Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron
Lord Byron to Edward John Trelawny, 22 June 1823
I have engaged a vessel (now on her way to Leghorn to
unload), and on her return to Genoa we embark. She is called the ‘Hercules;’ you can come back in her, if you like,
it will save you a land journey. I need not say I shall like your company of
all things. I want a surgeon, native or foreign, to take charge of medical
stores, and be in personal attendance. Salary, a hundred pounds a year, and his
treatment at our table, as a companion and a gentleman. He must have
recommendations, of course. Could you look out for me?
Perhaps you can consult Vacca, to whom I
have written on the same subject; we are, however, pressed for time a little. I
expect you with impatience, and am ever yours,
Edward John Trelawny (1792-1881)
Writer, adventurer, and friend of Shelley and Byron; author of the fictionalized memoirs,
Adventures of a Younger Son (1831) and
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858).
Andrea Vacca Berlinghieri (1772-1826)
Italian surgeon at the University of Pisa who had studied in London with William Hunter
and attended Byron in Italy; he was a political liberal.