“It is some months since I have heard from or of you—I think, not since I left Diodati. From Milan I wrote once or twice; but have been here some little time, and intend to pass the winter without removing. I was much pleased with the Lago di Garda, and with Verona, particularly the amphitheatre, and a sarcophagus in a convent garden, which they show as Juliet’s: they insist on the truth of her history. Since my arrival at Venice, the lady of the Austrian governor told me that between Verona and Vicenza there are still ruins of the castle of the Montecchi, and a chapel once appertaining to the Capulets. Romeo seems to have been of Vicenza, by the tradition; but I was a good deal surprised to find so firm a faith in Bandello’s novel, which seems really to have been founded on a fact.
“Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I expected much. It is one of those places which I know before I see them, and has always haunted me the most after the East. I like the gloomy gaiety of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. I do not even dislike the evident decay of the city, though I regret the singularity of its vanished costume: however, there is much left still; the Carnival, too, is coming.
“St. Mark’s, and indeed Venice, is most alive at night. The theatres are not open till nine, and the society is proportionably late. All this is to my taste, but most of your countrymen miss and regret the rattle of hackney coaches, without which they can’t sleep.
“I have got remarkably good apartments in a private house; I
see something of the inhabitants (having had a good many letters to some of
| A. D. 1816. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 61 |
“The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame the Countess d’Albrizzi, whom I know) is, without exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution.
‘In this beloved marble view, Above the works and thoughts of man, What Nature could, but would
not, do, And Beauty and Canova can!
Beyond imagination’s power, Beyond the bard’s defeated art, With immortality her dower, Behold the Helen of the heart!’ |
“The general race of women appear to be handsome; but in
Italy, as on almost all the continent, the highest orders are by no means a well-
| 62 | NOTICES OF THE | A. D. 1816. |
“If you write, address to me here, poste restante, as I shall probably stay the winter over. I never see a newspaper, and know nothing of England, except in a letter now and then from my sister. Of the MS. sent you, I know nothing, except that you have received it, and are to publish it, &c. &c.: but when, where, and how, you leave me to guess; but it don’t much matter.
“I suppose you have a world of works passing through your process for next year? When does Moore’s Poem appear? I sent a letter for him, addressed to your care, the other day.”
