❝tinue my letter on account of the post. Here's some 66 thing for you to read, Shelley, (giving him part of "his MS. of Heaven and Earth;') tell me what you "think of it." During the few minutes that Lord Byron was finishing his letter, I took an opportunity of narrowly observing him, and drawing his portrait in my mind.* Thorwaldsen's bust is too thin-necked and young for Lord Byron. None of the engravings gave me the least idea of him. * Being with him, day after day, some time afterwards, whilst he was sitting to Bertolini, the Florentine sculptor, for his bust, I had an opportunity of analyzing his features more critically, but found nothing to alter in my portrait. Bertolini's is an admirable likeness, at least was so in the clay model. I have not seen it since it was copied in marble, nor have I got a cast; he promised Bertolini should send me one. Lord Byron prided himself on his neck; and it must be confessed that his head was worthy of being placed on it. Bertolini destroyed his ébauches more than once before he could please himself. When he had finished, Lord Byron said, "It is the last time I sit to sculptor or painter." This was on the 4th of January, 1822. I saw a man of about five feet seven or eight, apparently forty years of age as was said of Milton, he barely escaped being short and thick. His face was fine, and the lower part symmetrically moulded; for the lips and chin had that curved and definite outline that distinguishes Grecian beauty. His forehead was high, and his temples broad; and he had a paleness in his complexion, almost to wanness. His hair, thin and fine, had almost become grey, and waved in natural and graceful curls over his head, that was assimilating itself fast to the "bald first Cæsar's.' He allowed it to grow longer behind than it is accustomed to be worn, and at that time had mustachios, which were not sufficiently dark to be becoming. In criticising his features it might, perhaps, be said that his eyes were placed too near his nose, and that one was rather smaller than the other; they were of a greyish brown, but of a peculiar clearness, and when animated possessed a fire which seemed to look through and penetrate the thoughts of others, while they marked the inspirations of his own. His teeth were small, regular, and white; these, I afterwards found, he took great pains to preserve.* * *For this purpose he used tobacco when he first went into the open air; and he told me he was in the habit of grinding his teeth in I expected to discover that he had a club, perhaps a cloven foot; but it would have been difficult to have distinguished one from the other, either in size or in form. On the whole, his figure was manly, and his countenance handsome and prepossessing, and very expressive; and the familiar ease of his conversation soon made me perfectly at home in his society. Our first interview was marked with a cordiality and confidence that flattered while it delighted me; and I felt anxious for the next day, in order that I might repeat my visit. When I called on his Lordship at two o'clock, he had just left his bed-room, and was at breakfast, if it can be called one. It consisted of a cup of strong green tea, without milk or sugar, and an egg, of which he ate the yolk raw. I observed the abstemiousness of his meal. 66 My digestion is weak; I am too bilious," said he, "to eat more than once a-day, and generally live on vegeta his sleep, to prevent which he was forced to put a napkin between them. ❝bles. To be sure, I drink two bottles of wine at dinner, "but they form only a vegetable diet. Just now I live on "claret and soda-water. You are just come from Geneva, 66 Shelley tells me. I passed the best part of the summer "of 1816 at the Campagna Diodati, and was very nearly passing this last there. I went so far as to write to "Hentsh the banker; but Shelley, when he came to visit me at Ravenna, gave me such a flattering account of "Pisa that I changed my mind. Then it is troublesome to travel so far with so much live and dead stock as I do; " and I don't like to leave behind me any of my pets that 66 have been accumulating since I came on the Continent.* "One cannot trust to strangers to take care of them. You "will see at the farmer's some of my pea-fowls en pension. 66 Fletcher tells me that they are almost as bad fellow-tra "vellers as the monkey †, which I will shew you." * He says afterwards in " Don Juan," canto X, stanza 50: "He had a kind of inclination, or Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin, † He afterwards bought another monkey in Pisa, in the street, because he saw it ill-used. Here he led the way to a room, where, after playing with and caressing the creature for some time, he proposed a game of billiards. I brought the conversation back on Switzerland and his travels, and asked him if he had been in Germany? 66 66 No," said he, "not even at Trieste. I hate despot"ism and the Goths too much. I have travelled little on the Continent, at least never gone out of my way. "This is partly owing to the indolence of my disposition, partly owing to my incumbrances. I had some idea, when at Rome, of visiting Naples, but was at that time anxious to get back to Venice. But Pæstum cannot surpass the "ruins of Agrigentum, which I saw by moonlight; nor 66 66 Naples, Constantinople. You have no conception of "the beauty of the twelve islands where the Turks have "their country-houses, or of the blue Symplegades 66 against which the Bosphorus beats with such resistless ❝ violence. 66 66 "Switzerland is a country I have been satisfied with seeing once; Turkey I could live in for ever. I never forget my predilections. I was in a wretched state of |