“I fear my letter is written in a very incoherent style, but as I really cannot bring myself to go over this disgusting subject a second time; hope you will endeavour to comprehend it as it stands. . . .
“Adieu, my dear Lord, Believe me, Ever your——faithful Servant,
“R. B. HOPPNER.” _Byron to Hoppner._ “MY DEAR HOPPNER,
“Your letters and papers came very safely, though slowly, missing one post. The Shiloh story is true no doubt though Elise is but a sort of _Queen’s evidence_. You remember how eager she was to return to them, and then she goes away and abuses them. Of the facts, however, there can be little doubt; it is just like them. You may be sure that I keep your counsel.
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.