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England. Mr. Pryce Gordon, a gentleman, who appears to have seen a good deal of him during his short stay at Brussels, thus relates the anecdote.

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'Lord Byron travelled in a huge coach, copied from 'the celebrated one of Napoleon, taken at Genappe, 'with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained 'a library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for dining in it. It was not, however, found sufficiently capacious for his baggage and suite; and he pur'chased a calèche at Brussels for his servants. It 'broke down going to Waterloo, and I advised him to ' return it, as it seemed to be a crazy machine; but as ' he had made a deposit of forty Napoleons (certainly ' double its value), the honest Fleming would not con'sent to restore the cash, or take back his packingcase, except under a forfeiture of thirty Napoleons. As his lordship was to set out the following day, he begged me to make the best arrangement I could in 'the affair. He had no sooner taken his departure, 'than the worthy sellier inserted a paragraph in "The 'Brussels Oracle," stating "that the noble milor Anglais had absconded with his calèche, value 1800 'francs!"'

In the Courier of May 13, the Brussels account of this transaction is thus copied.

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The following is an extract from the Dutch Mail, dated Brussels, May 8th.-In the Journal de Belgique, of this date, is a petition from a coachmaker ' at Brussels to the president of the Tribunal de Pre'mier Instance, stating that he has sold to Lord Byron a carriage, &c. for 1882 francs, of which he has received 847 francs, but that his lordship, who is going away the same day, refuses to pay him the remaining 1035 francs; he begs permission to seize the car

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'riage, &c. This being granted, he put it into the 'hands of a proper officer, who went to signify the ' above to Lord Byron, and was informed by the landlord of the hotel that his lordship was gone without having given him anything to pay the debt, ' on which the officer seized a chaise belonging to his 'lordship as security for the amount.'

It was not till the beginning of the following month. that a contradiction of this falsehood, stating the real circumstances of the case, as above related, was communicated to the Morning Chronicle, in a letter from Brussels, signed 'Pryce L. Gordon.'

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Another anecdote, of far more interest, has been furnished from the same respectable source. It appears that the two first stanzas of the verses relating to Waterloo, Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust*,' were written at Brussels, after a visit to that memorable field, and transcribed by Lord Byron, next morning, in an album belonging to the lady of the gentleman who communicates the anecdote.

A few weeks after he had written them (says the relater), the well-known artist, R. R. Reinagle, a 'friend of mine, arrived in Brussels, when I invited him to dine with me and showed him the lines, re'questing him to embellish them with an appropriate vignette to the following passage:

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'Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew,

Then tore, with bloody beak, the fatal plain;

Pierced with the shafts of banded nations through,

'Ambition's life, and labours, all were vain

He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken chain.'

Mr. Reinagle sketched with a pencil a spirited 'chained eagle, grasping the earth with his talons,

* Childe Harold, Canto iii., stanza 17,

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'I had occasion to write to his lordship, and mentioned having got this clever artist to draw a vignette 'to his beautiful lines, and the liberty he had taken by altering the action of the eagle. In reply to this, he ' wrote to me-"Reinagle is a better poet and a better 'ornithologist than I am; eagles, and all birds of prey, attack with their talons, and not with their 'beaks, and I have altered the line thus

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Then tore, with bloody talon, the rent plain.'

This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical 'justice." I need hardly add, when I communicated this flattering compliment to the painter, that he was 'highly gratified.'

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From Brussels the noble traveller pursued his course along the Rhine,-a line of road which he has strewed over with all the riches of poesy; and, arriving at Geneva, took up his abode at the wellknown hotel, Sécheron. After a stay of a few weeks at this place, he removed to a villa, in the neighbourhood, called Diodati, very beautifully situated on the high banks of the Lake, where he established his residence for the remainder of the summer.

I shall now give the few letters in my possession written by him at this time, and then subjoin to them such anecdotes as I have been able to collect relative to the same period.

LETTER 242.

TO MR. MURRAY.

'Ouchy, near Lausanne, June 27th, 1816.

I am thus far (kept by stress of weather) on my way back to Diodati (near Geneva) from a voyage in 'my boat round the Lake; and I enclose you a sprig ' of Gibbon's acacia and some rose-leaves from his garden, which, with part of his house, I have just seen.

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