It was on the last day of September, 1814, that Hobhouse heard of the engagement. On the first day of October he wrote his congratulations, and on October 19, he was invited to act as groomsman. Some time in the same month Byron paid his first visit to the Milbankes at Seaham. Thence he went to Cambridge to vote in favour of the candidature of his friend Dr. Clarke's candidature for the Professorship of Anatomy, and was applauded by the undergraduates in the Senate House. "This distinction," Hobhouse says, "to a literary character had never before been paid except in the instance of Archdeacon Paley"--a curious partner in the poet's glory. A month later Byron and Hobhouse set out together again for Seaham on what Hobhouse calls "his matrimonial scheme." This was the occasion on which Byron confided to Hobhouse that he was not in love. A note in Hobhouse's Diary to the effect that "never was lover in less haste" affords contemporary corroboration of the fact; and the Diary continues to be picturesque, giving us Hobhouse's critical, but not altogether unfavourable, impression of Miss Milbanke and her family: "Miss Milbanke is rather dowdy-looking, and wears a long and high dress, though she has excellent feet and ankles.... The lower part of her face is bad, the upper, expressive but not handsome, yet she gains by inspection. "She heard Byron coming out of his room, ran to meet him, threw her arms round his neck, and burst into tears. She did this _not before us_.... Lady Milbanke was so much agitated that she had gone to her room ... our delay the cause.... Indeed I looked foolish in finding out an excuse for our want of expedition.... "Miss Milbanke, before us, was silent and modest, but very sensible and quiet, and inspiring an interest which it is easy to mistake for love. With me she was frank and open, without little airs and affectations.... "Of my friend she seemed dotingly fond, gazing with delight on his bold and animated face ... this regulated, however, by the most entire decorum. "Old Sir Ralph Milbanke is an honest, red-faced spirit, a little prosy, but by no means devoid of humour.... My lady, who has been a dasher in her day, and has ridden the grey mare, is pettish and tiresome, but clever."