It was my good fortune, at this period, (1819) in the course of a short
and hasty tour through the north of Italy, to pass five or six days with
Lord Byron at Venice. I had written to him on my way thither to announce
my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could I tempt him to
accompany me as far as Rome.
Having parted, at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied
from England, and whom I was to rejoin, after a short visit to Rome, at
Genoa, I made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy travelling
carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time being limited,
I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry
over their respective wonders, and, leaving Padua at noon on the 8th of
October, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's
villa, at La Mira. He was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant
having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if I would wait
till he was dressed, he would accompany me to Venice. The interval I
employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, Fletcher, and in viewing,
under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa.
It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance, and the
delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many
years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to
the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident
rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak of
cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be
impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other,
felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the
influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly
evident he experienced at this moment.
I was a good deal struck, however, by the alteration that had taken place
in his personal appearance. He had grown fatter both in person and face,
and the latter had most suffered by the change, having lost, by the
enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spiritualized look
that had, in other times, distinguished it. The addition of whiskers, too,
which he had not long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some
one had said he had a "faccia di musico," as well as the length to which
his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and
cap,--all combined to produce that dissimilarity to his former self I had
observed in him. He was still, however, eminently handsome; and, in
exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic
character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch,
waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be
equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by
the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his
finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had become
still more striking.
His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o'clock
in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,--his habit being to eat it
standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup
of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit. Before we
took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at
this time living under the same roof with him at La Mira; and who, with a
style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and
delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short
interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since
known or heard of her has but served to confirm.
We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese
vehicle, for Fusina,--his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most
redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage,
to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way,
even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza. On our arrival at
Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the
place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the
different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. and the
good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these
matters gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb,
a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in
sparring, witnessed.
As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting,
and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight
of Venice, rising "with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while
to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I
beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its
glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly:
"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanters wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles."
But whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other
circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now
viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected.
The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,--any thing
but romantic,--into which our conversation wandered, put at once
completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our
course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and
laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on
the Grand Canal. All that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during
our London life together,--his scrapes and my lecturings,--our joint
adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two great enemies, as he always
called them, of London happiness,--our joyous nights together at Watier's,
Kinnaird's, &c. and "that d--d supper of Rancliffe's which _ought_ to have
been a dinner,"--all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a
flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been
difficult, even for persons far graver than I can pretend to be, not to
have caught the contagion.