dignified, and formal satire of Pope and Gifford. It would, of course, be erroneous to assume that Byron, before he first touched Italian soil in 1816, was unfamiliar with the language. If, as Moore says, he had read little of it up to 1807, he still must have gained some acquaintance with it on his early travels, for on January 14, 1811, he wrote his mother from Athens:--“Being tolerably master of the Italian and Modern Greek languages--I can order and discourse more than enough for a reasonable man.”[175] In a letter of August 24, 1811, he used Italian words,[176] and in 1812 he criticized with much intelligence the “Italian rhymes” of W. R. Spencer.[177] There are several references in his Diary to his study of Italian writers.[178] In his library, sold in 1816 to satisfy his creditors, were many Italian books; indeed Fuhrman computes that by that date he had gone through Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Bandello, Ariosto, Alfieri, Monti, and Goldoni, besides many minor historians, essayists, and poets.[179] Finally when he actually set foot in Italy, he was able to assure Murray:--“As for Italian, I am fluent enough.”[180] Nothing up to this time, however, had induced him to become an imitator of the Italians. Although he had commended Hunt’s _Rimini_ for having two excellent features, “originality and Italianism,” he had, apparently, no idea of emulating Hunt in seeking for a stimulus from Italian sources. In mid-October, 1816, Byron arrived in Italy from Switzerland, making his first halt at Milan. From then on until he set out for Greece on July 23, 1823, he was a continuous dweller in the peninsula, settling for a time at and near Venice, in the meanwhile making an excursion to Florence and Rome, going later to Ravenna, and at last residing at Pisa and Genoa. The interesting details of his life in these places are sufficiently well known through his own letters and the records given to the world by Hunt, Medwin, the Countess of Blessington, Trelawney, Moore, and others. His reputation as the author of _Childe Harold_ served as a means of introduction to men of letters; his noble birth procured him admission into social circles; and naturally he acquired an intimate knowledge of Italian customs, as well as a wide acquaintance with the literature of the country, both mediæval and modern. He engaged in several liaisons in Venice, and in 1819 became the accepted _cicisbeo_ of the Countess Guiccioli. By aiding the secret organization of the Carbonari, he enrolled himself in the struggle for Italian independence and made himself an object of suspicion to the police. It is no wonder that he wrote to Moore in 1820:--“I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy--I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of Italy freshest and least influenced by strangers--have seen and become (_pars magna fui_) a portion of their hopes, and fears, and passions.”[181] The immediate consequences of