During the time that the examination was taking place before the police, Lord Byron's house was beset by the dragoons belonging to Sergeant-Major Masi's troop, who were on the point of forcing open the doors; but they were too well guarded within to dread the attack. Lord Byron, however, took his ride as usual two days after.

66

66

"It is not the first time," said he, that

my house has been a Bender, and may not "be the last."

All Lord Byron's servants were banished from Pisa, and with them the Counts Gamba, father and son.

Lord Byron was himself advised to leave it; and as the Countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at Leghorn, and passed six weeks at Monte Nero.. His return to Pisa was occasioned by a new persecution of the Gambas. An order was

issued for them to leave the Tuscan States in four days; and on their embarkation for Genoa, the Countess and himself took up their residence (for the first time together) at the Lanfranchi palace, where Leigh Hunt and his family had already arrived.

18th AUGUST, 1822.-On the occasion of Shelley's melancholy fate I revisited Pisa, and on the day of my arrival learnt that Lord Byron was gone to the sea-shore, to assist in performing the last offices to his friend.* We came to a spot marked by an

* It is hoped that the following memoir, as it relates to Lord Byron, may not be deemed misplaced here.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, born at Field-place, Sussex, in 1792, was removed at thirteen years of age from a private school, and sent to Eton:

old and withered trunk of a fir-tree; and near it, on the beach, stood a solitary hut

he there shewed a character of great eccentricity, mixed in none of the amusements natural to his age, was of a shy and reserved disposition, fond of solitude, and made few friends. Neither did he distinguish himself much at Eton:-he had a great contempt for modern Latin verses; and directed his attention to Chemistry, and German, instead of the exercises of his class. From an early acquaintance with German authors he perhaps imbibed a romantic turn of mind ; for we find him, before he was fifteen, publishing two Rosa-Matilda-like Novels called 'Zastrozzi' and 'The Rosicrusian,' that bore every mark of being the productions of a boy, and were much reprobated as immoral by the journals of the day. He also made great progress in chemistry. He used to say that nothing

covered with reeds. The situation was well

calculated for a poet's grave. A few weeks

ever delighted him so much as the discovery that there were no elements of fire, air, and water:— but he nearly lost his life by being blown up in one of his experiments, and had for many years discontinued the pursuit. He now turned his active mind to metaphysics, and became infected with the materialism of the French school. He was then sent to University College, Oxford, being only sixteen; and after the second term printed a pamphlet with a most ridiculous title, The Necessity of Atheism.' This silly work, which was a recapitulation of some of the arguments of Voltaire, he not only affixed his name to, but circulated it among the Bench of Bishops. The consequence was obvious:—he was soon summoned before the heads of his College; and, refusing to retract his opinion, (which he

before I had ridden with Shelley and Lord Byron to this very spot, which I afterwards

proposed to argue with the examining masters— a greater madness still,) was expelled the University.

This disgrace little affected Shelley at the time; but it proved fatal to all his hopes of happiness and prospects in life; and was the means of alienating him, for ever, from his family. His father, for some time after it occurred, would not see him; and at length when he received him under his roof, treated him with so much coldness that he soon quitted his home; went to London; and thence eloped to Gretna Green with a Miss Westbrook, their joint ages amounting to thirty-two. This last act exasperated his father to such a degree, that he broke off all communication with Shelley; who, after a residence in Edinburgh of some months, passed