stream on this part of the European bank must arrive at the Asiatic shore." This is so far from being the case, that it must arrive in the Archipelago if left to the current, although a strong wind from the Asiatic side might have such an effect occasionally.

'Mr. Turner attempted the passage from the Asiatic side, and failed; "after five-and-twenty minutes, in which he did not advance a hundred yards, he gave it up, from complete exhaustion." This is very possible, and might have occurred to him just as readily on the European side. I particularly stated, and Mr. Hobhouse has done so also, that we were obliged to make the real passage of one mile extend to between three and four, owing to the force of the stream. I can assure Mr. Turner that his success would have given me great pleasure; as it would have added one more instance to the proofs of its practicability. It is not quite fair in him to infer that, because he failed, Leander could not succeed.

'There are still four instances on record-a Neapolitan, a young Jew, Mr. Ekenhead, and myself: the two last were in the presence of hundreds of English witnesses. With regard to the difference of the current, I perceived none; it is favorable to the swimmer on neither side, but may be stemmed by plunging into the sea a considerable way above the opposite point of the coast which the swimmer wishes to make, but still bearing up against it: it is strong; but, if you calculate well, you may reach land. My own experience, and that of others, bids me pronounce the passage of Leander perfectly practicable: any young man in good health, and with tolerable skill in swimming, might succeed in it from either side. I was three hours in swimming across the Tagus, which is much more hazardous, being two hours longer than the passage of the Hellespont. Of what may be done in swimming I shall mention one more instance. In 1818, the Chevalier Mingaldo, (a gentleman of Bassano,) a good swimmer, wished to swim with my friend Mr. Alexander Scott and myself: as he seemed particularly anxious on the subject, we indulged him.-We all three started from the Island of the Lido, and swam to Venice.-At the entrance of the Grand Canal Scott and I were a good way ahead, and we saw no more of our foreign friend; which, however, was of no consequence, as there was a gondola to hold his clothes, and pick him up. Scott swam on till past the Rialto, where he got out-less from fatigue than chill, having been-four hours in the water without rest, or stay, except what is to be obtained by floating on one's back;-this being the condition of our performance. I continued my course on to Santa Chiara, com

I

prising the whole of the Grand Canal, (beside the distance from the Lido,) and got out where the Laguna once more opens to Fusina. had been in the water, by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes. To this match, and during the greater part of the performance, Mr. Hoppner, the consul-general, was witness, and it is well known to many others. Mr. Turner can easily verify the fact, if he thinks it worth while, by referring to Mr. Hoppner. The distance we could not accurately ascertain; it was of course considerable.

'I crossed the Hellespont in one hot and ten minutes only. I am now ten years older in time, and twenty in constitution, than I was when I passed the Dardanelles ; and yet, two years ago, I was capable of swimming four hours and twenty minutes; and I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsersan accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. My two companions were also four hours in the water. Mingaldo might be about thirty years of age, Scott about six-and-twenty. With this experience in swimming, at different periods of age, not only on the spot, but elsewhere, of various persons, what is there to make me doubt that Leander's exploit was perfectly practicable? If three individuals did more than passing the Hellespont, why should he have done less? But Mr. Turner failed, and, naturally seeking a plausible excuse for his failure, lays the blame on the Asiatic side of the strait. To me the cause is evident; he tried to swim directly across, instead of going higher up to take the vantage.-He might as well have tried to fly over Mount Athos.

'That a young Greek of the heroic times, in love, and with his limbs in full vigour, might have succeeded in such an attempt, is neither wonderful nor doubtful. Whether he attempted it or not, is another question, because he might have had a small boat to save him the trouble. 'I am, yours very truly,

• BYRON.

'P. S. Mr. Turner says, that the swimming from Europe to Asia was "the easiest part of the task." I doubt whether Leander found it so, as it was the return: however, he had several hours between the intervals. The argument of Mr. T. "that, higher up, or lower down, the strait widens so considerably that he would save little labour by his starting," is only good for indifferent swimmers. A man of any practice or skill will always consider the distance less than the strength of the stream. If Ekenhead and myself had thought of crossing at the

narrowest point, instead of going up to the Cape above it, we should have been swept down to Tenedos. The strait is, however, not extraordinarily wide, even where it broadens above and below the forts. As the frigate was stationed some time in the Dardanelles waiting for the firman, I bathed often in the strait, subsequently to our traject, and generally on the Asiatic side, without perceiving the greater strength of the opposing stream, by which Mr. Turner palliates his own failure. Our amusement in the small bay, which opens immediately below the Asiatic fort, was to dive for the land tortoises, which we flung in on purpose, as they amphibiously crawled along the bottom: this does not argue any greater violence of current than on the European shore. With regard to the modest insinuation, that we chose the European side as " easier," I appeal to Mr. Hobhouse and Admiral Bathurst if it be true or no; poor Ekenhead being since dead.-Had we been aware of any such difference of current, as is asserted, we would at least have proved it, and were not likely to have given it up in the twenty-five minutes of Mr. Turner's own experiment.'

With the following stanzas, which perhaps Lord Byron never surpassed, we close our account of his lordship's first poem of real impor

tance:

And thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon returned to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved and long must love

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatched,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it plucked to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne

To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguished, not decayed;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!

The all of thine that cannot die

Through dark and dread Eternity,

Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

CHAPTER III.

THE success of Childe Harold' placed Lord Byron upon a very different footing in the literary world from that which he had occupied before his travels, while even the members of the aristocracy courted his society, and were glad to recognise him as one of their own body. Upon this occasion they had good taste and good sense enough to perceive that genius like that of the noble poet seldom blossomed among them; and that, when it did, they ought to prize it no less for its intriusic value than for its rarity. Lord Byron, however, was too deeply penetrated with a sense of other and more really noble pursuits, to catch very eagerly at the temptation which was held out to him. The circle of his acquaintance was but little increased; he usually lived in comparative retirement; and, when he mixed in the gay world, it was only by assisting at the parties of his relations and the very limited number of his most intimate friends.

For several years after his arrival in London he occupied chambers in the Albany, where his establishment was extremely quiet, and, in the French sense of the word, modeste. His only domestics were a