unfortunate pedestrians, whose eagerness to see him, I said, was, in my opinion, highly flattering to him.  That, he replied, depended on the feeling with which they came; and he had not the vanity to believe that they were influenced by any admiration of his character or of his abilities, but that they were impelled merely by idle curiosity.  Whether it was so or not, I cannot help thinking that if they had been of the other sex, he would not have been so eager to escape from their observation, as in that case he would have repaid them glance for glance.

“The curiosity that was expressed by all classes of travellers to see him, and the eagerness with which they endeavoured to pick up any anecdotes of his mode of life, were carried to a length which will hardly be credited.  It formed the chief subject of their enquiries of the gondoliers who conveyed them from terra firma to the floating city; and these people, who are generally loquacious, were not at all backward in administering to the taste and humours of their passengers, relating to them the most extravagant and often unfounded stories.  They took care to point out the house where he lived, and to give such hints of his movements as might afford them an opportunity of seeing him.  Many of the English visiters, under pretext of seeing his house, in which there were no paintings of any consequence, nor, besides himself, any thing worthy of notice, contrived to obtain admittance through the cupidity of his servants, and with the most barefaced impudence forced their way even into his bedroom, in the hopes of seeing him.  Hence arose, in a great measure, his bitterness towards them, which he has expressed in a note to one of his poems, on the occasion of some unfounded remark made upon him by an anonymous traveller in Italy; and it certainly appears well calculated to foster that cynicism which prevails in his latter works more particularly, and which, as well as the misanthropical expressions that occur in those which first raised his reputation, I do not believe to have been his natural feeling.  Of this I am certain, that I never witnessed greater kindness than in Lord Byron.

“The inmates of his family were all extremely attached to him, and would have endured any thing on his account.  He was indeed culpably lenient to them; for even when instances occurred of their neglecting their duty, or taking an undue advantage of his good-nature, he rather bantered than spoke seriously to them upon it, and could not bring himself to discharge them, even when he had threatened to do so.  An instance occurred within my knowledge of his unwillingness to act harshly towards a tradesman whom he had materially assisted, not only by lending him money, but by forwarding his interest in every way that he could.  Notwithstanding repeated acts of kindness on Lord Byron’s part, this man robbed and cheated him in the most barefaced manner; and when at length Lord Byron was induced to sue him at law