as not under a bushel, and the
scandals of his life extended far and wide,--especially that in
reference to Margherita Cogni, an illiterate virago who could neither
read nor write, and whom he was finally compelled to discard on account
of the violence of her temper, after living with her in the most
open manner.

And yet, in all this degradation, he was not idle. How could so prolific
a writer be idle! Byron did not ordinarily rise till two o'clock in the
afternoon, and spent the interval between his breakfast and dinner in
riding on the Lido,--one of those long narrow islands which lie between
the Adriatic and the Lagoon, in the midst of which Venice is built, on
the islets arising from its shallow waters. Yet he found time to begin
his "Don Juan," besides writing the "Lament of Tasso," the tragedy of
"Manfred," and an Armenian grammar, all which appeared in 1817; in 1818,
"Beppo," and in 1819, "Mazeppa." He also made a flying trip to Florence
and Rome, and some of the finest stanzas of "Childe Harold" are
descriptions of the classic ruins and the masterpieces of Grecian and
mediaeval art,--the beauties and the associations of Italy's
great cities.

"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 enchanter's 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
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!"

Byron's correspondence was small, being chiefly confined to his
publisher, to Moore, and to a few intimate friends. These letters are
interesting because of their frankness and wit, although they are not
models of fine writing. Indeed, I do not know where to find any
specimens of masterly prose in all his compositions. He was simply a
poet, facile in every form of measure from Spenser to Campbell. No
remarkable prose writings appeared in England at all, at that time,
until Sir Walter Scott's novels were written, and until Macaulay,
Carlyle, and Lamb wrote their inimitable essays. Nothing is more heavy
and unartistic than Moore's "Life of Byron;" there is hardly a brilliant
paragraph in it,--and yet Moore is one of the most musical and melodious
of all the English poets. Milton, indeed, was equally great in prose an