"I have just got a letter," said he, "from Mur"ray. What do you think he has enclosed me?

"A long dull extract from that long dull Latin

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epic of Petrarch's, Africa, which he has the "modesty to ask me to translate for Ugo Fos"colo, who is writing some Memoirs of Petrarch, "which he has got Moore, Lady Dacre, &c. to "contribute to. What am I to do with the "death of Mago? I wish to God, Medwin, you "would take it home with you, and translate it; "and I will send it to Murray. We will say

nothing about its being yours, or mine; and "it will be curious to hear Foscolo's opinion "upon it. Depend upon it, it will not be an unfavourable one."

In the course of the day I turned it into couplets, (and lame enough they were,) which he forwarded by the next courier to England.

"Almost by return of post arrived a fu

I

riously complimentary epistle in acknowledgment, which made us laugh very heartily.

"There are three good lines," said Lord

Byron," in Mago's speech, which may be thus

"translated:

"Yet, thing of dust!

Man strives to climb the earth in his ambition,
Till death, the monitor that flatters not,
Points to the grave, where all his hopes are laid."
it

" What do you think of Ada?" said he, looking earnestly at his daughter's miniature, that hung by the side of his writing-table." They "tell me she is like me-but she has her mo"ther's eyes.

"It is very odd that my mother was an only "child; I am an only child; my wife is an

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' only child; and Ada is an only child. It is a

singular coincidence; that is the least that

* Ugo Foscolo afterwards took them for his motto.

can be said of it. I can't help thinking it was "destined to be so; and perhaps it is best. I

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was once anxious for a son; but, after our "separation, was glad to have had a daughter; "for it would have distressed me too much to "have taken him away from Lady Byron, and

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I could not have trusted her with a son's edu"cation. I have no idea of boys being brought

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up by mothers. I suffered too much from "that myself: and then, wandering about the "world as I do, I could not take proper care of "a child otherwise I should not have left "Allegra, poor little thing!* at Ravenna. She

has been a great resource to me, though I am "not so fond of her as of Ada; and yet I mean "to make their fortunes équal-there will be

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' enough for them both. I have desired in my will that Allegra shall not marry an English

* She appears to be the Leila of his Don Juan:
"Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile,

And with that gentle, serious character

Don Juan, Canto X. Stanza 52.

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man.

The Irish and Scotch make better "husbands than we do. You will think it was

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an odd fancy, but I was not in the best of "humours with my countrymen at that moment-you know the reason. I am told that “Ada is a little termagant; I hope not. I shall "write to my sister to know if this is the case:

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perhaps I am wrong in letting Lady Byron "have entirely her own way in her education. "I hear that my name is not mentioned in her

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presence; that a green curtain is always kept "over my portrait, as over something forbidden; " and that she is not to know that she has a "father, till she comes of age. Of course she "will be taught to hate me; she will be brought

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up to it. Lady Byron is conscious of all this, "and is afraid that I shall some day carry off "her daughter by stealth or force. I might "claim her of the Chancellor, without having re"course to either one or the other. But I had "rather be unhappy myself, than make her mo"ther so; probably I shall never see her again."

Here he opened his writing-desk, and shewed me some hair, which he told me was his child's.

During our drive and ride this evening he declined our usual amusement of pistol-firing, without assigning a cause. He hardly spoke a word during the first half-hour, and it was evident that something weighed heavily on his mind. There was a sacredness in his melancholy that I dared not interrupt. At length he said:

This is Ada's birthday, and might have "been the happiest day of my life: as it is, “H” He stopped, seemingly ashamed of having betrayed his feelings. He tried in vain to rally his spirits by turning the conversation; but he created a laugh in which he could not join, and soon relapsed into his former reverie. It lasted till we came within a mile of the Argine gate. There our silence was all at once interrupted by shrieks that seemed to proceed from a cottage by the side of the road. We