om England. The little daughter of his hostess was brought into the room, and at the sight if the child he started involuntarily. It was with difficulty that he concealed the feelings, hich found expression afterwards in the touching lines, "Well-thou art happy."

On the 30th of June, 1809, Byron started for Lisbon, Malta, Constantinople, &c., the tour to hich we owe the two first cantos of his matchless 'Childe Harold.' They were begun at pannina in Albania, and ended at Smyrna, 1810.

Like Scott, Byron seems to have endeavoured by strength of will and persevering exercise to tone for the defect of nature in his malformed limb. He was an excellent swimmer, as well skilful in all athletic exercises, and on the 3rd of May, 1810, he achieved the feat of swimming cross the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos.

A personal description of Byron at this time may not be uninteresting. It was written by a aveller who at this period met the poet at Constantinople. "We were interrupted in our ebate by the entrance of a stranger, whom at the first glance I guessed to be an Englishman. He wore a scarlet coat, richly embroidered with gold, in the style of an English aide-de-camp's ress uniform, with two heavy epaulettes. His countenance announced him to be about the ge of twenty-two. His features were remarkably delicate, and would have given him an ffeminate appearance but for the manly expression of his fine blue eyes. On entering the ner shop he took off his feathered cocked hat, and showed a head of curly auburn hair, which proved in no small degree the uncommon beauty of his face." *

"

In June, 1811, Byron returned to England. It was but a cheerless prospect which met him n his arrival. "To the dreariness of a home without affection," says Moore, was added the urden of an establishment without means; and he had thus all the embarrassments of domestic fe without its charms. His affairs during his absence had been let fall into confusion.even reater than their inherent tendency to such a state warranted: there had even been, the preeding year, an execution on Newstead for a debt of £1500, owing to the Messrs. Brothers, pholsterers." His friend, Mr. Dallas, saw him soon after his arrival in London, and Byron told im that he had written a paraphrase of Horace's 'Art of Poetry,' to be a good finish to 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers'; Dallas offered to superintend the publication, and took the parahrase home to look over. He was greatly disappointed with it; and breakfasting with the poct he next morning, he could not refrain from expressing surprise that he had produced nothing else uring his absence. "Lord Byron," said Mr. Dallas, told me that he had occasionally written hort poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser's measure, relative to the countries he had isited. They are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you if you ke.' So came I by Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.' He took it from a small trunk with a umber of verses. He said they had been read but by one person, who had found very little to ommend, and much to condemn; that he himself was of that opinion, and he was sure I should be so too. Such as it was, however, it was at my service; but he was urgent that the 'Hints rom Horace' should be immediately put in train, which I promised to have done." Mr. Dallas nstantly detected the value of the despised poems, and urged the poet to let him publish them. But Byron was excessively reluctant to do so; and it was not without difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to allow it. He said again and again that I was going to get him into a scrape with his old enemies, and that none of them would rejoice more than the Edinburgh Reviewers o humble him."

It was fortunate that he had such a friend as Mr. Dallas by him, or that detestable 'Review' might have silenced for ever the strains which showed the real genius of the poet. The MS. was placed in the hands of Mr. Murray, then of Fleet Street; but before proceeding further Byron was called suddenly to Newstead by the news of his mother's dangerous illness. Though he tarted instantly from town he arrived there too late. Mrs. Byron had expired before he reached The Abbey. In spite of her temper, and of the cruel taunts in which she had indulged on his meness, Byron had always treated his mother with respect and attention.

Moore's Life of Byron,' vol. i. p. 332.

He felt her death

deeply. "On the night after his arrival at Newstead," says Moore, "the waiting-woman Mrs. Byron, in passing the door of the room where the deceased lady lay, heard a sound as some one sighing heavily within, and on entering the chamber found, to her surprise, Lo Byron sitting in the dark beside the bed. On her representing to him the weakness of th giving way to grief, he burst into tears and exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. By, I had but one friend the world, and she is gone!" But with strange eccentricity, he refused the next day to follow mother to the grave, and when the funeral had moved off, told young Rushton to fetch the sparri gloves, and proceeded to his usual exercise of boxing; but at last the struggle against feeli was too much for him, he flung down the gloves, and retired to his room.

