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144

MUSIC.-CAMELS.

to make chords of all his notes by rapidly sounding the second and treble one after the other. The whole people are bitten with a new song, and hardly sing any thing else till the next: there were two epidemic airs of this kind, when I was there, which had been imported from Florence, and which the inhabitants sung from morning till night, though they were nothing remarkable. And yet Pisa is said to be the least fond of music of any city in Tuscany.

"I must not omit a great curiosity which is in the neighbourhood of Pisa, towards the sea, namely, the existence of a race of camels, which was brought from the east during the crusades. I have not seen them out of the city, though the novelty of the sight in Europe, the sand of the sea-shore, and the vessels that sometimes combine with the landscape in the distance, are said to give it a look singularly Asiatic. They are used for agricultural purposes, and may be sometimes met within the walls. The forest between Pisa and another part of the sea-shore, is extensive and woody.

"Pisa is a tranquil, an imposing, and even now a beautiful and stately city. It looks like the residence of an university; many parts of it seem made up of colleges, and we feel as if we ought to' walk gowned.' It possesses the Campo Santo, rich above earthly treasure; its river is the river of Tuscan poetry, and furnished Michael Angelo

MR. LEIGH HUNT.

145

with the subject of his cartoon, and it disputes with Florence the birth of Galileo. Here at all events he studied and he taught; here his mind. was born, and another great impulse given to the progress of philosophy and Liberal Opinion."

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At Pisa, an unfortunate difference took place between Lord Byron and Mr. Leigh Hunt, of which the following particulars have been derived from one of the parties concerned. "Parasina was considered by Lord Byron as the best of all his minor poems; in fact, it was the only one that he ever could be induced to speak of in company, and when he did so, it was in language that silenced all contradiction: it was so,-and it must be so, seemed to be the sovereign pleasure of him whose word no man dared to doubt, who wished to retain any particle of his favours. Mr. Snelgrove, lieutenant of L'Eclair, was at Leghorn, and of course a frequent attendant at Pisa, at the time that Mr. Leigh Hunt was the constant companion of his Lordship. He noticed him on every occasion, and made him at least so far forget himself, that he considered he had power and ability to criticize the works of his great benefactor. He presumed to censure "Parasina," and Mr. Dodd, the Deputy Consul (formerly clerk to Captain Rowley) traced to the pen of Leigh Hunt some criticisms that had appeared in the Livourna Gazette and Lucca newspaper. Mr. Hunt ought to have been aware how jealous an author is of the

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146

SMOLLETT'S TOMB.

darling offspring of his muse, and he ought to have spared the feelings, or, if he pleases, the weaknesses of his friend and benefactor. But wits, like game cocks, never spare each other. From this time our informant states that Lord Byron never saw or spoke to Mr. Leigh Hunt, or any of his connexions.

Lord Byron, while at Pisa, resided near the Leaning Tower, at Signora Dominesia's; a lady who keeps several small houses in which travellers meet with excellent accommodations, and are furnished with guides to lead them to the different curiosities about the place, and on the road to Florence. In the cottage, or pavilion, on the south side near the Arno, Lord Byron lived, and led a secluded life, for he seldom saw strangers. The principal visitor was a captain of a French ship, a man of most forbidding mien, who yet seemed to possess his Lordship's confidence. Captain Guion, of the British navy, and his sister, also visited him, and, in their company, he walked ⚫ very frequently in the woods on the banks of the river. A strange fancy took him here; he employed himself and Capt. Guion in sawing timber, planing it down, and in the space of three months they built a four-oared boat with their own hands. In this boat they sailed on the Arno, and visited Smollet's tomb, on a particular day of jubilee; there, as customary, they had a dinner, and drank to the memory of the Novelist. Lord Byron ex

MR. DAVENPORT.

147

pressed himself in no very flattering terms; he said Mrs. Macauley was a better historian, Elkanah Settle a better play-wright; but no author, in or out of existence, was a superior novelist. Mr. Davenport, an English merchant settled at Leghorn, was his Lordship's banker and agent, and also his private friend; he was generally one of the party at Pisa, and from a fine healthy man, became ill, low, shrunk, and hypochondriacal. Lord Byron requested him to remain at Pisa, and try if tranquillity and solitude would not restore him to health and spirits. Mr. Davenport had a little niece, about nine years old, and she attended him at one of the Signora's cottages. In time he related to Lord Byron the cause of his melancholy: his affairs were deeply embarrassed, and he had fears of being obliged to stop payment, after a course of business with all quarters of the globe for thirty-six years, conducted with honour and integrity. Lord Byron sympathized with his misfortunes, and, desiring him to be composed, promised to put them in a train of accommodation. With the Grand Duke Lord Byron was intimate, and to him he repaired. Mr. Davenport owed him nearly £20,000, and Lord Byron prevailed upon him to accept moderate payments at long dates; the same persuasions he used with the Grand Duke he exerted with the other creditors; namely, the eloquence of the heart, and appeals to the feelings. In short, after a month's absence

148

SIR CHARLES COTTON.

in Leghorn, Lord Byron returned to Pisa, having arranged all Mr. Davenport's affairs. Mr. Davenport left his niece under his Lordship's care, and embarked for Elba with Captain Guion on business. Captain Guion was only a Commander in the Navy, and his Lordship furnished him with recommendations to the Admiral, a person whom his Lordship had never seen. Sir Charles Cotton then commanded the fleet off Toulon, and received Lord Byron's letters with great pleasure. He said that "out of respect to the genius of Lord Byron he would do something for his friend." He took Guion on board his ship as a volunteer, and at the destruction of the French squadron at the mouth of the Rhone, gave him charge of a division of boats. Guion acquitted himself so well, that Sir Charles made him a post-captain; and, on Guion's announcing the same to Lord Byron, the latter sent him a pair of epaulettes, and an invitation to Leghorn. By chance the first port Guion made in the Confiance (of twenty-four guns) after his promotion was Leghorn; and thence he made his way to Pisa, where, upon a sick bed, he found his friend, the father of his fortunes. Lord Byron insisted on being removed from Pisa, and was carried in a cot to the Arno, where he embarked in the boat of his own building, and was conveyed to a summer-house three miles down the river. Mr. Davenport's niece, only ten years of age, was his only female attendant; Captain Guion, and

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