"that will take time; besides, the Guic"cioli! *"" "I have received," said he, " from my sister, "a lock of Napoleon's hair, which is of a beau"tiful black. If Hunt were here, we should "have half-a-dozen sonnets on it. It is a va"luable present; but, according to my Lord * I have heard Lord Byron reproached for leaving the Guiccioli. Her brother's accompanying him to Greece, and his remains to England, prove at least that the family acquitted him of any blame. The disturbed state of the country rendered her embarking with him out of the question; and the confiscation of her father's property made her jointure, and his advanced age her care, necessary to him.-It required all Lord Byron's interest with the British Envoy, as well as his own guarantee, to protect the Gambas at Genoa. But his own house at length ceased to be an asylum for them, and they were banished the Sardinian States a month before he sailed for Leghorn; whence, after laying in the supplies for his voyage, he directed his fatal course to the Morea. "Carlisle, I ought not to accept it. I observe, "in the newspapers of the day, some lines of "his Lordship's, advising Lady Holland not to "have any thing to do with the snuff-box left "her by Napoleon, for fear that horror and "murder should jump out of the lid every time "it is opened! It is a most ingenious idea—I He then read me the first stanza, laughing in his usual suppressed way, and produced in a few minutes the following parody on it: 66 "Lady, accept the box a hero wore, In spite of all this elegiac stuff: Let not seven stanzas, written by a bore, "When will my wise relation leave off verseinditing?" said he. "I believe, of all manias, U 66 authorship is the most inveterate. He might "have learned by this time, indeed many years 66 ago, (but people never learn any thing by expe"rience,) that he had mistaken his forte. There “was an epigram, which had some logic in it, 66 composed on the occasion of his Lordship's doing two things in one day,-subscribing 10007. " and publishing a sixpenny pamphlet! It was 66 on the state of the theatre, and dear enough "at the money. The epigram I think I can "remember: 'Carlisle subscribes a thousand pound Out of his rich domains; And for a sixpence circles round The produce of his brains. Between his fortune and his wit.' "A man who means to be a poet should do, " and should have done all his life, nothing else "but make verses. There's Shelley has more 56 poetry in him than any man living; and if " he were not so mystical, and would not write 66 66 Utopias and set himself up as a Reformer, his right to rank as a poet, and very highly too, "could not fail of being acknowledged. I said "what I thought of him the other day; and all "who are not blinded by bigotry must think "the same. The works he wrote at seventeen "are much more extraordinary than Chatterton's at the same age." A question was started, as to which he considered the easiest of all metres in our language. "Or rather," replied he, "you mean, which is "the least difficult? I have spoken of the fatal "facility of the octo-syllabic metre. The Spen 66 66 ser stanza is difficult, because it is like a son net, and the finishing line must be good. "The couplet is more difficult still, because the "last line, or one out of two, must be good. "But blank-verse is the most difficult of all, "because every line must be good." "You might well say then," I observed, "that no man can be a poet who does any thing else." During our evening ride the conversation happened to turn upon the rival Reviews... "I know no two men," said he, "who have "been so infamously treated, as Shelley and "Keats. If I had known that Milman had "been the author of that article on The Revolt "of Islam,' I would never have mentioned "Fazio' among the plays of the day,-and 66 66 66 6 scarcely know why I paid him the com pliment. In consequence of the shameless personality of that and another number of "The Quarterly,' every one abuses Shelley, "his name is coupled with every thing that |