tremblingly the mercy of heaven.' Lord Byron was very much taken with Parry, whose drolleries relieved the tedium and constant vexations incidental to the situation at Missolonghi. The Major appears to have been an excellent mimic, and possessed a fund of quaint expressions that made up for the deficiency of real wit. Millingen says that he could tell, in his coarse language, a good story, and could play Falstaff's, or the part of a clown very naturally. He ranted Richard III.'s or Hamlet's soliloquies in a mock-tragic manner like a player at Bartholomew Fair, which made everyone laugh, and beguiled the length of many a rainy evening. On January 21, 1824, Missolonghi was blockaded by the Turkish fleet. There were neither guns nor even sailors fit to man the gunboats; the only chance was to make a night attack upon the Turks in boats manned by the European volunteers then residing at Missolonghi. Byron took the matter in hand, and insisted on joining personally in the expedition. He was so determined on this project that Mavrocordato and others, realizing the folly of exposing so valuable a life on so desperate an enterprise, dissuaded Byron from risking his valuable life in a business for which there were already sufficient volunteers. As things turned out, it did not much matter, for the Turkish fleet suddenly abandoned the blockade and returned to the gulf. On January 22, while Colonel Stanhope and some friends were assembled, Byron came from his bedroom and said, with a smile: 'You were complaining the other day that I never write any poetry now: this is my birthday, and I have just finished something, which, I think, is better than what I usually write.' He then produced those affecting verses on his own birthday which were afterwards found written in his journal, with the following introduction: 'January 22: on this day I complete my thirty-sixth year.' 'We perceived from these lines,' says Gamba, 'as well as from his daily conversations, that his ambition and his hope were irrevocably fixed upon the glorious objects of his expedition to Greece, and that he had made up his mind to "return victorious, or return no more." Indeed, he often said to me, "Others may do as they please--they may go--but I stay here, _that is certain_."' This resolution was accompanied with the natural presentiment that he should never leave Greece alive. He one day asked his faithful servant Tita whether he thought of returning to Italy. 'Yes,' said Tita; 'if your lordship goes, I go.' Lord Byron smiled, and said: 'No, Tita, I shall never go back from Greece; either the Turks, or the Greeks, or the climate, will prevent that.' Parry tells us that Byron's mind on this point was irrevocably fixed.