During Byron's absence from England a challenge had been sent to him by Tom Moore, account of some lines and a note in the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers'; this challeng was (in a manner) repeated after the death of Byron's mother; but the matter was made amicably in the end, and at Rogers the poet's house the two bards met, and a lifelong friendsh ensued between them.

On the 27th of February, 1812, Lord Byron made his first speech in the House of Lords; th reception he met with was most flattering. He was complimented by the Speaker and his ow side very warmly as a promising orator. Two days afterwards Childe Harold' appeared "The effect," says Moore, "was electric: his fame had not to wait for any of the ordinar gradations, but seemed to spring up like the palace of a fairy tale-in a night." As he himse briefly described it in his memorandum: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous The first edition was instantly sold off. From morning till night flattering testimonies of h success reached him; the highest in the land besieged his door, and he who had been so friendle found himself the idol of London society. The copyright of the poem was purchased by M Murray for £600; Byron instantly presented the money to Mr. Dallas, declaring that he neve would receive payment for his writings-a resolution he afterwards wisely abandoned. Amon other tributes to his fame the Prince Regent desired that he might be presented to him, an expressed his admiration in so delightful a manner that the poet was fascinated; as Scott, wit whom he became acquainted soon after, also was.

Early in the spring of 1813 he brought out his poem on 'Waltzing,' and in the month of Ma his beautiful fragment, 'The Giaour,' suggested by an incident which had occurred at Ather while the writer was there, and which (at Byron's request) was afterwards related by his friend Lord Sligo, who had been with him. Byron, it seems, had saved a girl, who (sewn up in a sack was about to be thrown into the Pireus, and had sent her off safely to Thebes, where she foun a refuge. In the autumn a fifth edition of 'The Giaour' was called for, and of course receive beautiful additions. The Bride of Abydos' appeared also this year; the 'Corsair' and 'Lara in 1814. In the latter year he proposed a second time to Miss Milbanke-a future heiress, and woman of talent. The offer was this time accepted, and they were married January 2nd, 1815 The marriage proved a very unhappy one. Lord Byron was deeply in debt, and his increase expenses, with but very little increase of means to meet them, pressed heavily on him during th first year of his marriage. He was even driven to the necessity of parting with his books t meet these demands. The fact coming to Mr. Murray's notice, the generous publisher instantl forwarded to him £1500, with an assurance that the same amount should be at his service in a few weeks; and that if such assistance should not be sufficient, he (Murray) was ready to dig pose of the copyrights of all Lord Byron's past works for his use. Very gracefully and grate fully the poet refused the gift. Thus sorely perplexed about pecuniary matters (for his creditor believed he had married an heiress), the young husband was also much engrossed by his duty a a member of the Committee of Management of Drury Lane Theatre. He was also writing th 'Siege of Corinth.' Lady Byron, no doubt, was greatly tried by their money difficulties, and t the executions in the house: while the morbid disposition of the poet was roused and iritated His wife had no sympathy with him her character, her acquirements, her nature, were utter opposed to his. The birth of a daughter-Augusta Ada-in 1816, nearly a year after hi marriage, did not draw the wedded pair together. On the contrary, then Lady Byron determine

on leaving her husband. She quitted London about the middle of January, ostensibly on a visit to her parents in Leicestershire. where Lord Byron was in a short time to follow her. They had parted," says Moore, "in the utmost kindness. She wrote him a letter full of playfulness and affection on the road, and immediately on her arrival at Kirkby Mallory her father wrote to acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no more. At the time when he had this anexpected shock his pecuniary embarrassments, which had been fast gathering round him during the whole of the last year (there having been no less than eight or nine executions in his house within that period), had arrived at their acmé; and at a moment when, to use his own expressions, he was "standing alone on his hearth, with his household gods shivered around him," he was also doomed to receive the startling intelligence that the wife who had just parted with him in kindness, had parted with him-for ever. Byron always asserted that mischief had been made between his wife and himself by her companion or attendant. Writing at the time to Moore, he says: "I do not believe-and I must say it in the very dregs of all this bitter business-that there ever was a better, brighter, kinder, or a more amiable and agreeable being than Lady Byron. I never had, nor can have, any reproach to make her while with me. Where there is blame it belongs to myself; and if I cannot redeem I must bear it." Moore adds afterwards: "If there be any truth, however, in the principle that 'they never pardon who have done the wrong,' Lord Byron, who was to the last disposed to reconciliation, proved so far, at least, his conscience to have been unhaunted by any very disturbing consciousness of aggression."

