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any man to publish, though under enigmatic signatures, the variety of his amorous connexions? Though the writing of love elegies, and stanzas "on a mistress's eyebrows," may not be altogether affectation; the printing of such performances certainly savours more of vanity than feeling, since it manifests as strong a wish to gain credit for fine verses as for tender sentiments.

It is related of one of our poets, that he made every incident of his life the subject of an ode or a sonnet. On hearing that his only son lay ill, and that his life was despaired of, he exclaimed very affectionately,

Oh, I will sit down and write an elegy upon him."-" Had you not better," said his friend, "order your carriage immediately, and console him by your presence ?"

This story will apply pertinently enough to illustrate the true quality of that esteem which is expressed in metaphors, and clothed in numbers; which pretends raptures that are not felt, and describes beauties that are not seen.

Such, there is every reason to believe, was the real nature of that passion, which burns so ardently in the amatory lines of Lord Byron, but in which there is too much richness of phrase, to comport with true sensibility.

One female of elevated rank, who was said to have been in the number of those to whom the poet professed more than common attachment, took ample revenge on him for his inconstancy and freedom, by drawing his character as the hero of a novel, which for a time, arrested the public curiosity in no ordinary degree. In that performance his lordship's supposed intrigues and infidelity were laid open with unsparing severity; and, with the exception of Zeluco, and the personages that figure most conspicuously in the noble lord's principal poems, it will not be easy to meet with any thing more repulsive either in works of fiction, or in the world of reality, than what has been exhibited in caricature by the author of Glenarvon.

CHAPTER VI.

Voyage to Lisbon. — Assassination. - Travels in Spain.-Patriotic War.-Voyage to Greece.

Albania. Ali Pacha.

landers.

Anecdotes. - High

Athens.-Spoliations.-Poem of Mi

nerva.-Tweddell.-Literary Pursuits.-Emancipation of the Greeks.-Adventure in the Hellespont.-Return to England.

ON arriving at the age of manhood, Lord Byron took a long leave of his native country, with the view of making a tour in foreign lands; but as the ordinary course of travelling through Europe was then impeded, by the war which prevailed between England and France, he embarked at Falmouth, for Lisbon, intending to proceed from thence across the Peninsula to the Mediterranean. The companion of his voyage was Mr. Hobhouse, in conjunction with whom he had just before published a small volume of poems and

H

translations; which attracted so little notice, that almost the whole impression was converted into. waste paper. Though Portugal was at this time occupied by the British forces, who were engaged in the defence of the country against the French, such was the frequency of assassination in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity, that the people paid no more respect to their protectors than to their own countrymen. Englishmen were daily butchered; and so far from redress being obtained, not the slightest notice was taken of these murders; and it was even dangerous to interfere on such occasions.

"I was once stopped," says Lord Byron, "on the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend. Had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have adorned a tale instead of telling one."

A state of society so disorganized as this could not but excite indignant feelings in a sensible mind, especially when the moral disorder was contrasted with

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the wonders and beauties which nature had wasted

on such men.

Yet there was nothing new or strange in all this; for the present writer remembers to have witnessed similar acts of atrocity in that very city, many years before the visit of Lord Byron. Walking one morning in the neighbourhood of Belem, he saw a Portuguese barber issue furiously out of his shop, and, without the least provocation in the world, plunge a stiletto into the side of an English sailor who happened to be passing quietly along. Having perpetrated this murderous deed, the assassin ran with all haste till he reached the church, where he fell prostrate before the altar, crossed himself with great appearance of devotion, and, being in that sanctuary, escaped punishment. An enquiry was indeed made into the affair, but without answering any other end than that of ascertaining the motive of the misguided wretch, who fancied it a meritorious act to destroy an heretic.

Where then religion is considered as a justifiable plea for shedding human blood, it ought not to raise wonder that the stimulants of revenge and rapacious