the idea, that because Englishmen
acknowledge Lord Byron as the greatest poet of the day, they would
therefore abstain from annoying him, and, as far as it depended on them,
from persecuting him. Their admiration for his works is unwillingly
extorted, and the pleasure they experience in reading them does not
allay prejudice nor stop calumny.

"As to the Genevans, they would not disturb him, if there were not a
colony of English established in the town,--persons who have carried
with them a host of mean prejudices and hatred against all those who
excel or avoid them; and as these causes would continue to exist, the
same effects would doubtless follow.

"The English are about as numerous at Geneva as the natives, and their
riches cause them to be sought after; for the Genevans, compared to
their guests, are like valets, or, at best, like hotel-keepers, having
let their whole town to foreigners.

"A circumstance, personally known to me, may afford proof of what is to
be expected at Geneva. The only inhabitant on whose attachment and honor
Lord Byron thought he had every reason to count, turned out one of those
who invented the most infamous calumnies. A friend of mine, deceived by
him, involuntarily unveiled all his wickedness to me, and I was
therefore obliged to inform my friend of the hypocrisy and perversity we
had discovered in this individual. You can not, madam, conceive the
excessive violence with which Englishmen, of a certain class, detest
those whose conduct and opinions are not exactly framed on the model of
their own. This system of ideas forms a superstition unceasingly
demanding victims, and unceasingly finding them. But, however strong
theological hatred may be among them, it yields in intensity to social
hatred. This system is quite the order of the day at Geneva; and, having
once been brought into play for the disquiet of Lord Byron and his
friends, I much fear that the same causes would soon produce the same
effects, if the intended journey took place. Accustomed as you are,
madam, to the gentler manners of Italy, you will scarcely be able to
conceive to what a pitch this social hatred is carried in less favored
regions. I have been forced to pass through this hard experience, and to
see all dearest to me entangled in inextricable slanders. My position
bore some resemblance to that of your brother, and it is for that reason
I hasten to write you, in order to spare you and your family the evil I
so fat