was of quite another order. There is in it, moreover, the haunting personality of the proud, broken-spirited wanderer, who tells the tale and wraps himself in the veil of mysterious and piquant sorrows: Withal there is such dash and spirit, such mastery of language, such marvellous descriptive power, such subtle pauses and breaks, carrying echoes beyond the letter--as laid hold on men and women--specially on women--in a way that was new and strange. And this bright meteor had flashed athwart a sky where such stars as Southey, and Scott, and Rogers, and the almost forgotten Crabbe, and Coleridge, and Wordsworth had been beaming for many a day. Was it strange that the doors of London should be flung wide open to this fresh, brilliant singer who had blazed such a path through Spain and Greece, and who wore a coronet upon his forehead? He was young, too, and handsome as the morning; and must be mated--as all the old dowagers declared. So said his friends--his sister chiefest among them; and the good Lady Melbourne (mother-in-law of Lady Caroline Lamb)--not without discreet family reasons of her own--fixed upon her charming niece, Miss Milbanke, as the one with whom the new poet should be coupled, to make his way through the wildernesses before him. And there were other approvals; even Tom Moore--who, of all men, knew his habits best--saying a reluctant “Yes”--after much hesitation. And so, through a process of coy propositions and counter-propositions, the marriage was arranged at last, and came about down at Seaham House (near Stockton-on-Tees), the country home of the father, Sir Ralph Milbanke. “Her face was fair, but was not that which made The starlight of his boyhood; as he stood Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock That in the Antique Oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then-- As in that hour--a moment o’er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced; and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reeled around him.”[65] Yet the service went on to its conclusion; and the music pealed, and the welcoming shouts broke upon the air, and the adieux were spoken; and together, they two drove away--into the darkness. CHAPTER VI.