Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/36

 the painter, (do you remember our visit, with Leckie, to the German?) to be depicted as one of the heroes of Agincourt, with his long sword, saddle, bridle, Whak fal de," &c. &c.

We thus find, from the letter of Byron to his friend Moore, that the Blessingtons were accompanied by the Count Alfred D'Orsay in their visit to his lordship, and that he was one of the party on their arrival and at their departure from Genoa.

It is probable that the arrangements for the count's journey to Italy with the Blessingtons had been made in Paris, though he did not accompany them from that city, but joined them first at Valence on the Rhone, and subsequently at Avignon.

D'Orsay, who had been attached to the French army of the pretended expedition against Spain, abandoned his profession in an evil hour for the career of a mere man of pleasure and of fashion.

Byron and the Blessingtons continued to live on the most intimate terms, we are told by Lady Blessington, during the stay of the latter at Genoa; and that intimacy had such a happy influence on the author of Childe Harold, that he began to abandon his misanthropy. On the other hand, I am assured by the Marquise de Boissy, formerly Countess of Guiccioli, that the number of visits of Byron to Lady Blessington during the entire period of her sojourn in Genoa, did not exceed five or six at the utmost, and that Byron was by no means disposed to afford the opportunities that he believed were sought, to enable a lady of a literary turn to write about him. But