Shelley, invited by Lord Byron to come to Ravenna so that they might discuss important matters, found the Pilgrim in brilliant fettle. He looked in splendid health; for the reign of the Guiccioli had rescued him from the degrading libertinage of Venice. Fletcher himself had grown fatter, as the shadow increases in proportion with the body which throws it. The Palazzo Guiccioli was a splendid affair, the household mounted on a royal scale. On the marble staircase Shelley met with every kind of animal making himself at home. Eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a parrot, and a falcon quarrelled together and made it up as it suited them. There were ten horses in the stables. Byron welcomed him with great friendliness, and the night was passed in reading and discussing Byron’s poems. The new cantos of _Don Juan_ appeared admirable to Shelley. His contact with Byron’s genius always reduced him to despair. Beside the solid structure of Byron’s verse, his own seemed strangely fragile. He told Byron he ought to write a poem which would be for his time what the _Iliad_ was for the Greeks. But Byron affected to despise posterity, and to take no interest in poetry except at a thousand guineas the canto. Once again Shelley, the Ascetic, was obliged to adapt himself to the habits and customs of Byron the Magnificent. They got up at mid-day, they breakfasted at two, and worked until six in the evening. They rode from six to eight, dined, and spent the night talking until six o’clock next morning. Byron did not talk merely of poetry. From the very first day, and with the most friendly air in the world, he posted Shelley up in the scandalous stories circulating about him amongst the English in Italy. In spite of having promised the Hoppners not to give them away, he showed Shelley the letter containing the calumnies of Elise. He declared, of course, that he had never given the smallest credence to the ridiculous tale, but that the Hoppners should have been so ready to believe it was to Shelley a heart-breaking blow. He wrote immediately to Mary. _Shelley to Mary Shelley._ “RAVENNA, _Aug. 7, 1821_.