I shall be gratified and obliged by your acting, as far as you can, as his guide.  He is a friend of Lord Byron’s, and much more accurately acquainted with his history than those who have related it to you.  He will accordingly describe to you, if you ask him, the shape, the dimensions, and whatever else you may please to require, of that Castle in which he keeps imprisoned a young and innocent wife, &c. &c.  My dear Pietro, whenever you feel inclined to laugh, do send two lines of answer to your sister, who loves and ever will love you with the greatest tenderness.—­Teresa Guiccioli."[56]

After expressing his regret that I had not been able to prolong my stay at Venice, my noble friend said, “At least, I think, you might spare a day or two to go with me to Arqua.  I should like,” he continued, thoughtfully, “to visit that tomb with you:”—­then, breaking off into his usual gay tone; “a pair of poetical pilgrims—­eh, Tom, what say you?”—­That I should have declined this offer, and thus lost the opportunity of an excursion which would have been remembered, as a bright dream, through all my after-life, is a circumstance I never can think of without wonder and self-reproach.  But the main design on which I had then set my mind of reaching Rome, and, if possible, Naples, within the limited period which circumstances allowed, rendered me far less alive than I ought to have been to the preciousness of the episode thus offered to me.

When it was time for me to depart, he expressed his intention to accompany me a few miles; and, ordering his horses to follow, proceeded with me in the carriage as far as Stra, where for the last time—­how little thinking it was to be the last!—­I bade my kind and admirable friend farewell.

[Footnote 50:  The writer here, no doubt, alludes to such questionable liberalities as those exercised towards the husbands of his two favourites, Madame S * * and the Fornarina.]

[Footnote 51:  The circumstance here alluded to may be most clearly, perhaps, communicated to my readers through the medium of the following extract from a letter which Mr. Barry (the friend and banker of Lord Byron) did me the favour of addressing to me, soon after his Lordship’s death:—­“When Lord Byron went to Greece, he gave me orders to advance money to Madame G * *; but that lady would never consent to receive any.  His Lordship had also told me that he meant to leave his will in my hands, and that there would be a bequest in it of 10,000_l._ to Madame G * *.  He mentioned this circumstance also to Lord Blessington.  When the melancholy news of his death reached me, I took for granted that this will would be found among the sealed papers he had left with me; but there was no such instrument.  I immediately then wrote to Madame G * *, enquiring if she knew any thing concerning it, and mentioning, at the same time, what his Lordship had said is to the legacy.  To this the lady replied, that he had frequently spoken to her on the same subject, but that she had always cut the conversation short, as it was a topic she by no means liked to hear him speak upon.  In addition, she expressed a wish that no such will as I had mentioned would be found; as her circumstances were already sufficiently independent, and the world might put a wrong construction on her attachment, should it appear that her fortunes were, in any degree, bettered by it.”]