'It was, however, the day fixed for our return to Cephalonia, and, having gladly assented to the proposition to join the suite, we all mounted ponies to cross the island to a small harbour on the south side, where a boat was waiting to bear us to Santa Eufemia, a Custom-house station on the coast of Cephalonia, about half an hour's passage from Ithaca, which we accordingly passed, and arrived at the collector's mansion about two o'clock. 'During the journey across the smaller island, I made a bold push, and succeeded in securing, with my small pony, the side-berth of Lord Byron's large brown steed, and held by him in the narrow path, to the exclusion of companions better entitled to the post. His conversation was not merely free--it was familiar and intimate, as if we were schoolboys meeting after a long separation. I happened to be "up" in the "Waverley Novels," had seen several letters of Sir Walter Scott's about his pedigree for his baronetage, could repeat almost every one of the "Rejected Addresses," and knew something of the _London Magazine_ contributors, who were then in the zenith of their reputation--Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Talfourd, Browning, Allan Cunningham, Reynolds, Darley, etc. But his lordship pointed at the higher game of Southey, Gifford (whom he all but worshipped), Jeffrey of the _Edinburgh Review_, John Wilson, and other Blackwoodites. He said they were all infidels, as every man has a right to be; that Edinburgh was understood to be the seat of all infidelity, and he mentioned names (Dr. Chalmers and Andrew Thomson, for examples) among the clergy as being of the category. This I never could admit. He was particularly bitter against Southey, sneered at Wordsworth, admired Thomas Campbell, classing his "Battle of the Baltic" with the very highest of lyric productions. "Nothing finer," he said, "was ever written than-- '"There was silence deep as death, And the boldest held his breath For a time."