Madame Guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was handsome and lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too much of the Italian fervour to be gentle.  She had just enough of it to give her speaking a grace—­none of her graces appeared entirely free from art; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it to give you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour . . .  Her hair was what the poet has described, or rather Blond, with an inclination to yellow; a very fair and delicate yellow, at all events, and within the limits of the poetical.  She had regular features of the order properly called handsome, in distinction to prettiness or piquancy; being well proportioned to one another, large, rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more harmonious than interesting.  Her nose was the handsomest of the kind I ever saw; and I have known her both smile very sweetly, and look intelligently, when Lord Byron has said something kind to her.  I should not say, however, that she was a very intelligent person.  Both her wisdom and her want of wisdom were on the side of her feelings, in which there was doubtless mingled a good deal of the self-love natural to a flattered beauty. . . .  In a word, Madame Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, compressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet.  When I saw her at Monte Nero, near Leghorn, she was in a state of excitement and exultation, and had really something of this look.  At that time, also, she looked no older than she was; in which respect, a rapid and very singular change took place, to the surprise of everybody.  In the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years.”

This is not very perspicuous portraiture, nor does it show that Mr Hunt was a very discerning observer of character.  Lord Byron himself is represented to have said, that extraordinary pains were taken with her education:  “Her conversation is lively without being frivolous; without being learned, she has read all the best authors of her own and the French language.  She often conceals what she knows, from the fear of being thought to know too much; possibly because she knows I am not fond of blues.  To use an expression of Jeffrey’s, ’If she has blue stockings, she contrives that her petticoats shall hide them.’”

Lord Byron was at one time much attached to her; nor could it be doubted that their affection was reciprocal; but in both, their union outlived their affection, for before his departure to Greece his attachment had perished, and he left her, as it is said, notwithstanding the rank and opulence she had forsaken on his account, without any provision.  He had promised, it was reported, to settle two thousand pounds on her, but he forgot the intention, or died before it was carried into effect. {255} On her part, the estrangement was of a different and curious kind—­she had not come to hate him, but she told a lady, the friend of a mutual acquaintance of Lord Byron and mine, that she feared more than loved him.