distinctly. The port itself is a small land-locked gulf, or, as the Scottish Highlander would call it, a loch. The banks are rocky and forbidding; the hills, which rise to the altitude of mountains, have, in a long course of ages, been always inhabited by a civilized people. Their precipitous sides are formed into innumerable artificial terraces, the aspect of which, austere, ruinous, and ancient, produces on the mind of the stranger a sense of the presence of a greater antiquity than the sight of monuments of mere labour and art. The town stands high upon the mountain, I counted on the lower side of the road which leads to it forty-nine of those terraces at one place under me, and on the opposite hills, in several places, upwards of sixty. Whether Lord Byron ascended to the town is doubtful. I have never heard him mention that he had; and I am inclined to think that he proceeded at once to Athens by one of the boats which frequent the harbour.

At Athens he met an old fellow-collegian, the Marquis of Sligo, with whom he soon after travelled as far as Corinth; the Marquis turning off there for Tripolizza, while Byron went forward to Patras, where he had some needful business to transact with the consul. He then made the tour of the Morea, in the course of which he visited the vizier Velhi Pashaw, by whom he was treated, as every other English traveller of the time was, with great distinction and hospitality.

Having occasion to go back to Patras, he was seized by the local fever there, and reduced to death's door. On his recovery he returned to Athens, where he found the Marquis, with Lady Hester Stanhope, and Mr. Bruce, afterward so celebrated for his adventures in assisting the escape of the French general Lavalette. He took possession of the apartments which I had occupied in the monastery, and made them his home during the remainder of his residence in Greece; but when I returned to

Athens, in October, he was not there himself. I found, however, his valet, Fletcher, in possession.

There is no very clear account of the manner in which Lord Byron employed himself after his return to Athens; but various intimations in his correspondence show that during the winter his pen was not idle. It would, however, be to neglect an important occurrence, not to notice that during the time when he was at Athens alone, the incident which he afterward imbodied in the impassioned fragments of the Giaour came to pass; and to apprize the reader that the story is founded on an adventure which happened to himself-he was, in fact, the cause of the girl being condemned, and ordered to be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the sea.

One day, as he was returning from bathing in the Piræus, he met the procession going down to the shore to execute the sentence which the Waywode had pronounced on the girl; and learning the object of the ceremony, and who was the victim, he immediately interfered with great resolution; for, on observing some hesitation on the part of the leader of the escort to return with him to the governor's house, he drew a pistol and threatened to shoot him on the spot. The man then turned about, and accompanied him back, when, partly by bribery and entreaty, he succeeded in obtaining a pardon for her, on condition that she was sent immediately out of the city. Byron conveyed her to the monastery, and on the same night sent her off to Thebes, where she found a safe asylum.

With this affair, I may close his adventures in Greece; for, although he remained several months subsequent at Athens, he was in a great measure stationary. His health, which was never robust, was impaired by the effects of the fever, which lingered about him; perhaps, too, by the humiliating anxiety he suffered on account of the uncertainty in his remittances. But however this may have

been, it was fortunate for his fame that he returned to England at the period he did, for the climate of the Mediterranean was detrimental to his constitution. The heat oppressed him so much as to be positive suffering, and scarcely had he reached Malta, on his way home, when he was visited again with a tertian ague.

CHAPTER XXV.

Arrival in London-Mr. Dallas's Patronage-Arranges for the Publication of Childe Harold-The Death of Mrs. Byron-His Sorrow-His Affair with Mr. Moore--Their Meeting at Mr. Rogers's House, and Friendship.

LORD BYRON arrived in London about the middle of July, 1811, having been absent a few days more than two years. The embarrassed condition in which he found his affairs sufficiently explains the dejection and uneasiness with which he was afflicted during the latter part of his residence in Greece; and yet it was not such as ought to have affected him so deeply, nor have I ever been able to comprehend wherefore so much stress has been laid on his supposed friendlessness. In respect both to it and to his ravelled fortune, a great deal too much has been too often said; and the manliness of his character has suffered by the puling.

His correspondence shows that he had several friends to whom he was much attached, and his disposition justifies the belief that, had he not been well persuaded the attachment was reciprocal, he would not have remained on terms of intimacy with them. And though for his rank not rich, he was still able to maintain all its suitable exhibition. The world could never regard as an object of compassion or of sympathy an English noble, whose in

come was enough to support his dignity among his peers, and whose poverty, however grievous to his pride, caused only the privation of extravagance. But it cannot be controverted, that there was an innate predilection in the mind of Lord Byron to mystify every thing about himself: he was actuated by a passion to excite attention, and, like every other passion, it was often indulged at the expense of propriety. He had the infirmity of speaking, though vaguely, and in obscure hints and allusions, more of his personal concerns than is commonly deemed consistent with a correct estimate of the interest which mankind take in the cares of one another. But he lived to feel and to rue the consequences: to repent he could not, for the cause was in the very element of his nature. It was a blemish as incurable as the deformity of his foot.

On his arrival in London, his relation, Mr. Dallas, called on him, and in the course of their first brief conversation his Lordship mentioned that he had written a paraphrase of Horace's Art of Poetry, but said nothing then of Childe Harold, a circumstance which leads me to suspect that he offered him the slighter work first, to enjoy his surprise afterward at the greater. If so, the result answered the intent. Mr. Dallas carried home with him the paraphrase of Horace, with which he was grievously disappointed; so much so, that on meeting his Lordship again in the morning, and being reluctant to speak of it as he really thought, he only expressed some surprise that his noble friend should have produced nothing else during his long absence.

I can easily conceive the emphatic indifference, if my conjecture be well founded, with which Lord Byron must have said to him, "I have occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser's measure, relative to the countries I have visited: they are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you, if you like."

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was accordingly placed in his hands; Mr. Dallas took it home, and was not slow in discovering its beauties, for in the course of the same evening he despatched a note to his Lordship, as fair a specimen of the style of an elderly patronising gentleman as can well be imagined: "You have written," said he, "one of the most delightful poems I ever read. If I wrote this in flattery, I should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship. I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold, that I have not been able to lay it down; I would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honour and regard, if you will do me the credit and favour of attending to my suggestions."

For some reason or another, Lord Byron, however, felt or feigned great reluctance to publish Childe Harold. Possibly his repugnance was dictated by diffidence, not wîth respect to its merits, but from a consciousness that the hero of the poem exhibited traits and resemblances of himself. It would indeed be injustice to his judgment and taste, to suppose he was not sensible of the superiority of the terse and energetic poetry which brightens and burns in every stanza of the pilgrimage, compared with the loose and sprawling lines, and dull rhythm, of the paraphrase. It is true that he alleged it had been condemned by a good critic-the only one who had previously seen it-probably Mr. Hobhouse, who was with him during the time he was writing it; but still I cannot conceive he was so blind to excellence, as to prefer in sincerity the other composition, which was only an imitation. But the arguments of Mr. Dallas prevailed, and in due season Childe Harold was prepared for the press.

In the mean time, while busily engaged in his literary projects with Mr. Dallas, and in law affairs with his agent, he was suddenly summoned to New