An icy sickness curdling o'er My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain A gasp, a throb, a start of pain, A sigh, and nothing more.' When he recovers he finds himself in a Cossack hut: thence his rise to power and rank has been told, and he ends his tale just in time to find that it has sent the king to sleep. He then lays his old frame at the root of a tree, and falls into a profound slumber. A short time previous to the appearance of Mazeppa a tale had been published, which was by some persons believed to be written by, and by others to be written about, Lord Byron. It was called the 'Vampyre,' and was the production of Mr. Polidori, a young physician, who had lived for some years with Lord Byron in the mixed character of a companion and a medical attendant. He was a person of talent, but was cursed with a heated imagination, which made his life unhappy, and hastened his death. He poisoned himself in his lodgings a few years after the publication of his 'Vampyre.' Lord Byron had a great regard for Mr. Polidori; but he was too fond of indulging his own whims to practise any extraordinary complaisance towards those of others, and particularly for such persons as he looked upon to be his inferiors. Mr. Polidori parted from him in disgust at what he thought ill treatment; and as, among friends, these points cannot be safely decided upon, because both parties are most commonly to blame, it is impossible to say whether he was right or not. Soon after his reaching England he published his tale of the Vampyre,' and it must be admitted that he did all in his power to have it believed there was some mysterious connexion between the subject of his tale and his late patron. Lord Byron was not very well pleased at this, and still less so when he learned that all the world-by which extensive phrase is to be understood the world of foolish and chattering people-believed he was really a vampyre. Melodrames and magic lanterns, poems, parodies, and caricatures, all were created out of this monstrous production, and all of them had some relation to Lord Byron. He could not openly refute all the insinuations which were thus spread respecting him: to attempt such a task would have been no wiser than the attacking so many gnats: the'stings of such insects must be endured, and Lord Byron took no notice of them. In order, however, that his friends might not misunderstand him, nor believe any part of the follies which were afloat, he published, at the end of Ma 4 zeppa,' A Fragment' which he had written some time before, which Polidori had seen, and upon which he had founded his own tale. This small piece is literally what its title imports-a fragment. It describes two English gentlemen, one younger than the other, travelling in the East. The elder has long been in a declining state of health. To his companion's astonishment, he proposed an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus and Sardis; and, although the younger traveller endeavored to dissuade him on the ground of his weakness and illness, he persisted in going. They arrive at a Mahometan cemetery, where the elder becomes so much exhausted that he is unable to proceed. He asks for water, when his younger companion, and the relater of the tale, says: I had some doubts of our being able to find any, and prepared to go in search of it with hesitating despondency-but he desired me to remain; and turning to Suleiman, our janizary, who stood by us smoking with great tranquillity, he said, Suleiman, verbana su,' (i. e. bring some water,) and went on describing the spot where it was to be found with great minuteness, at a small well for camels, a few hundred yards to the right. The janizary obeyed. I said to Darvell, 'How did you know this?'-He replied, 'From our situation, you must perceive that this place was once inhabited, and could not have been so without springs: I have also been here before.' 'You have been here before!-How came you never to mention this to me? and what could you be doing in a place where no one would remain a moment longer than they could help it?' To this question I received no answer. In the mean time Suleiman returned with the water, leaving the serrugee and the horses at the fountain. The quenching of his thirst had the appearance of reviving him for a moment; and I conceived hopes of his being able to proceed, or at least to return, and I urged the attempt. He was silent-and appeared to be collecting his spirits for an effort to speak. He began. This is the end of my journey, and of my life—I came here to die : but I have a request to make, a command-for such my last words must be-You will observe it ?' 6 • Most certainly; but have better hopes.' 'I have no hopes, nor wishes, but this-conceal my death from every human being.' 'I hope there will be no occasion; that you will recover, and’• Peace!-it must be so: promise this.' 'I do.' Swear it, by all that' solemnity. He here dictated an oath of great There is no occasion for this-I will observe your request; and to doubt me is' It cannot be helped-you must swear.' I took the oath it appeared to relieve him. He removed a seal ring from his finger, on which were some Arabic characters, and presented it to me. He proceeded On the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what month you please, but this must be the day), you must fling this ring into the salt springs #ich run into the Bay of Eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of Ceres, and wait one hour.' As I observed that the present was the ninth day of the month, his countenance changed, and he paused. As he sate, evidently becoming more feeble, a stork, with a snake in her beak, perched upon a tombstone near us; and, without devouring her prey, appeared to be steadfastly regarding us. I know not what impelled me to drive it away, but the attempt was useless; she made a few circles in the air, and returned exactly to the same spot. Darvell pointed to it, and smiled: he spoke-I know not whether to himself or to me-but the words were only, 'Tis well!' • What is well? what do you mean?' No matter: you must bury me here this evening, and exactly where that bird is now perched. You know the rest of my injunctions.' He then proceeded to give me several directions as to the manner in which his death might be best concealed. After these were finished, he exclaimed, You perceive that bird?' • Certainly.' And the serpent writhing in her beak ?' 