“Venice, August, 1818.

“We came from Padua hither in a gondola; and the gondolier, among other things, without any hint on our part, began talking of Lord Byron.  He said he was a ‘Giovanotto Inglese,’ with a ’nome stravagante,’ who lived very luxuriously, and spent great sums of money.

“At three o’clock I called on Lord Byron.  He was delighted to see me, and our first conversation of course consisted in the object of our visit.  He took me in his gondola, across the Laguna, to a long, strandy sand, which defends Venice from the Adriatic.  When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, and we rode along the sands, talking.  Our conversation consisted in histories of his own wounded feelings, and questions as to my affairs, with great professions of friendship and regard for me.  He said that if he had been in England, at the time of the Chancery affair, he would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented such a decision.  He talked of literary matters,—­his fourth Canto, which he says is very good, and indeed repeated some stanzas, of great energy, to me.  When we returned to his palace, which is one if the most magnificent in Venice,” &c. &c.

]

[Footnote 24:  In the preface also to this poem, under the fictitious name of Count Maddalo, the following just and striking portrait of Lord Byron is drawn:—­

“He is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country.  But it is his weakness to be proud:  he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life.  His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other men, and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength.  His ambition preys upon itself for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion.  I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the concentred and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo.  He is cheerful, frank, and witty.  His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication.  He has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different countries.”]

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