The first step taken, before any decision as to its ultimate disposal, was to have the body conveyed to Zante; and every facility having been afforded by the Resident, Sir Frederick Stoven, in providing and sending transports to Missolonghi for that purpose, on the morning of the second of May the remains were embarked, under a mournful salute from the guns of the fortress How different,' says Count Gamba, from that which had welcomed the arrival of Byron 'only four months ago!'

At Zante, the determination was taken to send the body to England; and the brig Florida, which had just arrived there with the first instalment of the Loan, was engaged for the purpose. Mr. Blaquiere, under whose care this first portion of the Loan had come, was also the bearer of a Commission for the due management of its disposal in Greece, in which Lord Byron was named as the principal Commissioner. The same ship, however, that brought this honourable mark of confidence was to return with him a corpse. To Colonel Stanhope, who was then at Zante, on his way homeward, was intrusted the charge of his illustrious colleague's remains; and on the 25th of May he embarked with them on board the Florida for England.

In the letter which, on his arrival in the Downs, June 29th, this gentleman addressed to Lord Byron's executors, there is the following passage:- With respect to the funeral ceremony, I am of opinion that his lordship's family should be immediately consulted, and that sanction should be obtained for the 'public burial of his body either in the great Abbey 'or Cathedral of London.' It has been asserted, and I fear too truly, that on some intimation of the wish

suggested in this last sentence being conveyed to one of those Reverend persons who have the honours of the Abbey at their disposal, such an answer was returned as left but little doubt that a refusal would be the result of any more regular application *.

There is an anecdote told of the poet Hafez, in Sir William Jones's Life, which, in reporting this instance of illiberality, recurs naturally to the memory. After the death of the great Persian bard, some of the religious among his countrymen protested strongly against allowing to him the right of sepulture, alleging, as their objection, the licentiousness of his poetry. After much controversy, it was agreed to leave the decision of the question to a mode of divination, not uncommon among the Persians, which consisted in opening the poet's book at random and taking the first verses that occurred. They happened to be these:

'Oh turn not coldly from the poet's bier,

• Nor check the sacred drops by Pity given;

For though in sin his body slumbereth here,

His soul, absolved, already wings to heaven.'

These lines, says the legend, were looked upon as a divine decree; the religionists no longer enforced their objections, and the remains of the bard were left to take their quiet sleep by that sweet bower of Mosellay' which he had so often celebrated in his verses.

Were our Byron's right of sepulture to be decided in the same manner, how few are there of his pages, thus taken at hazard, that would not, by some genial touch of sympathy with virtue, some glowing tribute

*A former Dean of Westminster went so far, we know, in his scruples as to exclude an epitaph from the Abbey, because it contained the name of Milton:- a name, in his opinion,' says Johnson, too detest' able to be read on the wall of a building dedicated to devotion.'-Life of MILTON.

to the bright works of God, or some gush of natural devotion more affecting than any homily, give him a title to admission into the purest temple of which Christian Charity ever held the guardianship.

Let the decision, however, of these Reverend authorities have been, finally, what it might, it was the wish, as is understood, of Lord Byron's dearest relative to have his remains laid in the family vault at Hucknall, near Newstead. On being landed from the Florida, the body had, under the direction of his lordship's executors, Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Hanson, been removed to the house of Sir Edward Knatchbull in Great George-street, Westminster, where it lay in state during Friday and Saturday, the 9th and 10th of July, and on the following Monday the funeral procession took place. Leaving Westminster at eleven o'clock in the morning, attended by most of his lordship's personal friends and by the carriages of several persons of rank, it proceeded through various streets of the metropolis towards the North Road. At Pancras Church the ceremonial of the procession being at an end, the carriages returned; and the hearse continued its way, by slow stages, to Nottingham.

It was on Friday the 16th of July that, in the small village church of Hucknall, the last duties were paid to the remains of Byron, by depositing them, close to those of his mother, in the family vault. Exactly on the same day of the same month in the preceding he had said, it will be recollected, despondingly, year, to Count Gamba, 'Where shall we be in another year?' The gentleman to whom this foreboding speech was addressed paid a visit, some months after the interment, to Hucknall, and was much struck, as I have heard, on approaching the village, by the strong