These assertions of Moore have been corroborated by many other testimonies. I will only relate that mentioned by Washington Irving, in the account of his visit to Newstead Abbey in 1830. Urged by philosophical curiosity, Washington Irving managed to get into conversation with a certain Nanny Smith, who had passed all her life at Newstead as house-keeper. This old woman, after having chattered a great deal about Lord Byron and the ghosts that haunted the Abbey, asserting that though she had not seen them, she had heard them quite well, was particularly questioned by Mr. Irving as to the mode of life her young master led. She certified to his sobriety, and positively denied that he had led a licentious life at Newstead with his friends, or brought mistresses with him from London. "Once, it is true," said the old lady, "he had a pretty _youth_ for a _page_ with him. The maids declared it was a young woman. But as for me, I never could verify the fact, and all these servant-girls were jealous, especially one of them called Lucy. For Lord Byron being kind to her, and a fortune-teller having predicted a high destiny for her, the poor little thing dreamed of nothing else but becoming a great lady, and perhaps of rising to be mistress of the Abbey. Ah, well! but her dreams came to nothing."[42] "Lord Byron," added the old lady, "passed the greater part of his time seated on his sofa reading. Sometimes he had young noblemen of his acquaintance with him. Then, it is true, they amused themselves in playing all sorts of tricks--youthful frolics, that was all; they did nothing improper for young gentlemen, nothing that could harm any body."[43] "Lord Byron's only amusements at Newstead," says Mr. Irving, "were boating, boxing, fencing, and his dogs." "His constant occupation was to write, and for that he had the habit of sitting up till two and three in the morning. Thus his life at Newstead was quite one of seclusion, entirely devoted to poetry." After having passed a year in this way at Newstead, following on his college and university life, he left England in order to mature his mind under other skies, to forget the injustice of man and the hardships of fortune that had already somewhat tinged his nature with gloom.