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the long list of calamities, such as stumbling horses, want of tea!!! &c., which assailed him, would have made a lasting source of laughter to a spectator, and inconvenience to a master.-To Mrs. Byron. Athens, Jan. 14, 1811.

FLETCHER WHEN TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND.

Since I wrote last, I have been into the country. I journeyed by night-no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX-mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed him ; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed anything-no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong.-To Mr. Moore. July 25, 1813.

SWIMMING FEATS.

I was three hours in swimming across the Tagus, which is much more hazardous, being two hours longer than the Hellespont. Of what may be done in swimming, I will mention one more instance. In 1818, the Chevalier Mengaldo (a gentleman of Bassano), a good swimmer, wished to swim with my friend, Mr. Alexander Scott and myself. As he seemed particularly anxious on the subject, we indulged him. We all three started from the Island of the Lido and swam to Venice. At the entrance of the Grand Canal, Scott

and I were a good way ahead, and we saw no more of our foreign friend, which, however, was of no consequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes and pick him up. Scott swam on till past the Rialto, where he got out, less from fatigue than from chill, having been four hours in the water, without rest or stay, except what is to be obtained by floating on one's back—this being the condition of our performance. I continued my course on to Santa Chiara, comprising the whole of the Grand Canal (besides the distance from the Lido), and got out where the Laguna once more opens to Fusina. I had been in the water, by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes.

I crossed the Hellespont in one hour and ten minutes only. I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution, than I was when I passed the Dardanelles, and yet two years ago I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsers, an accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. My two companions were also four hours in the water. Mengaldo might be about thirty years of age; Scott about six-and-twenty. -To Mr. Murray. Ravenna, Feb. 21, 1821.

THE PHYSICIANS OF PATRAS.

I have just escaped from a physician and a fever, which confined me five days to bed. Here be two physicians, one of whom trusts to his genius (never having studied)—the other to a campaign of eighteen months against the sick of Otranto, which he made in his youth with great effect. When I was seized with

LORD BYRON'S COUNTERPART.

23

my disorder, I protested against both these assassins; —but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph -take it :

Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,

To keep my lamp in strongly strove :
But Romanelli was so stout,

He beat all three-and blew it out.

But Nature and Jove, being piqued at my doubts, did, in fact, at last, beat Romanelli.-To Mr. Hodgson. Oct. 3, 1810.

LORD BYRON'S COUNTERPART.

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 inquirers 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.-To Mr. Murray. Ravenna, Oct. 6, 1820.

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In a week, with a fair wind, we shall be at Portsmouth, and on the 2nd of July I shall have completed (to a day) two years of peregrination, from which I am returning with as little emotion as I set out. I think, upon the whole, I was more grieved at leaving Greece than England, which I am impatient to see, simply because I am tired of a long voyage.

Indeed, my prospects are not very pleasant. Embarrassed in my private affairs, indifferent to public, solitary without the wish to be social, with a body a little enfeebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit, I trust, yet unbroken, I am returning home without a hope, and almost without a desire. The first thing I shall have to encounter will be a lawyer, the next a creditor, then colliers, farmers, surveyors, and all the agreeable attachments to estates out of repair, and contested coal-pits. In short, I am sick and sorry, and when I have a little repaired my irreparable affairs, away I shall march, either to campaign in Spain, or back again to the East, where I can at least have cloudless skies and a cessation from impertinence.-To Mr. Hodgson. Volage Frigate, June 29, 1811.

I have just been two years (to a day, on the 2nd of July) absent from England, and I return to it with much the same feelings which prevailed on my departure, viz., indifference; but within that apathy I

MRS. BYRON, MATTHEWS, AND WINGFIELD.

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certainly do not comprise yourself, as I will prove by every means in my power. For a long time I have been restricted to an entire vegetable diet, neither fish nor flesh coming within my regimen; so I expect a powerful stock of potatoes, greens, and biscuit: I drink no wine. I don't suppose I shall be much pestered with visitors; but if I am, you must receive them, for I am determined to have nobody breaking in upon my retirement: you know that I never was fond of society, and I am less so than before. I hope you govern my little empire and its sad load of national debt with a wary hand.-To Mrs. Byron. Volage Frigate, June 25, 1811.

DEATH OF MRS. BYRON.

My poor mother died yesterday! and I am on my way from town to attend her to the family vault. I heard one day of her illness, the next of her death.* Thank God her last moments were most tranquil. I am told she was in little pain, and not aware of her situation. I now feel the truth of Mr. Gray's observation, "That we can only have one mother." Peace be with her!—To Dr. Pigot, Aug. 2, 1811.

DEATH OF MRS. BYRON, MATTHEWS, AND WINGFIELD.

Peace be with the dead! Regret cannot wake them. With a sigh to the departed, let us resume the dull business of life, in the certainty that we also shall have our repose. Besides her who gave me being, I have lost more than one who made that being tolerable. -The best friend of my friend Hobhouse, Matthews,

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