his honour, he never would encourage it in others. His aversion to being blooded in sickness was not greater than his horror at the idea of his shedding human blood in private.

He said it was a pity no law could be made for the prevention of duelling, with the common consent of all civilized governments; and he remarked, that. in Turkey, where quarrels were frequent, and animosities lasting from generation to generation, duels were unknown, and assassinations resorted to only by the very lowest and worst of the people.

The health of Lord Byron, when he sailed from Leghorn, was in a very precarious state; he strove to conceal it, and assumed a lively nature, when he was inwardly smarting under severe pains. His cheeks were hollow, and his forehead pale; his eyes had lost a great share of their lustre, and he was reduced in person; whether the fall he received, as we have related, in the mine at Elba, had a serious effect, it is impossible to guess, for he never complained; but Lieutenant Poole, who had so many opportunities of seeing him, remarked a great change in him for the worse, and fully believes that the seeds of the disorder, which deprived the world of his services, were sown full two years before the occurrence of that fatal event.

The last time Mr. Poole saw his Lordship, was on the mole, at Leghorn, when he expressed an

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DEPARTURE FROM ITALY.

opinion that he should be sea-sick, as his stomach was weak; he would, however, take bark in Port wine, and wished he had done so before. That he had no idea of any danger, either from his health, or the scenes in which he was going to mingle, was evident, from his directing Lieutenant Poole, when he had executed a commission in France, to travel over land to Venice, and there he would find letters with instructions in what part of Greece he was to be found-he shook Lieutenant Poole by both hands, and they parted never to meet again.

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CHAPTER IV.

Gleanings.-Lord Byron, the female Georgian Slave, and Sir Henry Fletcher.-Malta.-Dr. and Mrs. Pedley and Niece.Singular Meeting of the latter with a French Officer.-Lord Cochrane's affair at Malta.-Lord Byron assists him to get away. Mrs. Pedley accompanies them to Minorca.-Adventures at Gibraltar, Lisbon, Oporto, and narrow escape of Lord Byron from being captured by the French.-Mrs. Pedley and Captain Hill.-Lord Byron's daily Habits of Life, while a Visitor on board of one of His Majesty's Ships of War. -The Grecian Isles, the haunts of Pirates.

THE following Gleanings having been given with a positive assurance of their authenticity, (of which, indeed, they bear a very strong stamp, some of the parties residing, at this moment, in the vicinity of London), it would have been unpardonable to have withheld them from the reader; and they are given here altogether, rather than in their proper place, according to the train of events, as they would have broken the chain of Lord Byron's works, which it was a principal object to bring together in as connected and compact a view as possible.

Lord Byron was not such a traveller as Smellfungus, who, as Sterne characterizes him, could travel from Dan to Beersheba, without turning

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BYRON UNLIKE SMELL FUNGUS.

either to his right hand, or to his left, and exclaim, -all-all is barren! No, like Don Quixote, adventures sprung up under his feet at every step, like mushrooms after a shower in autumn; and when the reader considers under what circumstances he travelled, he will not be surprised at its being so. His name and rank caused all gates to fly open to him, and his company to be courted in all circles; his acquaintance with many of the commanders in the navy, his attachment to the sea service, made him a frequent and welcome visitor on board the king's ships, and afforded him a facility of transporting himself every where ad libitum; his affluence (which, according to the mode of living abroad, was great) laid him under no restrictions; and when, added to these things, his own eccentric character, and his fondness for persons as eccentric as himself are considered, the only surprise will be that more of his adventures have not been brought to light; but the seal of secrecy has been affixed on the lips of his trusty and confidential attendant, Fletcher, by the surviving relatives of his Lordship. The public have an undoubted right, however, to what it can get; the ice once broken, the current will have free play, and every day will waft some fresh arrival into port with a freight of anecdote for the edification of the lovers of literary gossip. Every thing relating to Lord Byron is too good to be lost, and they are rather foes than friends to his name, who

THE SLAVE-BAZAAR.

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would wish the circumstances of his life to be buried in the grave with him.

When Lord Byron arrived on the coast of Asia Minor, he happened to be present, at Alexandria, at a time of a public sale in the Bazaar, where a supply of female slaves had arrived from Georgia and Circassia. One of the girls wept bitterly, and seemed in agonies at her forlorn situation. The tenderness of his Lordship's heart was aroused, and he addressed her in the dialect of the country (a sort of Lingua Franca, or compound of all languages, in use all along the coasts of Asia Minor, Turkey, and Egypt), in which they could barely make themselves understood to each other; but sufficiently so for his Lordship to make out that she stated herself to be born of Christian parents at Tefflis, in Georgia, and that the "Curds," or mountaineers of Curdistan, had made a prisoner of her, while rambling after her father's sheep, who was an opulent land-owner, and proprietor of herds. She had been sold to various masters, and at last had got into the hands of her present one, Aba Ben Hassan, who brought her to Alexandria, as the market from whence Constantinople is supplied with women, like beasts of the field, from a cattle market. Her anxious wish was to be restored to her parents, who, she said, being an only child, would gladly part with half their wealth to have her once more brought back to their arms. Lord Byron almost instantly resolved, in his Quixote