Miladi Morgan, who could say many good things, were it not for her excessive conceit, and desire to shew off by changing her natural "toddle" into a march, and strutting away, with the air of a Semiramis, in the thought of writing into destruction the absolute Kings of the continent, has the following passage on the Venetian females: "The society in which woman holds no influence is in the last degree degraded, and even disorganised; for the influence of woman is a 'right divine,' derived from her high vocations of wife and mother, and it is only in those false combinations where the great laws of nature are set aside, that she can forfeit that immunity, blended with

"Her nature's end and being;"

and yet, if there ever was a country where beauty and blandishment, and warm heart and kindly feelings, went together, that country (to judge by appearance) is Venice. The gentle looks and smiling eyes, the female softness and female gaiety, which charm the stranger's observation, Venetian women come within its scope, bespeak a race of beings formed for all the best affections-to receive and to inspire the most intense and tender feelings : but convents and casinos, political tyranny and religious bigotry, are dire foes to the virtues which should belong to aspects so bewitching, and the graces which, if blended with higher qualities, might have fixed the seat of woman's empire among the laguries of the Adriatic, have long survived but to render her a slave or a Sultana, destined to serve or to sway by the worst of means. To a young

F

woman, pent up in a convent, a change is a blessing, even though it should be from the gratings of the religious house to the arms of an ugly old man. To escape from the convent is the first consideration of the Italian young woman, and this can only be achieved by her acquiescing in the bargain struck by her greedy parents with some rich withered pantaloon-the intended husband. Once free of the trammels of the church, she knows that the custom of her country allows her to atone for the sacrifice she has made, by taking as her Cavaliere Servente the object she can love.*

The above remarks are not meant to excuse Lord Byron's conduct. They are merely given to shew that what is disgraceful in the eyes of his countrymen, is but a very indifferent matter to Italians. It is sometimes necessary" when at Rome to do as they do in Rome;" but this adage can scarcely be given as a palliation of his offence.

The family of Count Gamba were banished from whatever state they took shelter in, till at last they were expelled from the whole Italian states.

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* Byron considered the order as the antidote of a greater evil. He says, "love is not the same dull, cold, calculating feeling here (in Italy) as in the north. It is the business, the serious occupation of their lives; it is a want, a necessity. Somebody properly describes a woman, a creature that loves." They die of love (attend, ye sceptics in romance,) particularly the Romans they begin to love earlier, and feel the passion later than the northern people. When I was at Venice, two Dowagers of sixty made love to me."

Lord Byron regularly followed wherever they went; and it is stated by Captain Medwin as a favourable trait in his Lordship's character, that he remained three years the constant admirer of the Countess Guiccioli. "A three years constancy," says the author of the Conversations, “ proves that he is not altogether so unmanageable by a sensible woman as might be supposed." No very delicate compliment this to Lady Byron. Captain Medwin, however, might have recollected the difference between the conditions of a mistress and a wifethat the former must suffer every thing and still look pleased, while love and respect are claimed to the dignity and equal rank of the latter.

That Byron was greatly attached to the Guiccioli there can be no doubt. The beautiful sonnet prefixed to the "Prophecy of Dante" was addressed to her; and the following verses addressed to the Po, before he quitted Venice to join the Countess at Ravenna, express strongly his feelings at the time.

River, that rollest by the ancient walls

Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed?

The Po.

What do I say a mirror of my heart ?

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;

?

And such as thou art, were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them, not for ever ;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for ay;
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river !

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away

But left long wrecks behind them, and again
Borne on our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onward to the main,
And I to loving one I should not love.

The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat.

She will look on thee; I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought, and from that moment ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her.

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream;
Yes, they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness even in a dream,

That happy wave repass me in its flow.

That wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore;
I near thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not

Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, But the distraction of a various lot,

As various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves a lady of the land,

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fann'd

By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood.

My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime;-I shall not be,
In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love, at least of thee.

'Tis vain to struggle-let me perish young-
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved :
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then at least my heart can ne'er be moved.

Count Gamba, the brother of the Guiccioli, accompanied Byron to Greece, and took charge of the vessel in which the horses and part of the money were embarked. This vessel, and the one Lord Byron commanded, found themselves one morning rather near a Turkish frigate, being close under her bows. Owing to the activity displayed aboard of Byron's vessel, and her superior sailing, she made her escape, but the other was fired at, brought to, and carried into Patras. Count Gamba being assured that nothing would save her but stratagem and effrontery, when brought into the presence of the Pacha, took the first word of him by demanding boldly, by what right he had seized upon a vessel carrying British colours, and upon him a British nobleman upon his travels, and bound to Calamos; and concluded his speech by threatening the vengeance of Britain for this breach of neutrality. The Pacha, whether gulled or not by the