On seeing this doggrel, my noble friend,—­as I might, indeed, with a little more thought, have anticipated,—­conceived the notion that I meant to throw ridicule on his whole race of poetic heroes, and accordingly, as I learned from persons then in frequent intercourse with him, flew out into one of his fits of half humorous rage against me.  This he now confessed himself, and, in laughing over the circumstance with me, owned that he had even gone so far as, in his first moments of wrath, to contemplate some little retaliation for this perfidious hit at his heroes.  “But when I recollected,” said he, “what pleasure it would give the whole tribe of blockheads and blues to see you and me turning out against each other, I gave up the idea.”  He was, indeed, a striking instance of what may be almost invariably observed, that they who best know how to wield the weapon of ridicule themselves, are the most alive to its power in the hands of others.  I remember, one day,—­in the year 1813, I think,—­as we were conversing together about critics and their influence on the public.  “For my part,” he exclaimed, “I don’t care what they say of me, so they don’t quiz me.”—­“Oh, you need not fear that,”—­I answered, with something, perhaps, of a half suppressed smile on my features,—­“nobody could quiz you”—­“You could, you villain!” he replied, clenching his hand at me, and looking, at the same time, with comic earnestness into my face.

Before I proceed any farther with my own recollections, I shall here take the opportunity of extracting some curious particulars respecting the habits and mode of life of my friend while at Venice, from an account obligingly furnished me by a gentleman who long resided in that city, and who, during the greater part of Lord Byron’s stay, lived on terms of the most friendly intimacy with him.

“I have often lamented that I kept no notes of his observations during our rides and aquatic excursions.  Nothing could exceed the vivacity and variety of his conversation, or the cheerfulness of his manner.  His remarks on the surrounding objects were always original:  and most particularly striking was the quickness with which he availed himself of every circumstance, however trifling in itself, and such as would have escaped the notice of almost any other person, to carry his point in such arguments as we might chance to be engaged in.  He was feelingly alive to the beauties of nature, and took great interest in any observations, which, as a dabbler in the arts, I ventured to make upon the effects of light and shadow, or the changes produced in the colour of objects by every variation in the atmosphere.