Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 5: With His Letters and JournalsMoore, Thomas
General
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 5: With His Letters and Journals
Moore, Thomas
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Soon after the above letters were written, Lord Byron removed to Genoa,
having taken a house, called the Villa Saluzzo, at Albaro, one of the
suburbs of that city. From the time of the unlucky squabble with the
serjeant-major at Pisa, his tranquillity had been considerably broken in
upon, as well by the judicial enquiries consequent upon that event, as
by the many sinister rumours and suspicions to which it gave rise.
Though the wounded man had recovered, his friends all vowed vengeance
with the dagger: and the sensation which the affair and its various
consequences had produced was,--to Madame Guiccioli more particularly,
from the situation in which her family stood, in regard to
politics,--distressing and alarming. While the impression, too, of this
event was still recent, another circumstance occurred which, though
comparatively unimportant, had the unlucky effect of again drawing the
attention of the Tuscans to their new visitors. During Lord Byron's
short visit to Leghorn, a Swiss servant in his employ having quarrelled,
on some occasion, with the brother of Madame Guiccioli, drew his knife
upon the young Count, and wounded him slightly on the cheek. This
affray, happening so soon after the other, was productive also of so
much notice and conversation, that the Tuscan government, in its horror
of every thing like disturbance, thought itself called upon to
interfere; and orders were accordingly issued, that, within four days,
the two Counts Gamba, father and son, should depart from Tuscany. To
Lord Byron this decision was, in the highest degree, provoking and
disconcerting; it being one of the conditions of the Guiccioli's
separation from her husband, that she should thenceforward reside under
the same roof with her father. After balancing in his mind between
various projects,--sometimes thinking of Geneva, and sometimes, as we
have seen, of South America,--he at length decided, for the present, to
transfer his residence to Genoa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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