"But although he may for a time," says Moore, "have experienced this kind of moral atomy, it was not in his nature to be long without attaching himself to somebody, and the friendship which he conceived for Eddleston--a man younger than himself, and not at all of his rank in society--even surpassed in ardor all the other attachments of his youth." EDDLESTON was one of the choristers at Cambridge. His talent for music attracted Byron's attention. When he lost the society of Long, who had been his sole comfort at Cambridge, he took very much to the company of young Eddleston. One feels how much he was attached to him, on reading those lines in which he thanks Eddleston for a cornelian heart he had sent him:-- THE CORNELIAN. No specious splendor of this stone Endears it to my memory ever; With lustre only once it shone, And blushes modest as the giver. Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, Have for my weakness oft reproved me; Yet still the simple gift I prize, For I am sure the giver loved me. He offer'd it with downcast look, As fearful that I might refuse it; I told him, when the gift I took, My only fear should be to lose it. When Eddleston left college, Lord Byron wrote to Miss Pigott a letter full of regret at having lost his youthful friend, and thanking her for having taken an interest in him. "During the whole time we were at Cambridge together," says Byron, "we saw each other every day, summer and winter, and never once found a moment of _ennui_, but parted each day with greater regret. I trust," he added, at the end of his letter, "that you will some day see us together; that is the being I esteem most, though I love several others." But in the year 1811 Eddleston died of consumption; and Lord Byron wrote to Miss Pigott's mother, to beg of her to return the cornelian heart which he had intrusted to her care, because it had "now acquired a value which he wished it had never had;" the original donor having died at the age of twenty-one, a few months before, and being "the sixth in the space of four months of a series of friends and relations whom he had lost since May." The cornelian heart was restored, and Byron was informed that he had only intrusted it, but not given it to Miss Pigott. It was on learning of Eddleston's death that Byron added the touching ninth stanza to the second canto of "Childe Harold." After speaking of the hope of meeting again in a celestial abode, those whom he loved on earth, and all those who taught the truth, he exclaims,-- "There, thou!--whose love and life together fled, Have left me here to love and live in vain-- Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead When busy Memory flashes on my brain? Well--I will dream that we may meet again, And woo the vision to my vacant breast: If aught of young Remembrance then remain, Be as it may Futurity's behest, For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest!"