his lordship to obtain it would not have been avowed by an inferior mind. After inserting the letters, Moore says:

"It can hardly, I think, be necessary to call the reader's attention to the good sense, self-possession, and frankness, of these letters of Lord Byron. I had placed him-by the somewhat national confusion which I had made of the boundaries of peace and war, of hostility and friendship-in a position which, ignorant as he was of the character of the person who addressed him, it required all the watchfulness of his sense of honour to guard from surprise or snare. Hence the judicious reserve with which he abstained from noticing my advances towards acquaintance, till he should have ascertained exactly whether the explanation which he was willing to give would be such as his correspondent would be satisfied to receive. The moment he was set at rest on this point, the frankness of his nature displayed itself; and the disregard of all further mediation or etiquette, with which he at once professed himself ready to meet me when, where, and how' I pleased, shewed that he could be as pliant and confiding after such an understanding, as he had been judiciously reserved and punctilious before it.

"Such did I find Lord Byron, on my first experience of him; and such-so open and manly-minded -did I find him to the last."

THOMAS MOORE.

It is to his lordship's correspondence with his friend that we are indebted for that display of the workings of his wondrous mind during the eventful years of his short life. Towards Moore he seems to have had no reserve -no one appears to have had so implicitly his confidence, unless it be Mr. Murray. In 1819, Mr. Moore, on his way to Rome, visited Byron at Venice; and his sketch of their meeting there is very interesting. "The delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident rarity to him of such meetings of late, and the frank outbreak of cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly evident he experienced at this moment."

Moore had called upon his noble friend at La Mira, his campagna on the banks of the Brenta; and they proceeded together to Lord Byron's house, the Moncenigo Palace at Venice, which his lordship insisted upon Moore's occupying during his stay. Dinner was immediately ordered from a trattoria; and whilst waiting for it, and looking out of the window upon the Grand

Canal, a gondola, with two English gentlemen in it, passed; they looked towards the window, when Lord Byron, in the joyousness of delight at having his friend with him, put his arms a-kimbo, and said, with a comic swagger, "Ah, if you, John Bulls, knew who the two fellows are, now standing up here, I think you would stare." At Venice they spent five or six days together, seeing sights, taking aquatic excursions, and rides on the Lido: thus passed the day-the evenings were spent in society. It was during this visit that Lord Byron put into the hands of his friend those memoirs, about the destruction of which so much mystery hangs. On the day of their separation, Moore says: "A short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or two returned, carrying in his hand a white leathern bag. Look here,' he said, holding it up, this would be worth something to Murray, though you, I daresay, would not give sixpence for it.' What is it?' I asked. My life and adventures,' he answered. On hearing this, I raised my hands in a gesture of wonder. It is not a thing,' he continued, that can be published during my lifetime; but you may have it, if you like-there, do whatever you please with it.' In taking the bag, and thanking him most warmly, I added, 'This will make a nice legacy for my little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century with it.' And this is nearly word

THOMAS MOORE.

for word the whole of what passed between us on the subject."

"When it was time for me to depart, he expressed his intention to accompany me for a few miles; and, ordering his horses to follow, proceeded with me as far as Strà, where, for the last time-how little thinking it was to be the last!-I bade my kind and admirable friend farewell."

Their correspondence, however, continued until within six weeks of the death of his noble friend, whose last letter to him is dated from Missolonghi, March 4, 1824.