"You perhaps know the lady. She is niece to Lady Melbourne, and cousin to Lady Cowper and others of your acquaintance, and has no fault, except being a great deal too good for me, and that _I_ must pardon, if nobody else should. It might have been _two_ years ago, and, if it had, would have saved me a world of trouble. She has employed the interval in refusing about half a dozen of my particular friends, (as she did me once, by the way,) and has taken me at last, for which I am very much obliged to her. I wish it was well over, for I do hate bustle, and there is no marrying without some;--and then, I must not marry in a black coat, they tell me, and I can't bear a blue one. "Pray forgive me for scribbling all this nonsense. You know I must be serious all the rest of my life, and this is a parting piece of buffoonery, which I write with tears in my eyes, expecting to be agitated. Believe me most seriously and sincerely your obliged servant, BYRON. "P.S. My best rems. to Lord * * on his return." * * * * * LETTER 203. TO MR. MOORE. "October 7. 1814. "Notwithstanding the contradictory paragraph in the Morning Chronicle, which must have been sent by * *, or perhaps--I know not why I should suspect Claughton of such a thing, and yet I partly do, because it might interrupt his renewal of purchase, if so disposed; in short it matters not, but we are all in the road to matrimony--lawyers settling, relations congratulating, my intended as kind as heart could wish, and every one, whose opinion I value, very glad of it. All her relatives, and all mine too, seem equally pleased. "Perry was very sorry, and has _re_-contradicted, as you will perceive by this day's paper. It was, to be sure, a devil of an insertion, since the first paragraph came from Sir Ralph's own County Journal, and this in the teeth of it would appear to him and his as _my_ denial. But I have written to do away that, enclosing Perry's letter, which was very polite and kind. "Nobody hates bustle so much as I do; but there seems a fatality over every scene of my drama, always a row of some sort or other. No matter--Fortune is my best friend; and as I acknowledge my obligations to her, I hope she will treat me better than she treated the Athenian, who took some merit to _himself_ on some occasion, but (after that) took no more towns. In fact, _she_, that exquisite goddess, has hitherto carried me through every thing, and will I hope, now; since I own it will be all _her_ doing.