xed with
ferocity, and gave me the idea of a tigress over her recovered cubs."

Some months after she became ungovernable--threw plates about, and
snatched caps from the heads of other women who looked at her lord in
public places. Byron told her she must go home; whereupon she proceeded to
break glass, and threaten "knives, poison, fire;" and on his calling his
boatmen to get ready the gondola, threw herself in the dark night into the
canal. She was rescued, and in a few days finally dismissed; after which
he saw her only twice, at the theatre. Her whole picture is more like that
of Theroigne de Mericourt than that of Raphael's Fornarina, whose name she
received.

Other stories, of course, gathered round this strange life--personal
encounters, aquatic feats, and all manner of romantic and impossible
episodes; their basis being, that Byron on one occasion thrashed, on
another challenged, a man who tried to cheat him, was a frequent rider,
and a constant swimmer, so that he came to be called "the English fish,"
"water-spaniel," "sea-devil," &c. One of the boatmen is reported to have
said, "He is a good gondolier, spoilt by being a poet and a lord;" and in
answer to a traveller's inquiry, "Where does he get his poetry?" "He dives
for it." His habits, as regards eating, seem to have been generally
abstemious; but he drank a pint of gin and water over his verses at night,
and then took claret and soda in the morning.

Riotous living may have helped to curtail Byron's life, but it does not
seem to have seriously impaired his powers. Among these adverse
surroundings of the "court of Circe," he threw off _Beppo_, _Mazeppa_, and
the early books of _Don Juan_. The first canto of the last was written in
November, 1818, the second in January, 1819, the third and fourth towards
the close of the same year. _Beppo_, its brilliant prelude, sparkles like
a draught of champagne. This "Venetian story," or sketch, in which the
author broke ground on his true satiric field--the satire of social
life--and first adopted the measure avowedly suggested by _Whistlecraft_
(Frere), was drafted in October, 1817, and appeared in May, 1818. It aims
at comparatively little, but is perfectly successful in its aim, and
unsurpassed for the incisiveness of its side strokes, and the courtly ease
of a manner that never degenerates into mannerism. In _Mazeppa_ the poet
reverts to his earlier style, and that of Scott; the description of the
headlong ride h