(even if I live) I shall complete it; but this was my notion : I meant to have made him a cavalier' servente in Italy, and a cause for a divorce in England, and a sentimental' Werter-faced man' in Germany, so as to show the different ridicules of the society in each of those countries, and to have displayed him gradually gâté and blasé as he grew older, as is natural. But I had not quite fixed whether to make him end in hell, or in an unhappy marriage, not knowing which would be the severest: the Spanish tradition says hell: but it is probably only an allegory of the other state. You are now in possession of my notions on the subject ".

But before the existent new cantos were published, the woman had intervened.1 Byron told Murray in a letter concerning the fifth canto: "At the particular request of the Countess G., I have promised not to continue Don Juan. You will therefore look upon these three cantos as the last of the poem ". It is evident from the further context that La Guiccioli was the very pretty Italian lady of October 12, before the fifth canto was begun.

The three were published together in August, without the name of author or publisher. "The booksellers' messengers

filled the street in front of the house in Albemarle Street, and the parcels of books were given out of the window in answer to their obstreperous demands". Byron, on getting his parcel, wrote to Murray.

"I have received the Juans, which are printed so carelessly, especially the fifth canto, as to be disgraceful to me, and not creditable to you. It really must be gone over again with the manuscript, the errors are so gross ;-words added-changed-so as to make cacophony and nonsense. You have been careless of this poem because some of your squad don't approve of it; but I tell you that it will be long before you see anything half so good as poetry or writing.

"If you have no feeling for your own reputation, pray have some little for mine. I have read over the poem carefully, and

1 The Countess Guiccioli had not at this time (July 1821) left the neighbourhood of Ravenna; she was still living either at her father's villa, fifteen miles outside, or else in Count Gamba's house in the close vicinity of the Palazzo Guiccioli (Shelley and his Friends in Italy, Mrs. Rossetti Angeli, 1911).

Moore has the following:

"In this note, so highly honourable to the fair writer, she says, ' Remember, my Byron, the promise you have made me. Never shall I be able to tell you the satisfaction I feel from it, so great are the sentiments of pleasure and confidence with which the sacrifice you have made has inspired me'. In a postscript to the note she adds, ' I am only sorry that Don Juan was not left in the infernal regions'

• Memoir of John Murray, i. 413.

I tell you, it is poetry. Your little envious knot of parson-poets may say what they please: time will show that I am not in this instance mistaken.

"Desire my friend Hobhouse to correct the press, especially of the last canto, from the manuscript as it is. It is enough to drive one out of one's senses to see the infernal torture of words from the original. . . .

"No wonder the poem should fail (which, however, it won't, you will see) with such things allowed to creep about it. Replace what is omitted, and correct what is so shamefully misprinted, and let the poem have fair play; and I fear nothing

He added, in a P.S., "As for you, you have no opinion of your own and never had, but are blown about by the last thing said to you, no matter by whom ". But in the envelope:

"The enclosed letter is written in bad humour, but not without provocation. However, let it (that is, the bad humour) go for little; but I must request your serious attention to the abuses of the printer, which ought never to have been permitted. You forget that all the fools in London (the chief purchasers of your publications) will condemn in me the stupidity of your printer. For instance, in the notes to Canto fifth, the Adriatic shore of the Bosphorus', instead of the Asiatic!! All this may seem little to you-so fine a gentleman with your ministerial connections, but it is serious to me, who am thousands of miles off, and have no opportunity of not proving myself the fool your printer makes me, except your pleasure and leisure, forsooth.

The gods prosper you, and forgive you, for I can't ".

By September his wrath had subsided into sullenness. He had read over the new cantos-" which are excellent. . . . I regret that I do not go on with it". But in a final blaze of wrath, he adds: "You are so grand, and sublime, and occupied that one would think, instead of publishing for the 'Board of Longitude', that you were trying to discover it".

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DEATHS OF ALLEGRA AND SHELLEY

1821-1822

Allegra sent to the Convent of Bagna Cavallo-Trouble with Claire— The Hoppner affair: scandal about Shelley in 1821-Mary's letterByron's baseness-Shelley at Ravenna-The move to Pisa-Allegra left behind-Meetings with Lord Clare and Rogers-Pisa: the Lanfranchi Palace-Anxiety of Claire: letters and interviews-Death of AllegraBurial at Harrow-Lady Noel's will-Ada-Cain published: the outcry Other works-Ennui and dejection-Quarrels with MurrayLeigh Hunt, and The Liberal—Banishment of the Gambas and Teresa Guiccioli-Death of Shelley-Byron's tributes

LAIRE CLAIRMONT, now living at Florence as governess in the family of Professor Bojti, and just beginning to recover hope and spirits, received on March 15, 1821—a rainy day, as she wrote in her journal-letters from Shelley and Mary," with enclosures from Ravenna. The child in the Convent of Bagna Cavallo".

Byron had sent Allegra there (though it was only twelve miles outside Ravenna), by a Ravennese named Ghigi.1 He told Hoppner that as she was now "four years old complete and quite beyond the control of the servants, he had no resource but to place her there for a time, "at a high pension too". He added that he had never intended to give her an English education, for, being a natural child, it would make "her aftersettlement doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education and a portion of 5 or £6000, she might and may marry very respectably". Moreover, he wished her to be a Roman Catholic, "which I look upon as the best religion ".

