, 54-58). Of Cadiz, the
next stage, he writes with enthusiasm as a modern Cythera, describing the
bull fights in his verse, and the beauties in glowing prose. The belles of
this city, he says, are the Lancashire witches of Spain; and by reason of
them, rather than the sea-shore or the Sierra Morena, "sweet Cadiz is the
first spot in the creation." Hence, by an English frigate, they sailed to
Gibraltar, for which place he has nothing but curses. Byron had no
sympathy with the ordinary forms of British patriotism, and in our great
struggle with the tyranny of the First Empire, he may almost be said to
have sympathized with Napoleon.
The ship stopped at Cagliari in Sardinia, and again at Girgenti on the
Sicilian coast. Arriving at Malta, they halted there for three weeks--time
enough to establish a sentimental, though Platonic, flirtation with Mrs.
Spencer Smith, wife of our minister at Constantinople, sister-in-law of
the famous admiral, and the heroine of some exciting adventures. She is
the "Florence" of _Childe Harold_, and is afterwards addressed in some of
the most graceful verses of his cavalier minstrelsy--
Do thou, amidst the fair white walls,
If Cadiz yet be free,
At times from out her latticed halls
Look o'er the dark blue sea--
Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endear'd by days gone by,--
To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh.
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