"I once proposed to him to take a companion on a tour he was about to make; he answered me snappishly--'No; Hobhouse once went with me on a tour--I had enough of him. No more travelling companions for me.' "He used frequently to compare himself to Buonaparte--so did we, to please him. Buonaparte had a head, so had Byron, so has Mr. Hayne of Burderop Park, Wilts, so has a pin; he was tickled with the comparison, and we lived with him, and swallowed toads at discretion. "Moore, the author of the 'Fudge Family,' was a great favourite of Byron's; he had not discovered that it was Moore who persuaded Hunt--the man who made Rimini--that he was a mighty clever fellow, and that if he set up a periodical work, he (Moore) would contribute to it: Moore constantly abused Hunt to Byron at the same time--called him a stupid Cockney, and swore that Byron was ruining himself by associating with him. This was kind and liberal, and justifies what Douglas Kinnaird and everybody else indeed say of Moore just now--Byron would not have liked Moore the better for this--poor Hunt had a wife and children, and was in needy circumstances, and Byron did them great service--and what harm could Hunt do Byron, or anybody else? "The Greeks think Byron will come to life again after a while, and one poet in the Chronicle, probably Moore, talks of having seen his _manes_ in George-street, Westminster, and of the possibility of his yet wandering about Greece, in a white dressing-gown, singing 'Liberty Hall;' but I, who know Byron well, and all his expectations, doubt the fact. I was surprised to find, considering how right and fashionable it is to praise my departed friend, that his wife declined seeing his body, and all his family declined attending his funeral. "He told me one night that ---- told ---- that if ---- would only ---- him ----. She would ---- without any compunction; for her ----, who though an excellent man, was no ----, and that she never ----, and this she told ---- and ---- as well as Lady ---- herself. Byron told me this in confidence, and I may be blamed for repeating it; but ---- can corroborate it if he happens not to be gone to ----." LORD WENABLES.[54] To those who are in the habit of recurring with a feeling of devotion to the golden gone-by times of our forefathers, and who "track back" upon antiquity to hunt out subjects for admiration, it must be in some degree consolatory to discover, that even in these degenerate days there still exist amongst us men capable of recording the noble deeds of the "mighty living;" and that one of the most important occurrences of modern date has found an historian worthy of the subject which it has been made his duty to transmit to posterity.