The separation, however, -through the mystery cast over it by Lady Byron,-and the rumours onsequently set afloat, raised an outcry against the poet which was never before known to result from such an event in private life: paragraph, pamphlet, and caricature alike held him up to lium. A few faithful friends, however, remained unshaken at his side.

In a letter written afterwards by Lady Byron to Moore, she asserted that she thought ord Byron was mad, and was afraid to live with him. Probably the true solution of his mystery.

In the mean time, 'The Siege of Corinth' and 'Parisina' were finished. Murray sent him a housand guineas for the copyright of the two poems. But in spite of his pecuniary difficulties. e still refused to accept payment for his poetry; yet, at the suggestion of Rogers and Sir James Mackintosh, he consented to give, or allow Murray to pay from that sum, £600 to an eminent riter who was then in difficulties. He would have had the remainder given away also, but the ublisher (foresceing that the poet might need the money himself) demurred. The appearance of these poems only added violence to the angry and inquisitorial feeling against him, and he as compelled to leave England, never, as it happened, to return. Time has greatly righted the rongs he then received, and we think of him now only as one of the very greatest of our poets, wonderful being, who would probably, had he lived longer, have wholly reformed, and ad led in heroic lustre to his life. The poet finds sorrow and suffering the very well-spring of song; to that journey of exile and humiliation we owe the exquisite third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold.'

On arriving at Geneva Lord Byron became acquainted with Shelley and his wife. An intimacy oon sprang up between the poets, who had many tastes in common.

Byron produced at this time (in addition to the third canto of 'Childe Harold') 'The Prisoner of Chillon,' 'Darkness,' and 'The Dream,' the latter of which "cost him many a tear in writing." The incantation afterwards introduced into 'Manfred' was also written during 1816, and the lines To Augusta. The poet ultimately took up his abode at Venice, where he remained till 1819. From thence he sent to England Beppo,' 1817, and 'Manfred,' 1817. He next moved to Ravenna, where he wrote 'Mazeppa,' 1818, Marino Faliero,' 1820, 'Heaven and Earth,' 1821, Sardanapalus,' 1821, 'The Two Foscari,' 1821, and Cain,' 1821. 'Werner' was written at Pisa, 1821. The Island' was written at Genoa, 1823, The Deformed Transformed,' 18 4. Don Juan' was published 1819.

Byron's life on the continent gave only too much justification for the accusations of

enemies. At Ravenna he became attached to the countess Guiccioli, and resided in h husband's palace. But at last, whilst he was in Italy, the Greek Revolution awoke his spi to higher purposes and aims than those of mere pleasure. He threw himself into the conte with ardour; gave £10,000 to the Greek cause, and himself joined the army of the patrio He arrived at Missolonghi in the beginning of 1824, but after giving proof of great ener and practical ability, succumbed there to marsh fever, and died amidst the lamentations of t Greeks, and to the sorrow of all civilised Europe, at the early age of thirty-six, 19th of Apr 1824. In his last moments he sent tender messages of farewell to his wife and child by faithful servant, Fletcher.

Thus died, in the very prime of his life, one of the greatest of England's poets. That his I was stained with great immorality no one can deny; but there was much to extenuate his fau in his bad bringing up, and in the nature he inherited from his parents. Nevertheless, possessed many good qualities in addition to his remarkable genius. Everybody who knew hi intimately (except his wife), his companions, friends, teachers, or servants, remained attached him to the last; and many could speak of his generosity and warmth of heart.

To him who has left us so great a legacy of delight we owe compassion and pity, and m now well suffer a veil to fall over the errors of his spoiled and impetuous youth and his sour and disappointed manhood.