The mere knowledge, indeed, that a noble Englishman had arrived in those regions, so unprepossessed by any party as to inspire a hope of his alliance in all, and with money, by common rumour, as abundant as the imaginations of the needy chose to make it, was, in itself, fully sufficient, without any of the more elevated claims of his name, to attract towards him all thoughts. "It is easier to conceive," says Count Gamba, "than to relate the various means employed to engage him in one faction or the other: letters, messengers, intrigues, and recriminations,--nay, each faction had its agents exerting every art to degrade its opponent." He then adds a circumstance strongly illustrative of a peculiar feature in the noble poet's character:--"He occupied himself in discovering the truth, hidden as it was under these intrigues, and _amused himself in confronting the agents of the different factions_." During all these occupations he went on pursuing his usual simple and uniform course of life,--rising, however, for the despatch of business, at an early hour, which showed how capable he was of conquering even long habit when necessary. Though so much occupied, too, he was, at all hours, accessible to visitors; and the facility with which he allowed even the dullest people to break in upon him was exemplified, I am told, strongly in the case of one of the officers of the garrison, who, without being able to understand any thing of the poet but his good-nature, used to say, whenever he found his time hang heavily on his hands,--"I think I shall ride out and have a little talk with Lord Byron."