This mawkish element unfortunately survives in much of the author's later verse. But even in this volume there are indications of force, and command. The _Prayer of Nature_, indeed, though previously written, was not included in the edition before the notice of the critic; but the sound of _Loch-na-Gair_ and some of the stanzas on _Newstead_ ought to have saved him from the mistake of his impudent advice. The poet, who through life waited with feverish anxiety for every verdict on his work, is reported after reading the review to have looked like a man about to send a challenge. In the midst of a transparent show of indifference, he confesses to have drunk three bottles of claret on the evening of its appearance. But the wound did not mortify into torpor; the Sea-Kings' blood stood him in good stead, and he was not long in collecting his strength for the panther-like spring, which, gaining strength by its delay, twelve months later made it impossible for him to be contemned. The last months of the year he spent at Newstead, vacated by the tenant, who had left the building in the tumble-down condition in which he found it. Byron was, by his own acknowledgment, at this time, "heavily dipped," generosities having combined with selfish extravagances to the result; he had no funds to subject the place to anything like a thorough repair, but he busied himself in arranging a few of the rooms for his own present and his mother's after use. About this date he writes to her, beginning in his usual style, "Dear Madam," saying he has as yet no rooms ready for her reception, but that on his departure she shall be tenant till his return. During this interval he was studying Pope, and carefully maturing his own Satire. In November the dog Boatswain died in a fit of madness. The event called forth the famous burst of misanthropic verse, ending with the couplet,-- To mark a friend's remains these stones arise; I never knew but _one_, and _here_ he lies;-- and the inscription on the monument that still remains in the gardens of Newstead,-- Near this spot, Are deposited the remains of one Who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the virtues of Man without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery If inscribed over human ashes, Is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog, Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, And died at Newstead Abbey, November 18, 1808.