He left in September with La Guiccioli, passed by Lerici
and Sestri, and then for the ten remaining mouths of his Italian life took
up his quarters at Albaro, about a mile to the east of the city, in the
Villa Saluzzo, which Mrs. Shelley had procured for him and his party. She
herself settled with the Hunts--who travelled about the same time, at
Byron's expense, but in their own company--in the neighbouring Casa
Negroto. Not far off, Mr. Savage Landor was in possession of the Casa
Pallavicini, but there was little intercourse between the three. Landor
and Byron, in many respects more akin than any other two Englishmen of
their age, were always separated by an unhappy bar or intervening mist.
The only family with whom the poet maintained any degree of intimacy was
that of the Earl of Blessington, consisting of the Earl himself--a gouty
old gentleman, with stories about him of the past--the Countess, and her
sister, Miss Power, and the "cupidon dechaine," the Anglo-French Count
Alfred d'Orsay--who were to take part in stories of the future. In the
spring of 1823, Byron persuaded them to occupy the Villa Paradiso, and was
accustomed to accompany them frequently on horseback excursions along the
coast to their favourite Nervi.
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