met Frederick Schlegel.  During a wet week, when the families were reading together some German ghost stories, an idea occurred of imitating them, the main result of which was Mrs. Shelley’s Frankenstein.  Byron contributed to the scheme a fragment of The Vampire, afterwards completed and published in the name of his patron by Polidori.  The eccentricities of this otherwise amiable physician now began to give serious annoyance; his jealousy of Shelley grew to such a pitch that it resulted in the doctor’s giving a challenge to the poet, at which the latter only laughed; but Byron, to stop further outbreaks of the kind, remarked, “Recollect that, though Shelley has scruples about duelling, I have none, and shall be at all times ready to take his place.”  Polidori had ultimately to be dismissed, and, after some years of vicissitude, committed suicide.

The Shelleys left for England in September, and Byron made an excursion with Hobhouse through the Bernese Oberland.  They went by the Col de Jaman and the Simmenthal to Thun; then up the valley to the Staubbach, which he compares to the tail of the pale horse in the Apocalypse—­not a very happy, though a striking comparison.  Thence they proceeded over the Wengern to Grindelwald and the Rosenlau glacier; then back by Berne, Friburg, and Yverdun to Diodati.  The following passage in reference to this tour may be selected as a specimen of his prose description, and of the ideas of mountaineering before the days of the Alpine Club:—­