to do it very well.’  I pricked up my ears at hearing this, as I considered it would afford me an opportunity of seeing the far-famed Countess Guiccioli.  His Lordship immediately rose and left the apartment, returning in the course of a minute or two leading in the lady, and while arranging chairs for the trio, he said to me, ’I shall make her speak each of the principal dialects, but you are not to mind how I pronounce, for I do not speak Italian well.’  After the scene had been performed he resumed to me, ‘Now what do you think?’ To which I answered, that my opinion still remained unaltered.  He seemed at this to fall into a little revery, and then said, abruptly, ’Why ’tis very odd, Moore thought the same.’  ‘Does your Lordship mean Tom Moore?’ ‘Yes.’  ’Ah, then, my Lord, I shall adhere with more pertinacity to my opinion, when I hear that a man of his exquisite taste in poetry and harmony was also of that opinion.’

“You will be asking what I thought of the lady; I had certainly heard much of her high personal attractions, but all I can say is, that in my eyes her graces did not rank above mediocrity.  They were youth, plumpness, and good-nature.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

A Miff with Lord Byron—­Remarkable Coincidences—­Plagiarisms of his Lordship

There is a curious note in the memoranda which Lord Byron kept in the year 1813, that I should not pass unnoticed, because it refers to myself, and moreover is characteristic of the excoriated sensibility with which his Lordship felt everything that touched or affected him or his.

When I had read The Bride of Abydos, I wrote to him my opinion of it, and mentioned that there was a remarkable coincidence in the story, with a matter in which I had been interested.  I have no copy of the letter, and I forget the expressions employed, but Lord Byron seemed to think they implied that he had taken the story from something of mine.

The note is: 

“Galt says there is a coincidence between the first part of The Bride and some story of his, whether published or not, I know not, never having seen it.  He is almost the last person on whom any one would commit literary larceny, and I am not conscious of any witting thefts on any of the genus.  As to originality, all pretensions are ludicrous; there is nothing new under the sun.”

It is sufficiently clear that he was offended with what I had said, and was somewhat excited.  I have not been able at present to find his answer to my letter, but it would appear by the subjoined that he had written to me something which led me to imagine he was offended at my observations, and that I had in consequence deprecated his wrath.

“Dec. 11, 1813.