Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/115

Rh appears to me extremely probable; for Byron had certainly arranged to meet Clare near Geneva, and he may very likely have given the requisite notice beforehand to his travelling physician and daily associate. My aunt Charlotte Polidori was not an adept in Shelleian detail: if she had been, I fear that these sentences would have shocked her sense of propriety, and they would have been left uncopied. They form the only passage in her transcript which bears in any way upon the amour between Lord Byron and Miss Clairmont; to the best of my recollection and belief there was not in the original Diary any other passage pointing in the same direction.—I may observe here that there is nothing in Polidori's Journal to show that the Shelley party were staying in the same Sécheron hotel with Lord Byron. Professor Dowden says that they were—I suppose with some sufficient authority; and I think other biographers in general have assumed the same.]

Into the calèche; horloger's at Geneva; L[ord] B[yron] paid 15 nap. towards a watch; I, 13: repeater and minute-hand; foolish watch.

[This means (as one of Polidori's letters shows) that Byron made him a present of £15 towards the price of the watch.]

Went to see the house of Madame Necker, 100 a half-year; came home, etc.