Claire, on March 24, wrote him a long and angry letter-a letter to infuriate him or any one. Deeply as one feels with her in a bitter grief, there is no doubt that she made her miseries worse than they need have been by the unbridled sarcasm poured upon him who had her and her child in his power. She had the folly to refer to Lady Byron, and by implication to Teresa

1 La Figlia di Lord Byron, Emilio Biondi (Faenza, 1899). (I take title and information from Mr. Prothero's note in L. and J. v. 279.)

Guiccioli-the latter suffering nothing less than contumely at her hands. She implored Byron to allow her to place Allegra at her own expense (which would, of course, have been Shelley's) in one of the very best English boarding-schools; it should be chosen by his own friends. "I will see her only so often as they decide. . . . I entreat you earnestly not to be obdurate on this point. Believe me, in putting Allegra into a convent to ease yourself of the trouble, and to hurt me in my affection for her, you have done almost a greater injury to yourself than to me or her. So blind is hatred !"

Shelley, though sympathising with Claire, defended Byron's action; but his championship did not save him from perfidy on Albé's part. The incident which is to develop in this connection is the worst thing we are told of Byron. In all the rest there has been some saving clause; we have been able to pity, though we were obliged to condemn.

Sending Claire's unhappy letter to Hoppner, he wrote across the top: "The moral part of the letter upon the Italians comes with an excellent grace from the writer now living with a man and his wife and having planted a child in the Fl-Foundling, etc.".

This referred to a calumny against Shelley which had come to Hoppner's ears in the spring of 1820 through a pair of servants -Elise the Swiss nurse, and one Paolo Foggi, who, after having betrayed her, had been induced to marry her. Paolo was soon afterwards dismissed from Shelley's service for misconduct; and out of revenge, began to spread scandals. Byron had at first half-heartedly defended his friend, against whom Hoppner's feeling had wholly turned; but soon he wrote: "The story is true, no doubt, though Elise is but Queen's evidence. Of the facts, however, there can be little doubt; it is just like them ".

Writing to Mary from Ravenna in August 1821 (he was there as Byron's guest), Shelley gave her an epitome." Elise says that Claire was my mistress. . . . She then proceeds to say that Claire was with child by me; that I gave her the most violent medicines to procure abortion; that this not succeeding she was brought to bed, and that I immediately tore the child from her and sent it to the Foundling Hospital. . . . In addition, she says that both I and Claire treated you in the most shameful manner; that I neglected and beat you, and that Claire never let a day pass without offering you insults of the most violent kind, in which she was abetted by me". The Hoppners had declined all intercourse; Shelley and Mary had wondered-here was the explanation. Already they had known of Paolo's

1 Claire, as we have seen, was not living with the Shelleys at this time.

schemes; there had been an attempt at blackmail, but the matter had at once been placed in a lawyer's hands, and they had believed it over. "Imagine my despair of good!" cried Shelley now; and he begged Mary to write at once to the Hoppners. She at once did so. Professor Dowden well describes her letter: the clear flame of a woman's indignant love". It is moving in the highest degree. She had tried to copy from Shelley's letter the actual accusations. . . . "Upon my word, I solemnly assure you that I cannot write the words "; 1 and she enclosed Shelley's original letter instead. She sent her own to him first. "I wish also that Lord Byron may see it; he gave no credit to the tale" for Byron had represented himself in this light, when telling Shelley the reason for the Hoppners' withdrawal. He had promised Mr. Hoppner in the spring that the accusations should be concealed from Shelley; but on the first night of their meeting at Ravenna, he had told all-and now, by the letter from Mary, Hoppner would learn that he had broken his word.

Shelley handed it to him, in utter trust for the future as for the past. Byron "engaged to send it, with his own comments, to the Hoppners". So Shelley told Mary on August 16. Albé had confessed that he had broken his word to Hoppner; and Shelley accepted this as a good reason for his wishing to send the letter, with his own comments, himself.

The letter was found among Byron's papers after his death." Mr. Prothero thinks it not impossible that it was sent and at Byron's request returned. "As the answer to a charge closely affecting the mother of Allegra, it would be natural that he should wish to keep the document ". He also refers to a subsequent conversation of Mary Shelley's with the Hoppners as being among Lady Shelley's recollections; but seems to cite

"

1 "I think I could as soon have died ", she wrote to her husband. In Lord Byron's Correspondence (1922) it was first publicly made known that the letter was found with a broken seal. The seal was Shelley's, in red wax; and at the top of the seal there was a drop of black sealing-wax, with a scrap of paper attached to it." (Corr. II, 192). Mary's envelope had borne no address, so that if the letter reached its destination, "it must have been conveyed under a separate cover (Ibid.). Mr. Edgcumbe, in the Correspondence, pertinently inquires: Who broke Shelley's seal? (Byron had already read the letter.) He is convinced that it cannot have been Hobhouse, as executor, and therefore takes it as certain that the seal was already broken. He thinks, with Lord Ernle, that the letter was sent by Byron and at his request returned to him. (L. and J. v. 74.) I think we may indulge the hope, indubitably pointed to by the broken seal and the adherent scrap of paper, that Byron did send the letter. Nevertheless, I leave my text as it stands, for we are still confronted by the facts that Mary received no answer, and that she cut Mrs. Hoppner " completely" in 1843. Mr. Edgcumbe hopes that the Hoppner papers may some day come to light, and reveal more than we now possess of the truth of this vexed question.