66 "A curious thing happened to me shortly after the honey-moon, which was very awkward at the time, but "has since amused me much. It so happened that "three married women were on a wedding visit to my "wife, (and in the same room, at the same time,) whom I had known to be all birds of the same nest. Fancy "the scene of confusion that ensued! "I have seen a great deal of Italian society, and swum "in a gondola, but nothing could equal the profligacy of high life in England, especially that of "knew it. 66 66 when I There was a lady at that time, double my own age, "the mother of several children who were perfect angels, 66 66 with whom I had formed a liaison that continued without interruption for eight months. The autumn of a beauty "like her's is preferable to the spring in others. She told me she was never in love till she was thirty; and I thought myself so with her, when she was forty. I never felt a stronger passion; which she returned with equal ardour. I was as fond of, indeed more attached " than I ought to have been, to one who had bestowed her "favours on many; but I was flattered at a preference that 66 66 "had led her to discard another, who in personal at"tractions and fashion was far my superior. She had "been sacrificed, almost before she was a woman, to one "whose mind and body were equally contemptible in the "scale of creation; and on whom she bestowed a numerous family, to which the law gave him the right to be called "father. Strange as it may seem, she gained (as all wo men do) an influence over me so strong, that I had great difficulty in breaking with her, even when I knew "she had been inconstant to me; and once was on the point of going abroad with her, and narrowly escaped "this folly. I was at this time a mere Bond-street "lounger-a great man at lobbies, coffee, and gambling"houses: my afternoons were passed in visits, luncheons, 66 lounging and boxing-not to mention drinking! If I had known you in early life, you would not have been "alive now. I remember Scroope Davies, H—, and myself, clubbing 197., all we had in our pockets, and losing it at a hell in St. James's-street, at chicken-hazard, which may be called fowl; and afterwards getting drunk toge"ther till H. and S. D. quarrelled. Scroope afterwards 66 66 wrote to me for my pistols to shoot himself; but I de"clined lending them, on the plea that they would be for "feited as a deodand. I knew my answer would have 66 more effect than four sides of prosing. "Don't suppose, however, that I took any pleasure in "all these excesses, or that parson A. K. or W- were asso"ciates to my taste. The miserable consequences of such 66 66 66 66 a life are detailed at length in my Memoirs. My own master at an age when I most required a guide, and left to the dominion of my passions when they were the strongest, with a fortune anticipated before I came into posses❝sion of it, and a constitution impaired by early excesses, I "commenced my travels in 1809, with a joyless indifference to a world that was all before me*. "Well might you say, speaking feelingly," said I : "There is no sterner moralist than pleasure t." * "I wish they knew the life of a young noble; "They're young, but know not youth: it is anticipated; Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated, "Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew." Don Juan, Canto XI. Stanzas 74 and 75. † He used to say there were three great men ruined in one year, Brummel, himself, and Napoleon! I asked him about Venice: "Venice!" said he, "I detest every recollection of the "place, the people, and my pursuits. I there mixed again "in society, trod again the old round of conversaziones, "balls, and concerts, was every night at the opera, a constant frequenter of the Ridotta during the Carnival, and, "in short, entered into all the dissipation of that luxurious place. Every thing in a Venetian life, its gondolas, "its effeminating indolence, its Siroccos,-tend to ener"vate the mind and body. My rides were a resource and a stimulus ; but the deep sands of Lido broke my horses 66 66 down, and I got tired of that monotonous sea-shore ;-to "be sure, I passed the Villagiatura on the Brenta.* * To give the reader an idea of the stories circulated and believed about Lord Byron, I will state one as a specimen of the rest, which I heard the other day : "Lord Byron, who is an execrably bad horseman, was riding one - evening in the Brenta, spouting 'Metastasio.' A Venetian, passing in a close carriage at the time, laughed at his bad Italian; upon which his Lordship horsewhipped him, and threw a card in at the window. The nobleman took no notice of the insult."-ANSWER. Lord Byron was an excellent horseman, never read a line of Metastasio,' 66 66 66 66 "I wrote little at Venice, and was forced into the search of pleasure,—an employment I was soon jaded with the pursuit of. "Women were there, as they have ever been fated to be, my bane. Like Napoleon, I have always had a great contempt for women; and formed this opinion of them "not hastily, but from my own fatal experience. My "writings, indeed, tend to exalt the sex; and my imagina"tion has always delighted in giving them a beau idéal "likeness, but I only drew them as a painter or statuary "would do, as they should be.* Perhaps my prejudices, "and keeping them at a distance, contributed to prevent the illusion from altogether being worn out and destroy"ed as to their celestial qualities. 66 do,—as and pronounced Italian like a native. He must have been remarkably ingenious to horsewhip in a close carriage, and find a nobleman who pocketed the affront! But "er uno disce omnes." * His Medora, Gulnare (Kaled), Zuleika, Thyrza, Angiolina, Myrrha, Adah,—and Haidee,' in Don Juan, are beautiful creations of gentleness, sensibility, firmness, and constancy. If, as a reviewer has sagely discovered, all his male characters, from Childe Harold down to Lucifer, are the same, he cannot be denied the dramatic faculty in his women,-in whom there is little family likeness. |