His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o’clock in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,—­his habit being to eat it standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit.  Before we took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at this time living under the same roof with him at La Mira; and who, with a style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since known or heard of her has but served to confirm.

We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese vehicle, for Fusina,—­his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza.  On our arrival at Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. and the good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these matters gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in sparring, witnessed.

As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight of Venice, rising “with her tiara of bright towers” above the wave; while to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly: 

  “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 enchanters 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
  Look’d to the winged lion’s marble piles,
  Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.”

But whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected.  The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,—­any thing but romantic,—­into which our conversation wandered, put at once completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend’s palazzo