Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/101

Rh L[ord] B[yron] made the servant put down the plated candlestick, to take up a brass one; went to bed.

[This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd incident, not easily accounted for. One cannot suppose that Byron simply aimed at humiliating or mortifying his physician. There must have been a candle in each candlestick; and it is conceivable that the candle in the brass one was the longer, and therefore the more suitable for an invalid who might have needed it throughout the night.]

Medicine had violent effect: better on the whole, though weak.

Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at my chamber-door, who told me he had heard so bad an account of my positively dying that he came to enquire how I found myself. I asked him in. He took care to tell us he was a great friend of the Grand Duke, who had sent his groom of the stole (he called it stool) in search of lodgings for the worthy Mayor; gave us a long sermon about rheumatism, routes, etc.; left us. In the evening he sent in the Guide du Voyageur en les pays de l' Europe, begging in return some of L[ord] B[yron's] poems.