“What to us seem’d guilt might be but woe,”—­

is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home.  It is, indeed, certain, that to this least defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach; and among the causes of the detestation which he afterwards felt for Venice, this recollection of the excesses to which he had there abandoned himself was not the least prominent.

The most distinguished and, at last, the reigning favourite of all this unworthy Harem was a woman named Margarita Cogni, who has been already mentioned in one of these letters, and who, from the trade of her husband, was known by the title of the Fornarina.  A portrait of this handsome virago, drawn by Harlowe when at Venice, having fallen into the hands of one of Lord Byron’s friends after the death of that artist, the noble poet, on being applied to for some particulars of his heroine, wrote a long letter on the subject, from which the following are extracts:—­

     “Since you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you shall be told
     it, though it may be lengthy.

     “Her face is the fine Venetian cast of the old time; her figure,
     though perhaps too tall, is not less fine—­and taken altogether in
     the national dress.

“In the summer of 1817, * * * * and myself were sauntering on horseback along the Brenta one evening, when, amongst a group of peasants, we remarked two girls as the prettiest we had seen for some time.  About this period, there had been great distress in the country, and I had a little relieved some of the people.  Generosity makes a great figure at very little cost in Venetian livres, and mine had probably been exaggerated as an Englishman’s.  Whether they remarked us looking at them or no, I know not; but one of them called out to me in Venetian, ’Why do not you, who relieve others, think of us also?’ I turned round and answered her—­’Cara, tu sei troppo bella e giovane per aver’ bisogna del’ soccorso mio.’  She answered, ‘If you saw my hut and my food, you would not say so.’  All this passed half jestingly, and I saw no more of her for some days.

“A few evenings after, we met with these two girls again, and they addressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their statement.  They were cousins; Margarita married, the other single.  As I doubted still of the circumstances, I took the business in a different light, and made an appointment with them for the next evening.  In short, in a few evenings we arranged our affairs, and for a long space of time she was the only one who preserved over me an ascendency which was often disputed, and never impaired.

“The reasons of this were, firstly,