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CHAPTER XII.

Venice." Beppo."—" Mazeppa."—" Ode on Venice.”—“ A Fragment," in prose.-Two first Cantos of "Don Juan."The remaining Fourteen Cantos of the same.-Lord Byron proscribed by a certain party. His independent spirit.-His last wish, that his name should be his sole epitaph.-Anecdote of Lord Byron and Mr. Shelley.-Lord Byron's eccentricities. Visit to, and opinion of the Princess of Wales, (her late Majesty).—Bergami.—Lord Byron's singular chastisement of the manager of the Opera House at Venice.Narrow escape of Lord Byron from perishing on a desert Island in the Adriatic.-Anecdote of a Gondolier.

HAVING thus gratified his longing desire of seeing all that yet remains worthy of notice in Rome, still majestic even in its ruins, Lord Byron returned to Venice, which, from the opportunity it afforded him of enjoying in high style his favourite aquatic* amusements of sailing and swimming, seem

* It may be as well to mention here, that Angling was not one of his Lordship's pleasures, but his abhorrence. In a note on the eighth canto of Don Juan, speaking of Old Isaac Walton, he expresses himself thus: "This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) to shew their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches us how to sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling, the cruellest, coldest, and stupidest of pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has

no

ed to have been a residence suited to his nature. Its carnival, moreover, and the intrigues and gallantry to which it gives birth, offered too many remarkable incidents for the display of his wonderfully versatile powers to escape his notice; and, accordingly, whilst he was putting the finishing hand to his "Childe Harold," he sent forth another production, of a very different character from all his former ones, both as to subject and versification, entitled "Beppo," a Venetian story.

This piece is of the light, sportive, playful kind, of which the French are very fond, and the Italians particularly so, but has found few English cultivators. Chaucer, Prior, and the late Peter Pindar, have figured away in something like it. It is a witty, humorous, satirical style, rather gay, and too general to be severe, and pleasing rather by its ease and facetiousness than by any

no leisure to take his eyes off the stream, and a single bite is worth to him more than all the scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net fishing, trawling, &c., are more humane and useful, but angling! No angler can be a good man.

"One of the best men I ever knew; as humane, delicateminded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the world, was an angler: true, he angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the extravagancies of I. Walton.'

"The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS.-' Audi alteram partem.'—I leave it to counterbalance my own observation."

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BEPPO, A VENETIAN STORY.

particular brilliancy. What mostly astonishes int this work is, that the author could have been able to furnish nearly one hundred stanzas of verse, entirely compounded of common thoughts, conveyed in common words, all falling into good rhyme, without any seeming art or trouble. The story opens with an account of the Venetian Carnival, and the reader is then given to understand that a lady of Venice, some forty years ago, had a husband named Guiseppe (Joseph), or more familiary, Beppo, which is the diminutiveof that name, like our Joe or Tom. Beppo was a merchant, who, sailing away on some occasion, forgot to return, and left his spouse disconsolate for a year or two. Her sorrow having by that time subsided, she takes a cavalier servente, or vicehusband, and figures away as gay as ever. night, at a ball, she is struck by the marked attention of a Turk, who pursues her every where, and, on leaving her gondola at her own door, with her vice-husband, is still more surprised to find the Turk there waiting for her. The cavalier remonstrates against this impertinent intrusion, when the Mussulman informs them that he is the true and real Beppo in proprid persond. The lady rallies him wittily on his adventures and altered appearance, and all three afterwards live happily together.

One

The concluding stanzas will suffice to give an idea of the whole of this truly humorous piece:

MAZEPPA.

They entered, and for coffee called,—it came,
A beverage for Turks and Christians both,

Although the way they make it's not the same.

Now Laura, much recovered, or less loth

To speak, cries Beppo! what's your pagan name?
Bless me! your beard is of amazing growth!
And how came you to keep away so long?
Are you not sensible 'twas very wrong?

“And are you really, truly, now a Turk?
With any other woman did you wive?
Is't true they use their fingers for a fork?

Well, that's the prettiest shawl-as I'm alive!
You'll give it me! They say you eat no pork.
And how so many years did you contrive
To-bless me! did I ever? No, I never
Saw a man grown so yellow!-How's your liver?

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Beppo! that beard of your's becomes you not;
It shall be shaved before you're a day older;
Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot-
Pray don't you think the weather here is colder?
How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot

In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder
Should find you out, and make the story known.
How short your hair is! Lord! how grey it's grown.'"

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The next work was one, still differing from all his former productions, possessing possessing quite a new style and manner. It is entitled " Mazeppa," a name within the recollection of every person, who has read Voltaire's entertaining History of Charles the XIIth of Sweden-and who has not read it? The passage from which the story is taken is this: "Celui, qui remplissoit alors cette place,

étoit un gentilhomme Polonais, nommé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Padolie; il avoit été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avoit pris à sa cour quelque teinture de belles-lettres. Une intrigue, qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais, ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de l'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta long-tems parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques: sa réputation s'augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de l'Ukraine."—" He, who at that time filled that station, was a Polish gentleman, named Mazeppa, born in the palatinate of Padolia; he had been bred a page of John Casimir, and had imbibed at his court some tincture of the belles-lettres. An intrigue, which he had in his youth with a Polish gentleman's wife, having been detected, the husband caused him to be tied on a wild horse, and turned it

*

* The dreadful punishment, inflicted upon the hero of Lord Byron's poem, has an example in a newspaper called Mercurius Politicus, printed in the year 1655. The narrative is dated from Hamburgh :

"This last week several waggoners coming from Breslau to Silesia, upon their way into the Duke of Saxonie's country,

perceived