Medwin, too, makes Byron say (_Conversations, etc._, 1824, p. 46) that he "trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her (the bride) Miss Milbanke." All that can be said of Moore's recollection of the "memoranda," or Medwin's repetition of so-called conversations (reprinted almost _verbatim_ in _Life, Writings, Opinions, etc._, 1825, ii. 227, _seq._, as "Recollections of the Lately Destroyed Manuscript," etc.), is that they tend to show that Byron meant _The Dream_ to be taken literally as a record of actual events. He would not have forgotten by July, 1816, circumstances of great import which had taken place in December, 1815: and he's either lying of malice prepense or telling "an ower true tale."] [j] {40} ----_the glance_ _Of melancholy is a fearful gift;_ _For it becomes the telescope of truth,_ _And shows us all things naked as they are_.--[MS.] [51] [Compare-- "Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such." _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxiii. lines 1-5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 420.] [52] Mithridates of Pontus. [Mithridates, King of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), surnamed Eupator, succeeded to the throne when he was only eleven years of age. He is said to have safeguarded himself against the designs of his enemies by drugging himself with antidotes against poison, and so effectively that, when he was an old man, he could not poison himself, even when he was minded to do so--"ut ne volens quidem senex veneno mori potuerit."--Justinus, _Hist._, lib. xxxvii. cap. ii. According to Medwin (_Conversations_, p. 148), Byron made use of the same illustration in speaking of Polidori's death (April, 1821), which was probably occasioned by "poison administered to himself" (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 285).] [53] {41}[Compare-- "Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends." _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xiii. line 1. "...and to me High mountains are a feeling." _Ibid._, stanza lxxii. lines 2,3, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 223, 261.] [54] [Compare-- "Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe!" _Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, line 29, _vide post_, p. 86.] [55] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79-91; and _ibid._, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34-39; and sc. 4, lines 112-117, _vide post_, pp. 105, 121, 135.] [k] {42}In the original MS. _A Dream_.