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TEMPORARY LOSS OF POETICAL FAME.

tion and dissipation, prevailed in rapid succession, until the Muses, the invariable confidants of intense passion, gently soothed the irritation of his heart, by presenting to his brooding imagination a bright perspective of poetical triumphs and perennial honours. He sent his "Hours of Idleness" to the press; and the reception they met with has been already described. This last and long-cherished hope was blasted, and he could no longer look for consolation, under the extreme anguish of his feelings, to literary glory. The irrevocable decrees which successively destroyed his enraptured anticipations of love and fame, drove him to the verge of madness; his mind and conduct were entirely metamorphosed; naturally cheerful, he became melancholy and sullen; he shunned, despised, and disliked every one; the moroseness of his disposition was converted into the gall of misanthropy; and the conflicting passions which, like vultures, preyed upon the tenderest fibres of his heart, goaded him on to the wisest determination which a man in his circumstances could take-that of changing the scene by travelling abroad. He did not, as many other noblemen would have done, fly to dissipation, and revenge himself upon the whole sex, for the slights of one fair one. We hear of no inroads on the domestic peace of families. One female only, and a married one, who had deigned to solicit our bard's notice by some cooing verses, in his own

QUITS ENGLAND.

89

amatory style, and who felt hurt at his taking no notice either of her or them, scribbled a novel, which attracted more notice than it would otherwise have done, by her industriously whispering about among her friends, that the hero of the piece (Glenarvon, the title also of the novel) was a drawing from the life of his Lordship, on whose supposed intrigues and infidelities she was unsparingly severe. The hoar was soon detected, and both the authoress and the work sunk into oblivion.

Under what inducements, and with what sentiments Lord Byron left his native land, he himself declares :

"Fain would I fly the haunts of men

I seek to shun, not hate mankind ;

My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given

Which bear the turtle to her nest!

Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven,
To flee away and be at rest."

( 90 )

CHAPTER IV.

Leaves London for Falmouth.-Crosses to Lisbon.-Journey through Spain to the Mediterranean; thence to the Ionian Islands and Coast of Albania.-Journey to Yanina, the capital, and thence to Tepelene, Ali Pacha's birth-place.Interview with Ali Pacha.-Character of that Despot.

THE old adage, noscitur à socio, seems to have been Lord Byron's rule of life throughout, as no one could be more choice in his company. The travelling-companion whom he now selected was John Cam Hobhouse, Esq.; whose love of literature, and of liberty too, was congenial with his own, although their powers were of rather a dif ferent order. An anecdote is related of Lord Byron at starting, which will shew with what delicacy he knew how to put aside the thrusts of impertinence :-A gentleman of the sister kingdom, one of those industrious, clever persons, who engage to do every thing, and who let nothing escape them for want of looking after, heard that Lord Byron was about to set out for the Continent; and upon receiving this intelligence, it instantly flashed upon the mind of this universal undertaker, that it would be a good raising of the wind to procure the situation of private secretary to his Lordship. Upon this, he instantly made

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himself as spruce and interesting as his finances and wardrobe would permit, and set off for the Albany, the place where his Lordship lodged. His Lordship was at the door, in the act of stepping into his curricle, when he was arrested by the candidate for the private secretaryship. He began by a tender of his services; gave a long dissertation by way of shewing a qualification; then proceeded to an equally long topography of the route which it might be most eligible to pursue; and ended by an inquiry as to the time when they should set out. My dear Sir," said Lord Byron, with much naïveté, "we set out this instant; but you see that I cannot accommodate you; there are but two seats in the curricle, and my servant, the rogue, has got into one of them already."

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The world may regret the very meagre accounts we have of Lord Byron's travels, which principally exist in the notes to "Childe Harold,” and which are fully sufficient to show what his Lordship might have performed if he had given a prosaic account of his rambles; but prose was drudgery to him, any further than it served to elucidate his favourite poetry. If he made any memoranda, they are now lost to the world, but we have strong glances at his Lordship from those persons who came into contact with him, whose statements have been verified, and whose authenticity may be firmly relied upon.

His Lordship's travelling-companion, Mr. Hob

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HOBHOUSE'S WORK

house, published "A Journey through Albania, and other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to Constantinople, during the Years 1809 and 1810."-London, 1813, 2 vols., royal quarto. Mr. Hobhouse speaks of his friend' and his fellowtraveller,' but Lord Byron is only twice mentioned by name: once on the occasion of his notable exploit of swimming across the Hellespont; and again, when Mr. Hobhouse leaves him at Athens, for a short time, whilst he made an excursion to the Negroponte. However, from what he says on that occasion, and from the work being written in the plural number (we and us), it appears that the public must consider it as the joint production of Mr. Hobhouse and Lord Byron; and, indeed, it is almost impossible to have a clear understanding of Lord Byron's poetry without a previous or a contemporaneous perusal of Mr. Hobhouse's prose. To facilitate, however, the understanding of the former, where the latter is not at hand, or cannot be readily obtained, a brief Itinerary,* or

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* Sept. 19, 1809. - Sail from Malta, on board British ship of war, to the Gulf of Lepanto and Patras.-Pass by the islands of Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Santa Maura, to Prevesa.- Sail down the Gulf of Arta to Salora.-Travel by land from Salora to Arto the island of St. Dimetre; to Joannina.-- From Joannina to Zitza, Mosure, Delvinaki, Argyro-Castro, Libokavo, Cesarades, Ereneed, the passes of Antigonia, across the Aous river, to Tepelene (Ali Pacha's birth-place).- Journey back by same route to Joannina, and to Prevesa.-Sail down the Gulf of Arta to Utraikee.-Journey through Carnia to Catooma, Ma

kala,

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