6

"I was convinced something very unpleasant hung over me last night: I expected to hear that somebody I knew was dead;-so it turns out! Poor Polidori is gone! When he was my physician, he was always talking of Prussic acid, oil of amber, blowing into veins, suffocating by charcoal, and compounding poisons; but for a different purpose to what the Pontic Monarch did, for he has prescribed a dose for himself that would have killed fifty Miltiades', a dose whose effect, Murray says, was so instantaneous that he went off without a spasm or struggle. It seems that disappointment was the cause of this rash act. He had entertained too sanguine hopes of literary fame, owing to the success of his Vampyre,' which, in consequence of its being attributed to me, was got up as a melo-drame at Paris. The foundation of the story was mine; but I was forced to disown the publication, lest the world should suppose that I had vanity enough, or was egotist enough, to write in that ridiculous manner about myself.* Notwithstanding which, the French editions still persevere in including it with my works. My real 'Vampyre' I gave at the end of Mazeppa, something in the same way that I told it one night at Diodati, when Monk Lewis, and Shelley and his wife, were present. The latter sketched on that occasion the outline of her Pygmalion story, The Modern Prometheus,' the making of a man; (which a lady who had read it afterwards asked Sir Humphrey Davy, to his great astonishment, if he could do, and was told a story something like Alonzo and Imogene ;) and Shel

6

* He alluded to the Preface and the Postscript, containing accounts of his residence at Geneva and in the Isle of Mitylene.

ley himself, or 'The Snake,' (as he used sometimes to call him,) conjured up some frightful woman of an acquaintance of his at home, a kind of Medusa, who was suspected of having eyes in her breasts.

Perhaps Polidori had strictly no right to appropriate my story to himself; but it was hardly worth it: and when my letter disclaiming the narrative part, was written, I dismissed the matter from my memory. It was Polidori's own fault that we did not agree. I was sorry when we parted, for I soon get attached to people; and was more sorry still for the scrape he afterwards got into at Milan. He quarrelled with one of the guards at the Scala, and was ordered to leave the Lombard States twenty-four hours after; which put an end to all his Continental schemes, that I had forwarded by recommending him to Lord —; and it is difficult for a young physician to get into practice at home, however clever, particularly a foreigner, or one with a foreigner's name. From that time, instead of making out prescriptions, he took to writing romances; a very unprofitable and fatal exchange, as it turned out..

"I told you I was not oppressed in spirits last night without a reason. Who can help being superstitious? Scott believes in second-sight. Rousseau tried whether he was to be d-d or not, by aiming at a tree with a stone: I forget whether he hit or missed. Goëthe trusted to the chance of a knife's striking the water, to determine whether he was to prosper in some undertaking. The Italians think the dropping of oil very unlucky. Pietro (Count Gamba) dropped somethe night before his exile, and that of his family from

Ravenna. Have you ever had your fortune told? Mrs. Williams told mine. She predicted that twentyseven and thirty-seven were to be dangerous ages in my life.* One has come true."

"Yes," added I," and did she not prophecy that you were to die a monk and a miser? I have been told so."

But there are lucky and years and numbers too. party, where observ

"I don't think these two last very likely; but it was part of her prediction. unlucky days, as well as Lord was dining at a ed that they were thirteen. Why don't you make it twelve?' was the reply; and an impudent one it was-but he could say those things. You would not visit on a Friday, would yon?

to introduce me to Mrs. morrow, for it is a Friday."

6

You know you are

It must not be to

"A fine day," said I as entered; "a day worth I living for."

"An old wag of the world!" replied he, shaking me by the hand. "You should have been here earlier. T has been here with a most portentous and obstetrical countenance, and it seems he has been bringing forth an ode-a birthday ode-not on Ada, but on a lady. An odious production it must have

* He was married in his twenty-seventh, and died in his thir Ty-seventh year.

been! He threatened to inflict, as Shelley calls it; but I fought off. As I told him, Stellas are out of date now it is a bad compliment to remind women of their age.

"Talking of days, this is the most wretched day of my existence; and I say and do all sorts of foolish things to drive away the memory of it, and make me forget.

"I will give you a specimen of some epigrams I am in the habit of sending Hobhouse, to whom I wrote on my first wedding-day, and continue to write still:

"This day of ours has surely done

"Its worst for me and you !

""Tis now five years since we were one,

"And four since we were two.

And another on his sending me the congratulations of the season, which ended in some foolish way like this:

"You may wish me returns of the season:
"Let us, prithee, have none of the day!"

I think I can give no stronger proof of the socia

"So that it wean me from the weary dream
"Of selfish grief, or gladness!—so it fling
"Forgetfulness around me!"

Childe Harold, Canto III. Stanza 4.

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing,

"Tis that I may not weep ;-and if I weep,

""Tis that our nature cannot always bring

"Itself to apathy".

&c.

Don Juan, Canto IV. Stanza 4..

bility of Lord Byron's disposition, than the festivity that presided over his dinners.

Wednesday being one of his fixed days: "You will dine with me,” said he, "though it is the 2d January."

His own table, when alone, was frugal, not to say abstemious; but on the occasion of these meetings every sort of wine, every luxury of the season, and English delicacy, were displayed. I never knew any man do the honours of his house with greater kindness and hospitality. On this eventful anniversary he was not, however, in his usual spirits, and evidently tried to drown the remembrance of the day by a levity that was forced and unnatural;—for it was clear, in spite of all his efforts, that something oppressed him, and he could not help continually recurring to the subject.

One of the party proposed Lady Byron's health, which he gave with evident pleasure, and we all drank in bumpers. The conversation turning on his separation, the probability of their being reconciled was canvassed.

* His dinner, when alone, cost five Pauls; and thinking he was overcharged, he gave his bills to a lady of my acquaintance to examine. At a Christmas-day dinner he had ordered a plum-pudding à l'Anglaise. Somebody afterwards told him it was not good. "Not good!" said he: "why, it ought to be good; it cost fifteen Pauls."

† He ordered the remnants to be given away, lest his servants (as he said) should envy him every mouthful he eats.