ANECDOTE OF LORD BYRON.

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of all he had, and arriving at Rome, found that the Duchess of Devonshire had left it some time before; he was on the point of starving when Lord Byron received him into his hotel; he rode to Ostia, and found the young man's statement correct in every point, and resolved to retain him in his service till he had made known his case to his friends in London. Mr. Gallemore acted as an occasional secretary, and made himself very useful. Lord Byron supplied him with money, clothes, and a horse to ride on; in short, treated him as if he was his own relation; in due time Lord Byron heard from Mr. Campbell, a London merchant, who remitted for the young man's use £80, desiring he might be sent to London as speedily as possible, a large property having been left him by the decease of a distant relation. The young man received the news with apparent satisfaction, but begged to remain a little time longer with his benefactor. Pleased at this proof of gratitude his Lordship complied, and being now satisfied of the respectability of his connexions, introduced him to several families of rank and distinction at Rome. When the time fixed for his departure came, it was decided he should proceed by way of Venice, and his Lordship entrusted him with several commissions to execute in the city; he had there several small pensioners, and one old widow lady he allowed forty ducats annually; in all he gave in charge to young

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Gallemore three hundred ducats to be disposed of to various individuals, and fearful lest the £80 transmitted would not be enough for his expenses, he generously added as much more out of his own pocket, taking his word for repaying it to his banker in London at any future convenient time.

His Lordship rode out of Rome with him for a few miles, and they parted, mutually affected. Not long after this his Lordship discovered that a small desk he always kept in his bed-room had been opened by means of a false key, and the por. trait of his mother, set in diamonds (which he valued above all things), and other articles of jewellery, abstracted, to the amount of six hundred pounds. Suspicion glanced upon an Italian servant, who had wound himself into his confidence ; and, notwithstanding his professions of innocence, he was dismissed with disgrace. When about to leave Rome, his Lordship called to settle his banker's account, and discovered his name forged to three checks, amounting to seven hundred and fifty pounds, British sterling, and his amazement may be conceived, when told they were presented for payment by young Gallemore! Lord Byron now wrote after him to Venice-where he had never been; but, pocketing the three hundred ducats, he pursued his journey by another course. His Lordship now felt shocked at the manner in which he had treated the Italian servant (as no doubt remained of Gallemore having committed

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the robbery), and after considerable trouble discovered him in an hospital, labouring under disease and poverty; he is reported to have shed tears over this victim to his unjust suspicions; had him removed into the country, and when he recovered, gave him a sufficient sum of money to settle him and his wife comfortably in a wine-house, on the Naples road. The fate of Gallemore was a just one: the vessel in which he sailed for Jamaica, from London, was wrecked on the isle of Ushant, and he perished with all the crew. This account was sent to Lord Byron by Mr. Campbell, who was uncle to young Gallemore, and offered to repay all Lord Byron had lost by his nephew's dishonesty. This his Lordship declined accepting, declaring that his ingratitude affected him more than any pecuniary loss he had sustained, and his mother's picture was the only thing he regretted. That such a man should at times become the dupe of villains is not to be wondered at; a repetition of such things as this, latterly seared his heart against human suffering, and he suspected every one that approached him with supplication, eyeing them with the keenest scrutiny, and taking time to consider, before he let his head follow the dictates of his heart.

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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."