No better proof could be given of the perplexities which worried him at that particular time. But the surrounding gloom was lightened now and then by some of Parry's stories. The following anecdote about Jeremy Bentham was an especial favourite with Byron; Parry's sea-terms and drollery doubtless heightened its effect: 'Shortly before I left London for Greece, Mr. Bowring, the honorary secretary to the Greek Committee, informed me that Mr. Jeremy Bentham wished to see the stores and materials, preparing for the Greeks, and that he had done me the honour of asking me to breakfast with him some day, that I might afterwards conduct him to see the guns, etc. '"Who the devil is Mr. Bentham?" was my rough reply; "I never heard of him before." Many of my readers may still be in the same state of ignorance, and it will be acceptable to them, I hope, to hear of the philosopher. '"Mr. Bentham," said Mr. Bowring, "is one of the greatest men of the age, and for the honour now offered to you, I waited impatiently many a long day--I believe for more than two years." '"Great or little, I never heard of him before; but if he wants to see me, why I'll go." 'It was accordingly arranged that I should visit Mr. Bentham, and that Mr. Bowring should see him to fix the time, and then inform me. In a day or two afterwards, I received a note from the honorary secretary to say I was to breakfast with Mr. Bentham on Saturday. It happened that I lived at a distance from town, and having heard something of the primitive manner of living and early hours of philosophers, I arranged with my wife overnight that I would get up very early on the Saturday morning, that I might not keep Mr. Bentham waiting. Accordingly, I rose with the dawn, dressed myself in haste, and brushed off for Queen's Square, Westminster, as hard as my legs could carry me. On reaching the Strand, fearing I might be late, being rather corpulent, and not being willing to go into the presence of so very great a man, as I understood Mr. Jeremy Bentham to be, puffing and blowing, I took a hackney-coach and drove up to his door about eight o'clock. I found a servant girl afoot, and told her I came to breakfast with Mr. Bentham by appointment.