“’Toi, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai nom,
    Esprit mysterieux, Mortel, Ange, ou Demon,
    Qui que tu sois, Byron, bon ou fatal genie,
    J’aime de tes conceits la sauvage harmonie.’ 
    LAMARTINE.

“It would be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous.  What serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chestnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature!  What varied expression in his eyes!  They were of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin.  His teeth, in form, in colour, in transparency, resembled pearls; but his cheeks were too delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose.  His neck, which he was in the habit of keeping uncovered as much as the usages of society permitted, seemed to have been formed in a mould, and was very white.  His hands were as beautiful as if they had been the works of art.  His figure left nothing to be desired, particularly by those who found rather a grace than a defect in a certain light and gentle undulation of the person when he entered a room, and of which you hardly felt tempted to enquire the cause.  Indeed it was scarcely perceptible,—­the clothes he wore were so long.

“He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the ’Piazza di San Marco;’—­so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person.  I, however, believe that he has often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely.

“His face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning; but, like it, in an instant became changed into the tempestuous and terrible, if a passion, (a passion did I say?) a thought, a word, occurred to disturb his mind.  His eyes then lost all their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them.  So rapid a change would not have been thought possible; but it was impossible to avoid acknowledging that the natural state of his mind was the tempestuous.

“What delighted him greatly one day annoyed him the next; and whenever he appeared constant in the practice of any habits, it arose merely from the indifference, not to say contempt, in which he held them all:  whatever they might be, they were not worthy that he should occupy his thoughts with them.  His heart was highly sensitive, and suffered itself to be governed in an extraordinary degree by sympathy; but his imagination carried him away, and spoiled every thing.  He believed in presages, and delighted