husband was obtained, on condition of the latter paying from his large income a pittance to the lady of 200 l. a year, and her undertaking to live in her father’s house—­an engagement which was, first in the spirit, and subsequently in the letter, violated.  For a time, however, she retired to a villa about fifteen miles from Ravenna, where she was visited by Byron at comparatively rare intervals.  By the end of July he had finished Marino Faliero, and ere the close of the year the fifth canto of Don Juan. in September he says to Murray, “I am in a fierce humour, at not having Scott’s Monastery.  No more Keats,[1] I entreat.  There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin.  I don’t feel inclined to care further about Don Juan.  What do you think a very pretty Italian lady said to me the other day, when I remarked that ‘it would live longer than Childe Harold’?  ’Ah! but I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an immortality of D.  J.’” This is to-day the common female judgment; it is known to have been La Guiccioli’s, as well as Mrs. Leigh’s, and by their joint persuasion Byron was for a season induced to lay aside “that horrid, wearisome Don.”  About this time he wrote the memorable reply to the remarks on that poem in Blackwood’s Magazine’, where he enters on a defence of his life, attacks the Lakers, and champions Pope against the new school of poetry, lamenting that his own practice did not square with his precept; and adding, “We are all wrong, except Rogers, Crabbe, and Campbell.”

[Footnote 1:  In a note on a similar passage, bearing the date November 12, 1821, he, however, confesses:—­“My indignation at Mr. Keats’ depreciation of Pope has hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which malgre all the fantastic fopperies of his style was undoubtedly of great promise.  His fragment of Hyperion seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as AEschylus.  He is a loss to our literature.”]

In November he refers to reports of his letters being opened by the Austrian officials, and the unpleasant things the Huns, as he calls them, are likely to find therein.  Early in the next month he tells Moore that the commandant of their troops, a brave officer, but obnoxious to the people, had been found lying at his door, with five slugs in him, and, bleeding inwardly, had died in the palace, where he had been brought to be nursed.

This incident is versified in Don Juan, v. 33-39, with anatomical minuteness of detail.  After trying in vain to wrench an answer out of death, the poet ends in his accustomed strain—­

  But it was all a mystery.  Here we are,
  And there we go:—­but where?  Five bits of lead—­
  Or three, or two, or one—­send very far!