The letter to Lady Byron, which he afterwards showed to Lady Blessington, must have borne about the same date; and we have a further indication of his thoughts reverting homeward in an urgent request to Murray—­written on December 10th, Ada’s sixth birthday—­to send his daughter’s miniature.  After its arrival nothing gave him greater pleasure than to be told of its strong likeness to himself.  In the course of the same month an event occurred which strangely illustrates the manners of the place, and the character of the two poets.  An unfortunate fanatic having taken it into his head to steal the wafer-box out of a church at Lucca, and being detected, was, in accordance with the ecclesiastical law till lately maintained against sacrilege, condemned to be burnt alive.  Shelley, who believed that the sentence would really be carried into effect, proposed to Byron that they should gallop off together, and by aid of their servants rescue by force the intended victim.  Byron, however, preferred in the first place, to rely on diplomacy; some vigorous letters passed; ultimately a representation, convoyed by Taafe to the English Ambassador, led to a commutation of the sentence, and the man was sent to the galleys.

The January of 1822 was marked by the addition to the small circle of Captain E.J.  Trelawny, the famous rover and bold free-lance (long sole survivor of the remarkable group), who accompanied Lord Byron to Greece, and has recorded a variety of incidents of the last months of his life.  Trelawny, who appreciated Shelley with an intensity that is often apt to be exclusive, saw, or has reported, for the most part the weaker side of Byron.  We are constrained to accept as correct the conjecture that his judgment was biassed by their rivalry in physical prowess, and the political differences which afterwards developed between them.  Letters to his old correspondents—­to Scott about the Waverleys, to Murray about the Dramas, and the Vision of Judgment, and Cain—­make up almost the sole record of the poet’s pursuits during the five following months.  In February 6th he sent, through Mr. Kinnaird, the challenge to Southey, of the suppression of which he was not aware till May 17.  The same letter contains a sheaf of the random cynicisms, as—­“Cash is virtue,” “Money is power; and when Socrates said he knew nothing, he meant he had not a drachma”—­by which he sharpened the shafts of his assailants.  A little later, on occasion of the death of Lady Noel, he expresses himself with natural bitterness on hearing that she had in her will recorded a wish against his daughter Ada seeing his portrait.  In March he sat, along with La Guiccioli, to the sculptor Bartolini.  On the 24th, when the company were on one of their riding excursions outside the town, a half-drunken dragoon on horseback broke through them, and by accident or design knocked Shelley from his seat.  Byron, pursuing him along the Lung’ Arno, called for his name, and, taking him for an officer, flung his