MISS CHAWORTH.

Drawn by F. Stone, from an Original Miniature.

"I had been long in love with M. A. C., and never told of it, though she had discovered it without. I recollect my sensations, but cannot describe them, and it is as well."-Lord Byron's Diary.

THE early and imperishable affection which was felt by Lord Byron for this lady, and the influence which the destruction of his hopes, not deferred but crushed, had upon his future conduct and happiness, present, from first to last, directly in the expressions of his feeling, or indirectly in its influence upon his character, the most prominent feature in the life of this extraordinary man.

"It was in the year 1803," says Moore, "that his heart, already twice, as we have seen, possessed with the childish notion that it loved, conceived an attachment which-young as he was, even then, for such a feeling-sunk so deep into his mind as to give a colour to all his future life. That unsuccessful loves are generally the most lasting, is a truth, however sad, which unluckily did not require this instance to confirm it.

To the same cause, I fear, must be traced the perfect innocence and romance which distinguish this very early attachment to Miss Chaworth from the many others that succeeded, without effacing it in his heart."

The young poet was in his sixteenth year, and the object of his attachment about two years older. The family of Miss Chaworth resided at Annesley, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newstead; and when Lord Byron was on a visit to the latter place, then in the occupation of Lord Gray de Ruthven, he renewed an intimacy with the Chaworths, which had begun a short time before in London; and during the six weeks of his visit, which he now passed chiefly in her company, he drank deep of fascination, and laid the foundation of that unfortunate affection which lasted his own life, and to which he has given an immortality.

Miss Chaworth was an heiress of large estates, and possessed of much personal beauty; but the difference of two years in their ages-a difference which, two years later, would scarcely have been observed-made her feel that his was the affection of a boy for one who was conscious of being a woman. It was impossible that she could be insensible of his love for her; and Byron was aware that her affections had been given to another. His own mention of his love for her, and the circumstances attending it, must acquit her of having trifled with his feelings, or indulged hopes which she