"Ravenna, 8bre 6°, 1820.
"You will have now received all the Acts, corrected, of the Marino
Faliero. What you say of the 'bet of 100 guineas' made by some one
who says that he saw me last week, reminds me of what happened in
1810: you can easily ascertain the fact, and it is an odd one.
"In the latter end of 1811, I met one evening at the Alfred my old
school and form fellow (for we were within two of each other, _he_
the higher, though both very near the top of our remove,) _Peel_,
the Irish secretary. He told me that, in 1810, he met me, as he
thought, in St. James's Street, but we passed without speaking. He
mentioned this, and it was denied as impossible, I being then in
Turkey. A day or two afterward, he pointed out to his brother a
person on the opposite side of the way:--'There,' said he, 'is the
man whom I took for Byron.' His brother instantly answered, 'Why,
it is Byron, and no one else.' But this is not all:--I was _seen_
by somebody to _write down my name_ amongst the enquirers after the
King's health, then attacked by insanity. Now, at this very period,
as nearly as I could make out, I was ill of a _strong fever_ at
Patras, caught in the marshes near Olympia, from the _malaria_. If
I had died there, this would have been a new ghost story for you.
You can easily make out the accuracy of this from Peel himself, who
told it in detail. I suppose you will be of the opinion of
Lucretius, who (denies the immortality of the soul, but) asserts
that from the 'flying off of the surfaces of bodies, these surfaces
or cases, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire
when they are separated from it, so that the shapes and shadows of
both the dead and living are frequently beheld.'
"But if they are, are their coats and waistcoats also seen? I do
not disbelieve that we may be two by some unconscious process, to a
certain sign, but which of these two I happen at present to be, I
leave you to decide. I only hope that _t'other me_ behaves like a
gemman.
"I wish you would get Peel asked how far I am accurate in my
recollection of what he told me; for I don't like to say such
things without authority.
"I am not sure that I was _not spoken_ with; but this also you can
ascertain. I have written to you such letters that I stop.
"Yours, &c.
"P.S. Last year (in June, 1819), I met at Count Mosti's, at
Ferrara, an Italian who asked me 'if I knew Lord Byron?' I told him
_no_ (no one knows himself, _you_ know). 'Then,' says he, 'I do; I
met him at Naples the other day.' I pulled out my card and asked
him if that was the way he spelt his name: he answered, _yes_. I
suspect that it was a blackguard navy surgeon, who attended a young
travelling madam about, and passed himself for a lord at the
post-houses. He was a vulgar dog--quite of the cock-pit order--and
a precious representative I must have had of him, if it was even
so; but I don't know. He passed himself off as a gentleman, and
squired about a Countess * * (of this place), then at Venice, an
ugly battered woman, of bad morals even for Italy."
* * * * *