Madame Durazzo was a quick-witted and accomplished woman, and her vivacious and sympathetic nature was hardly less remarkable than her personal charm. There is evidence enough that she made a considerable impression upon the young English statesman, who, indeed, wrote a sonnet about her. Lord John's verdict on Italy and the Italians is pithily expressed in a hitherto unpublished extract from his journal:--'Italy is a delightful country for a traveller--every town full of the finest specimens of art, even now, and many marked by remains of antiquity near one another--all different. Easy travelling, books in plenty, living cheap and tolerably good--what can a man wish for but a little grace and good taste in dress amongst women? Men of science abound in Italy--the Papal Government discouraged them at Rome; but the country cannot be said to be behind the world in knowledge. Poets, too, are plenty; I never read their verses.' Meanwhile, the condition of England was becoming critical. Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and other great towns were filled with angry discontent, and turbulent mass meetings of the people were held to protest against any further neglect of their just demands for political representation. Major Cartwright advised these great unrepresented communities to 'send a petition in the form of a living man instead of one on parchment or paper,' so that he might state in unmistakable terms their demands to the Speaker. Sir Charles Wolseley, a Staffordshire baronet and a friend of Burdett, was elected with a great flourish of trumpets at Birmingham to act in this capacity, and Manchester determined also to send a representative, and on August 16, 1819, a great open-air meeting was called to give effect to this resolution. The multitude were dispersed by the military, and readers of Bamford's 'Passages in the Life of a Radical' will remember his graphic and detailed description of the scene of tumult and bloodshed which followed, and which is known as the Peterloo Massacre. The carnage inspired Shelley's magnificent 'Mask of Anarchy':-- ... One fled past, a maniac maid, And her name was Hope, she said: But she looked more like Despair, And she cried out in the air: 'My father Time is weak and grey With waiting for a better day.' [Sidenote: OIL AND VINEGAR]