154 Byron's Memoirs. [FEB. 



collected in his house, is curious as a specimen of national manners. In 

 a letter to somebody or other, who had seen this handsome virago's por- 

 trait, and who asked some account of her, he gives the following 

 sketch : 



" Since you desire the story of Margarita Cogni, you shall be told it, 

 though it may be lengthy. 



" Her face is of the fine Venetian cast of the old time ; her figure, though 

 perhaps too tall, is not less fine, taken altogether in the national dress. 



" In the summer of 1817, and myself were sauntering on horseback 



along the Brenta one evening, when, among a group of peasants, we remarked 

 two girls as the prettiest we had seen for some time. About this period, there 

 had been great distress in the country, and I had a little relieved some of the 

 people. Generosity makes a great figure at very little cost in Venetian livres, 

 and mine had probably been exaggerated, as an Englishman's. Whether they 

 remarked us looking at them or not, I know not ; but one of them called out 

 to me in Venetian, ' Why don't you, who think of others, think of us also?' 

 I turned round and said, ' Caza tu sei troppo bellae giovane per aver bisogna 

 del' soccorso mio.'* She answered, ' If you saw my hut and my food, you 

 would not say so.' All this passed half jestingly, and I saw no more of "her 

 for some days. 



"A few evenings after, we met with those two girls again, and they ad- 

 dressed us more seriously, assuring us of the truth of their statement. They 

 were cousins. Margarita was married, the other single. As I doubted still 

 of the circumstances, I took the business in a different light. ***** 



" For a long space of time, she was the only one who preserved over me an 

 ascendancy, which was often disputed, and never impaired. 



" The reasons of this were firstly, her person very dark, tall ; the Ve- 

 netian face, very fine, black eyes She was two and twenty years old. 

 ******. She was, besides, a thorough Venetian in her dialect, in her 

 thoughts, in her countenance, in every thing, with all their naivete and panta- 

 loon humour. Besides, she could neither read nor write, and could not plague 

 me with letters ; except twice that she paid sixpence to a public scribe under 

 the piazza, to make a letter for her, on some occasion when I was ill, and 

 could not see her. In other respects she was somewhat fierce and ' prepotente/ 

 that is, overbearing, and used to walk in whenever it suited her, with no very 

 great regard to time, place, or person ; and if she found any women in her 

 way, she knocked them down. 



" When I came to Venice for the winter, she followed. But she had inordi- 

 nate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women. At the ' Cavalchina,' 

 the masqued ball on the last night of the Carnival, to which all the world 

 goes, she snatched off the mask of Madame Contarini, a lady noble by birth 

 and decent in conduct, for no other reason, but because she happened to be 

 leaning on my arm. You may suppose what a cursed noise this made; but 

 this is only one of her pranks. 



" At last she quarrelled with her husband, and one evening ran away to my 

 house. I told her this would not do : she said she would lie in the street, but 

 not go back to him ; that he heather (the gentle tigress), spent her money, 

 and scandalously neglected her. As it was midnight, I let her stay ; and next 

 day, there was no moving her at all. Her husband came roaring and crying, 

 and entreating her to come back: not she. He then applied to the police, and 

 they applied to me. I told them and her husband to take her I did not want 

 her. She had come, and I could not fling her out of the window ; but they 

 might conduct her through that, or the door, if they chose it. She went before 

 the commissary, but was obliged to return with her * becco ettico/ as she 

 called the poor man, who had a phthisic. In a few days, she ran away again. 

 After a precious piece of work, she fixed herself in my house, really and truly 

 without my consent; but owing to my indolence, and not being able to keep 



* " My dear, you are too pretty and young to want any help of mine." 



