"that was gloriously golden with the sunset) "which I mean to borrow some day :

'And all that gorgeous company of clouds'"Do you think they will suspect me of taking "from Lord Thurlow ?"

Speaking to him of Lalla Rookh,' he said: "Moore did not like my saying that I "could never attempt to describe the man

ners or scenery of a country that I had not "visited. Without this it is almost impos"sible to adhere closely to costume. Captain "Ellis once asked him if he had ever been "in Persia. If he had, he would not have "made his Parsee guilty of such a profanity. "It was an Irishism to make a Gheber die "by fire."

"I have been reading," said I, "The "Lusiad,' and some of Camoens' smaller

poems. Why did Lord Strangford call "his beautiful Sonnets, &c. translations ?"

"Because he wrote," said Lord Byron, "in order to get the situation at the Brazils, “and did not know a word of Portuguese "when he commenced."

"Moore was suspected of assisting his Lordship," said I. "Was that so ?"

"I am told not," said Lord Byron. "They

are great friends; and when Moore was "in difficulty about the Bermuda affair, in "which he was so hardly used, Lord Strang"ford offered to give him 500l.; but Moore "had too much independence to lay himself "under an obligation. I know no man I "would go further to serve than Moore.

"The Fudge Family' pleases me as "much as any of his works. The letter "which he versified at the end was given "him by Douglas Kinnaird and myself, and

"was addressed by the Life-guardsman, af"ter the battle of Waterloo, to Big Ben. "Witty as Moore's epistle is, it falls short "of the original. 'Doubling up the Moun

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seers in brass,' is not so energetic an ex

pression as was used by our hero,-all "the alliteration is lost.

"Moore is one of the few writers who will "survive the age in which he so deservedly "flourishes. He will live in his Irish Me

"lodies; they will go down to posterity "with the music; both will last as long as "Ireland, or as music and poetry."

I took leave of Lord Byron on the 15th of March, to visit Rome for a few weeks. Shortly after my departure an affray happened at Pisa, the particulars of which were variously stated. The Courier François gave the following account of it :

"A superior officer went to Lord Byron a few days ago. A very warm altercation, the reason of which was unknown, occurred between this officer and the English poet. The threats of the officer became so violent, that Lord Byron's servant ran to protect his master. A struggle ensued, in which the officer was struck with a poniard by the servant, and died instantly. The servant fled."

This was one among many reports that were circulated at Rome, to which I was forced one day to give a somewhat flat contradiction. But the real truth of the story cannot be better explained than by the depositions before the Governor of Pisa, the copies of which were sent me, and are in possession. They state that

my

"Lord Byron, in company with Count Gamba, Captain Hay, Mr. Trelawney, and

Mr. Shelley, was returning from his usual ride, on the 21st March, 1822, and was perhaps a quarter of a mile from the Piaggia gate, when a man on horseback, in a hussar uniform, dashed at full speed through the midst of the party, violently jostling (urtando) one of them. Shocked at such illbreeding, Lord Byron pushed forward, and all the rest followed him, and pulled up their horses on overtaking the hussar. His Lordship then asked him what he meant by the insult? The hussar, for first and only answer, began to abuse him in the grossest manner; on which Lord Byron and one of his companions drew out a card with their names and address, and passed on. The hussar followed, vociferating and threatening, with his hand on his sabre, that he would draw it, as he had often done, effec