is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the
possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his
gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if
hating to return to his home. It is, indeed, certain, that to this least
defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the
short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach; and among the causes
of the detestation which he afterwards felt for Venice, this
recollection of the excesses to which he had there abandoned himself was
not the least prominent.

The most distinguished and, at last, the reigning favourite of all this
unworthy Harem was a woman named Margarita Cogni, who has been already
mentioned in one of these letters, and who, from the trade of her
husband, was known by the title of the Fornarina. A portrait of this
handsome virago, drawn by Harlowe when at Venice, having fallen into the
hands of one of Lord Byron's friends after the death of that artist, the
noble poet, on being applied to for some particulars of his heroine,
wrote a long letter on the subject, from which the following are
extracts:--

"Since you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you shall be told
it, though it may be lengthy.

"Her face is the fine Venetian cast of the old time; her figure,
though perhaps too tall, is not less fine--and taken altogether in
the national dress.

"In the summer of 1817, * * * * and myself were sauntering on
horseback along the Brenta one evening, when, amongst a group of