In the Spring of 1816, at the age of twenty-eight, Byron left England forever,--a voluntary exile on the face of the earth, saddened, embittered, and disappointed. It was to Italy that he turned his steps, passing through Brussels and Flanders, lingering on the Rhine, enamored with its ruined castles, still more with Nature, and making a long stay in Switzerland. Here he visited the Castle of Chillon, all the spots made memorable by the abodes of Rousseau, Gibbon, and Madame de Staël, and all the most interesting scenery of the Bernese Alps,--Lake Leman, Interlaken, Thun, the Jungfrau, the glaciers, Brientz, Chamouni, Berne, and on to Geneva, where he made the acquaintance of Shelley and his wife. The Shelleys he found most congenial, and stayed with them some time. While in the neighborhood of Geneva he produced the third canto of "Childe Harold," "The Prisoner of Chillon," "A Dream," and other things. In October, he passed on to Milan, Verona, and Venice; and in this latter city he took up his residence. Oh that we could blot out Byron's life in Venice, made up of love adventures and dissipation and utter abandonment to those pleasures that appealed to his lower nature, as if he were possessed by a demon, utterly reckless of his health, his character, and his fame! Venice was then the most immoral city in Italy, given over to idleness and pleasure. It was here that Byron's contempt for woman became fixed, seeing only her weaknesses and follies; and it was this contempt of woman which intensified the abhorrence in which his character was generally held, in the most respectable circles in England. Even in distant Venice his baleful light was not under a bushel, and the scandals of his life extended far and wide,--especially that in reference to Margherita Cogni, an illiterate virago who could neither read nor write, and whom he was finally compelled to discard on account of the violence of her temper, after living with her in the most open manner. And yet, in all this degradation, he was not idle. How could so prolific a writer be idle! Byron did not ordinarily rise till two o'clock in the afternoon, and spent the interval between his breakfast and dinner in riding on the Lido,--one of those long narrow islands which lie between the Adriatic and the Lagoon, in the midst of which Venice is built, on the islets arising from its shallow waters. Yet he found time to begin his "Don Juan," besides writing the "Lament of Tasso," the tragedy of "Manfred," and an Armenian grammar, all which appeared in 1817; in 1818, "Beppo," and in 1819, "Mazeppa." He also made a flying trip to Florence and Rome, and some of the finest stanzas of "Childe Harold" are descriptions of the classic ruins and the masterpieces of Grecian and mediaeval art,--the beauties and the associations of Italy's great cities.