'Doubtless: there is nothing uncommon in it; it is her natural prey. But it is odd that she does not devour it.' He smiled in a ghastly manner, and said, faintly, 'It is not yet time! As he spoke, the stork flew away. My eyes followed it for a moment-it could hardly be longer than ten might be counted. I felt Darvell's weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and, turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead! I was shocked with the sudden certainty, which could not be mistaken-his countenance in a few minutes became nearly black. I should have attributed so rapid a change to poison, had I not been aware that he had no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. The day was de clining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. With the aid of Suleiman's ataghan and my own sabre we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indicated the earth easily gave way, having already received some Mahometan tenant. We dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and, throwing the dry earth upon all that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre. Between astonishment and grief, I was tearless. Thus ends this mysterious fragment, which is, perhaps, more interesting as a specimen of Lord Byron's style of prose narrative than for any other quality. CHAPTER VIII. WHEN Lord Byron arrived at Ravenna his connexion with the Countess Guiccioli was renewed, and soon assumed so unequivocal a shape that even an Italian husband could not be content to let it pass unnoticed. Lord Byron said, as appears from Mr. Medwin's statement of his conversations, that the old count knew and tolerated his wife's flagrant infidelity; but this is wholly untrue, as we have reason to believe. The Count Guiccioli did not like lord Byron-indeed the poet was not a man to make any persons like him but such as he himself had an attachment to. He was, besides, a heretic-a heinous fault in itself: he was, moreover, a liberal; and this could be less easily, and even less safely, pardoned by the count. The consequence of the old nobleman's remonstrances was that his domestic affairs soon became dreadfully embroiled. He insisted on his wife's renouncing her intimacy with Lord Byron she either refused to obey or continued openly to disobey him. Her brother and her father, the Counts Gamba, by whose mediation the scandal might have been prevented, took her part, and did what to our English notions is unutterably shocking-countenanced the illicit connexion of the daughter of one and the sister of the other with Lord Byron. Even in Italy this occasioned no small disturbance; and, while the inexperience and the education of the countess formed some palliation of her misconduct, the part which her brother and father had seen fit to take excited universal detestation and abhorrence. An appeal, in the nature of a judicial complaint, was lodged in the pope's chancery on the behalf of the Count Guiccioli. The cause was heard very much in the way that divorce causes are disposed of in England; and the result was, that the pope ordered the lady to be separated from her husband, at the same time directing that a small annual sum should be paid to her by way of maintenance. This decree of his holiness was, however, coupled with a condition which was somewhat inconvenient to the lady and to her lover. The pope directed that she should not reside out of her father's house; and for a long period she continued, in obedience to this decree, to live in the count's palazzo, Lord Byron constantly visiting her there. The scandal was not a whit diminished by this arrangement, and the Count Guiccioli was, with good reason, heartily enraged at all the parties by whom he was thus openly injured. Finding that, by the common methods of litigation, he could not hope to do any good, he laid a plot, with the consent, as Lord Byron said, of the pope's legate, to carry off his frail moiety from the house of her father, and shut her up in a convent, from which she would in all probability never have escaped alive. Lord Byron prevented this by having her taken clandestinely from Ravenna. After so much has been said about the Countess Guiccioli, the following description of her person may be acceptable, and indeed is almost necessary: The Countess Guiccioli is twenty-three years of age, though she appears no more than seventeen or eighteen. Unlike most of the Italian women, her complexion is delicately fair. Her eyes, large, dark, and languishing, are shaded by the longest eyelashes in the world; and her hair, which is ungathered on her head, plays over her falling shoulders in a profusion of natural ringlets of the darkest auburn. Her figure is, perhaps, too much embonpoint for her height, but her bust is perfect; her features want little of possessing a Grecian regularity of outline; and she has the most beautiful mouth and teeth imaginable. It is impossible to see without admiring-to hear the Guiccioli speak without being fascinated. Her amiability and gentleness show themselves in every intonation of her voice, which, and the |